I have also: totaled three cars in crashes, been hit by a car while riding a bicycle, cracked my sternum in a freak lawn mowing accident, and overdosed on aspirin when I was 4. I cracked both shoulder blades by falling out of a tree when I was 6, got attacked by monkeys (twice), and I've been hit by lightning.
I'm 38, and I haven't died yet. I'm pretty sure I'm immortal.
One of the telecommunting models is for firms having large numbers of employees from a distant concentrated area (e.g. firm is downtown Atlanta with 60 employees, ~30 employees come from Cobb County (30-60 minutes north)). The firm rents a small storefront office in Cobb County, paying 25% of the downtown cost for similar square-footage. The firm installs computers and phones and high speed Internet access. 20 - 30 of the Cobb County employees goto the storefront instead of the downtown office. They save $gas/$parking/time/frustration.
The firm reduces its office space downtown to account for the reduced headcount. The firm saves $rent on the office area reduced, and enjoys improved employee morale and reduced turnover. Some firms report greatly increased productivity from taking the workers away from close proximity to the MBAs. YMMV.
No, he's saying that once the fire is out the firemen should stop spraying water on the building. If you let them go on spraying water year after year on every building that ever caught fire (and some that could have caught on fire) your problems could be almost as bad as the fires themselves.
You could wind up in an economy where it is worth taking a 40% loss in quality in order to manufacture overseas and get lower labor costs. You could wind up unions contributing to the health of your company like they are with General Motors and Delta Airlines.
I believe in treating labor fairly, but some unions think the company exists only to take care of members.
... nothing useful's gonna come from this discussion I think...
Now THAT I disagree with. It's important for these people to think about these things. Most people have an opinion and have no idea where it came from, so I don't think you started an irrelevant thread at all.
Regarding other stuff:
I, too, am a big fat guy. I, too, spend tons on books. I, too, struggle with 'where do I keep all of these f'ing books?' You raise an interesting point about simultaneous release of hard/paper-back. Thanks for an interesting discussion.
I wish we could have a hybrid approach to space flight. Start with an electro-magnetic rail gun to launch bulk supplies and massy stuff (girders, sheet metal, oxygen, water, spare fuel) into orbit, coupled with rocket launches to carry fragile stuff (people, computers). With cheap bulk-to-orbit, put together a real space station and get working on the space elevator from the top down.
While we're up there, how about we start work on power satellites? We can reduce the cost of electricity, reduce dependence on foreign oil, and fight global warming in one fell swoop! Once we have cheap bulk-to-orbit lots of things become feasible. The first private company to achieve this cheaply will be disgustingly profitable.
Isn't this kind of the same argument for the RIAA and the MPAA? As a later poster states, we may be able to replace much of this functionality through the use of community efforts over the Internet now, but isn't this equally applicable across industries (movies/music/literature/software)?
When books are sold to libraries, those copies are available to only one person at a time. There is a (relatively) small number of copies available through libraries. Digital copies are inherently more distributable, with an accompanying greater ability to erode demand for the hardbacks in question.
His childish demands that the publisher make copies available in his choice of format, on a schedule of his choosing, is nothing more than a mealy-mouthed rationalization for his behavior. I imagine he'll be stomping his feet and holding his breath next.
Publishing is a business, not a charity. Not a public works project. He's saying he doesn't see the reason for the hardback/paperback dichotomy. That means he doesn't see it, not that it isn't there.
But who am I really hurting, since I have the cash in my pocket and am willing to exchange it for something that just doesn't exist yet?
I know this is a little abstract, but you're degrading the publisher's ability to price discriminate their products. They release the book in different phases because this allows them to hit different price points to different market segments. 'Early Adopters' buy the hardcover because they like the format and/or because they want to have early access to the book. Maybe they want early access because they value the prestige, or maybe (in the case of some technical books and publications) because it increases their ability to compete in their jobs.
When you download early, you reduce the prestige of having the book early so this reduces the value to the 'early adopters.' This is even more pronounced in technical books and publications. Admittedly, the value lost to each person in the value chain is small, but if I steal a nickel from you, it's still stealing.
I want the Subaru dealership to sell me one of those 2005 Impreza WRX sedans for $2000. I have the money right now and I guarantee you that in a couple of years those cars will be selling for my price (okay, 8 - 10 years.)
The seller gets to choose the price of their products, not the buyer. Just because you don't agree with their outlet strategy, doesn't mean you're right to take what you want.
So yeah, I'm guilty as sin.
I actually respect your honesty here more than I do the rationalizations you gave right after this. If you're gonna steal, just say so. Hell, if you're gonna steal, I encourage you to be the best thief you can be; I admire personal excellence in any field of endeavour. But that whole "who am I hurting?" thing is just a little too mealy-mouthed for me.
