If you think smartphones will ever last for days on a charge, you're delusional. Old dumbphones only lasted that long because they could only do 1/100th of what a smartphone can do.
If you DON'T think smartphones will eventually last days and weeks or longer on a single charge, then YOU'RE delusion.
Most musicians made their living from live performance for all but 60 years or so of human history
No they didn't, they made it from patronage; a wealthy aristocrat or lord indulging themselves by hiring Mozart to whip up a new fugue.
How many musicians do you believe received patronage, versus those who were travelling troubadours and minstrels or played music for touring theatre groups, churches and orchestras? Anyway, back then armies probably employed the vast majority of professional musicians.
Being a great singer or musician is relatively commonplace. You see hundreds of new ones every year on those talent shows on TV - most will never make a career in music. Being a great composer or song writer is a lot less common. Being a great singer-song-writer, now that's how you make money.
I read that entire article and it's just some guy complaining about how everything was better in the old days, without offering any alternatives. You don't say