Someone points out that Iran hasn't had a shah for over 25 years. Someone else points out that the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons is Israel. Still someone else points out that if an Iraqi assassinated some Iranian leader, there is bupkas the Iranians could productively do about it. If they tried anything bigger than infiltrating insurgent fighters (which they are already doing) the US military would kick them in the nuts.
If you want to consider large scale war in the middle east, suppose some Iranian militants detonate a WMD (likely nerve gas) in the west side of Jerusalem and takes credit for the act. The Iranian government refuses to condemn the attack and Israel goes nuts. They attack Iran (maybe with nukes, maybe not) and then everyone else in the Middle East (including Saudi Arabia and Egypt) declare war on Israel. Israel gives everyone the finger and any place that armies start to mass, there's an artificial sunrise. That's how you get a world war out of the Middle East.
Yeah, there is a good bit of aiming involved. This guy was apparently an experienced hunter, and some of those guys areinsanely good shots. When it turned away, it was actually a harder shot because it was moving side to side (bearing change) rather than coming straight at him.
He said he hit it behind the shoulder (which is about where you would aim) and the bullet destroyed the head. This implies either that the cat was running away from him, or the bullet was deflected inside the cat's body (probably by a bone or rib.)
Finally, if he was using hollow points (which is more likely in some rifles than in others) it could very easily blow the majority of the head off. So, maybe.
That paper's not very credible, though, and lots of people are saying the big cats are just myths, and he did throw away his best evidence. So, maybe not.
Hmm, what about the rest of the carcass? Hey, I'll throw it away!
What was this guy thinking? He kills a rare "urban myth" creature (one he had never seen in 50 years hunting the outback), proving the claims of hundreds of farmers (whether he knew it or not), and the best plan he can come up with is 'keep the tail - throw out the rest'? He was hunting deer, right? He had to have some plan to carry the deer out of the wild, right?
Can you imagine the scene when he came back into town?
"Hey, see this black rope?"
"Yeah?"
"It's part of a gigantic cat I shot while I was hunting!"
"Yeah?" (Sceptically)
"Yeah!" (Brandishes tail) "Look, It was coming right at me!"
"Yeah. Right"
"No, REALLY..."
I've used FF since 0.9.3 and I have an ongoing problem with it. On Win XP SP2the Firefox task remains in the taskbar even after the application has been closed. Sometimes I will have five or six instances in the taskbar. Most will only have about 3 or 4 megs of Ram, but one will always have between 15 and 30 megs. I tried to report it as a bug, but they wanted me to read all of their ongoing bug reports to see if it had been reported already. Before I could do that, I needed to learn to navigate their bugtracking software and I don't have time for that right now (I am not extremely technically skilled, sorry.)
I do kind of wish there was a way for non-technical people to submit bugs that would not involve wasting hours and hours of the dev team's time on duplicate bug submissions. Ah, well, I love FF anyway.
Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism. Nothing. Ever.
Iraq has been paying bounties to the families of Hamas suicide bombers for years.
Iraq invasion plans existed prior to 9-11
Yep.
Just because the war on terror is not being waged on the grounds explicitly stated, does not mean it is not being waged. Saddam had been trying to convince the world that he had weapons of mass destruction for years. Guess what? It worked. We believed him.
Last week, the UKs largest terrorist groups gave up their arms.
First, congratulations on getting that done.
That's how adults deal with conflict.
Compromise and diplomacy are appropriate paths when both sides are partially right, which I think we all agree is the case in the UK/IRA case. Where was Saddam right? There are only two nations that have used weapons of mass destruction since the close of WW1, as far as I can tell. The US is one and Iraq is the other. The US used 2 nukes to close a 5 year war against a foe that attacked us first. Iraq used multiple gas munitions against a neighbor that he had attacked without provocation (Iran) and then again against citizens of his own country to suppress uprisings (the Kurds.) Suggesting that we sit down and have a talk with Saddam after 12 years of inspection baiting is disrespectful to the thousands upon thousands of victims of this tyrant's rule.
Wasn't this done before, or at least proposed before, by a private group? If I remember correctly we all laughed at the futility of trying to depend on WiFi and 802.11 access points to determin location. Are all of these hotspots less mobile now?
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I have also: totaled three cars in crashes, been hit by a car while riding a bicycle, cracked my sternum in a freak lawn mowing accident, and overdosed on aspirin when I was 4. I cracked both shoulder blades by falling out of a tree when I was 6, got attacked by monkeys (twice), and I've been hit by lightning.
I'm 38, and I haven't died yet. I'm pretty sure I'm immortal.
Hurry up!
As a survivor of stage I kidney cancer, stage III colon cancer, arthritis, and diabetes I am a little anxious for progress in this field.
We've seen all this before, we know how this thread will go, allow me to sum up...
One of the telecommunting models is for firms having large numbers of employees from a distant concentrated area (e.g. firm is downtown Atlanta with 60 employees, ~30 employees come from Cobb County (30-60 minutes north)). The firm rents a small storefront office in Cobb County, paying 25% of the downtown cost for similar square-footage. The firm installs computers and phones and high speed Internet access. 20 - 30 of the Cobb County employees goto the storefront instead of the downtown office. They save $gas/$parking/time/frustration.
The firm reduces its office space downtown to account for the reduced headcount. The firm saves $rent on the office area reduced, and enjoys improved employee morale and reduced turnover. Some firms report greatly increased productivity from taking the workers away from close proximity to the MBAs. YMMV.
Disclaimer: I am an MBA guy.
No, he's saying that once the fire is out the firemen should stop spraying water on the building. If you let them go on spraying water year after year on every building that ever caught fire (and some that could have caught on fire) your problems could be almost as bad as the fires themselves.
You could wind up in an economy where it is worth taking a 40% loss in quality in order to manufacture overseas and get lower labor costs. You could wind up unions contributing to the health of your company like they are with General Motors and Delta Airlines.
I believe in treating labor fairly, but some unions think the company exists only to take care of members.
Did you just call me disgustingly ignorant? Not that I necessarily disagree, I just think it was premature.
... nothing useful's gonna come from this discussion I think...
Now THAT I disagree with. It's important for these people to think about these things. Most people have an opinion and have no idea where it came from, so I don't think you started an irrelevant thread at all.
Regarding other stuff:
I, too, am a big fat guy. I, too, spend tons on books. I, too, struggle with 'where do I keep all of these f'ing books?' You raise an interesting point about simultaneous release of hard/paper-back. Thanks for an interesting discussion.
I wish we could have a hybrid approach to space flight. Start with an electro-magnetic rail gun to launch bulk supplies and massy stuff (girders, sheet metal, oxygen, water, spare fuel) into orbit, coupled with rocket launches to carry fragile stuff (people, computers). With cheap bulk-to-orbit, put together a real space station and get working on the space elevator from the top down.
While we're up there, how about we start work on power satellites? We can reduce the cost of electricity, reduce dependence on foreign oil, and fight global warming in one fell swoop! Once we have cheap bulk-to-orbit lots of things become feasible. The first private company to achieve this cheaply will be disgustingly profitable.
Why, oh why could't I have been born filthy rich?
Isn't this kind of the same argument for the RIAA and the MPAA? As a later poster states, we may be able to replace much of this functionality through the use of community efforts over the Internet now, but isn't this equally applicable across industries (movies/music/literature/software)?
What does "...I've already legally purchased books 1-10, and the prequel," have to do with your behavior regarding the next book?
When books are sold to libraries, those copies are available to only one person at a time. There is a (relatively) small number of copies available through libraries. Digital copies are inherently more distributable, with an accompanying greater ability to erode demand for the hardbacks in question.
His childish demands that the publisher make copies available in his choice of format, on a schedule of his choosing, is nothing more than a mealy-mouthed rationalization for his behavior. I imagine he'll be stomping his feet and holding his breath next.
Publishing is a business, not a charity. Not a public works project. He's saying he doesn't see the reason for the hardback/paperback dichotomy. That means he doesn't see it, not that it isn't there.
But who am I really hurting, since I have the cash in my pocket and am willing to exchange it for something that just doesn't exist yet?
I know this is a little abstract, but you're degrading the publisher's ability to price discriminate their products. They release the book in different phases because this allows them to hit different price points to different market segments. 'Early Adopters' buy the hardcover because they like the format and/or because they want to have early access to the book. Maybe they want early access because they value the prestige, or maybe (in the case of some technical books and publications) because it increases their ability to compete in their jobs.
When you download early, you reduce the prestige of having the book early so this reduces the value to the 'early adopters.' This is even more pronounced in technical books and publications. Admittedly, the value lost to each person in the value chain is small, but if I steal a nickel from you, it's still stealing.
I want the Subaru dealership to sell me one of those 2005 Impreza WRX sedans for $2000. I have the money right now and I guarantee you that in a couple of years those cars will be selling for my price (okay, 8 - 10 years.)
The seller gets to choose the price of their products, not the buyer. Just because you don't agree with their outlet strategy, doesn't mean you're right to take what you want.
So yeah, I'm guilty as sin.
I actually respect your honesty here more than I do the rationalizations you gave right after this. If you're gonna steal, just say so. Hell, if you're gonna steal, I encourage you to be the best thief you can be; I admire personal excellence in any field of endeavour. But that whole "who am I hurting?" thing is just a little too mealy-mouthed for me.
Someone points out that Iran hasn't had a shah for over 25 years. Someone else points out that the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons is Israel. Still someone else points out that if an Iraqi assassinated some Iranian leader, there is bupkas the Iranians could productively do about it. If they tried anything bigger than infiltrating insurgent fighters (which they are already doing) the US military would kick them in the nuts.
If you want to consider large scale war in the middle east, suppose some Iranian militants detonate a WMD (likely nerve gas) in the west side of Jerusalem and takes credit for the act. The Iranian government refuses to condemn the attack and Israel goes nuts. They attack Iran (maybe with nukes, maybe not) and then everyone else in the Middle East (including Saudi Arabia and Egypt) declare war on Israel. Israel gives everyone the finger and any place that armies start to mass, there's an artificial sunrise. That's how you get a world war out of the Middle East.
Dude, rock on.
I think my ex-wife with a rifle is way more dangerous.
Yeah, there is a good bit of aiming involved. This guy was apparently an experienced hunter, and some of those guys areinsanely good shots. When it turned away, it was actually a harder shot because it was moving side to side (bearing change) rather than coming straight at him.
He said he hit it behind the shoulder (which is about where you would aim) and the bullet destroyed the head. This implies either that the cat was running away from him, or the bullet was deflected inside the cat's body (probably by a bone or rib.)
Finally, if he was using hollow points (which is more likely in some rifles than in others) it could very easily blow the majority of the head off. So, maybe.
That paper's not very credible, though, and lots of people are saying the big cats are just myths, and he did throw away his best evidence. So, maybe not.
Interesting idea, either way.
...or were released by US airmen who kept them as mascots while stationed in Australia in World War II.
Am I the only American to feel vaguely embarassed to once again be seen as the descendant of a bunch of knuckleheaded yokels?
"Oh, sure, we may have released gigantic carnivores in your backyard, but we sure saved everyone's asses in WWII."
Then, I know, I'll cut off its TAIL!
Hmm, what about the rest of the carcass? Hey, I'll throw it away!
What was this guy thinking? He kills a rare "urban myth" creature (one he had never seen in 50 years hunting the outback), proving the claims of hundreds of farmers (whether he knew it or not), and the best plan he can come up with is 'keep the tail - throw out the rest'? He was hunting deer, right? He had to have some plan to carry the deer out of the wild, right?
Can you imagine the scene when he came back into town?
"Hey, see this black rope?"
"Yeah?"
"It's part of a gigantic cat I shot while I was hunting!"
"Yeah?" (Sceptically)
"Yeah!" (Brandishes tail) "Look, It was coming right at me!"
"Yeah. Right"
"No, REALLY..."
I've used FF since 0.9.3 and I have an ongoing problem with it. On Win XP SP2the Firefox task remains in the taskbar even after the application has been closed. Sometimes I will have five or six instances in the taskbar. Most will only have about 3 or 4 megs of Ram, but one will always have between 15 and 30 megs. I tried to report it as a bug, but they wanted me to read all of their ongoing bug reports to see if it had been reported already. Before I could do that, I needed to learn to navigate their bugtracking software and I don't have time for that right now (I am not extremely technically skilled, sorry.)
I do kind of wish there was a way for non-technical people to submit bugs that would not involve wasting hours and hours of the dev team's time on duplicate bug submissions. Ah, well, I love FF anyway.
Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism. Nothing. Ever.
Iraq has been paying bounties to the families of Hamas suicide bombers for years.
Iraq invasion plans existed prior to 9-11
Yep.
Just because the war on terror is not being waged on the grounds explicitly stated, does not mean it is not being waged. Saddam had been trying to convince the world that he had weapons of mass destruction for years. Guess what? It worked. We believed him.
Last week, the UKs largest terrorist groups gave up their arms.
First, congratulations on getting that done.
That's how adults deal with conflict.
Compromise and diplomacy are appropriate paths when both sides are partially right, which I think we all agree is the case in the UK/IRA case. Where was Saddam right? There are only two nations that have used weapons of mass destruction since the close of WW1, as far as I can tell. The US is one and Iraq is the other. The US used 2 nukes to close a 5 year war against a foe that attacked us first. Iraq used multiple gas munitions against a neighbor that he had attacked without provocation (Iran) and then again against citizens of his own country to suppress uprisings (the Kurds.) Suggesting that we sit down and have a talk with Saddam after 12 years of inspection baiting is disrespectful to the thousands upon thousands of victims of this tyrant's rule.
Sorry about that.
Wasn't this done before, or at least proposed before, by a private group? If I remember correctly we all laughed at the futility of trying to depend on WiFi and 802.11 access points to determin location. Are all of these hotspots less mobile now?
...That's a real nice website they've got there. Yes sir, real nice.
Your logic and reason are not welcome here.
They're on the other side of the world so it comes out backwards sometimes.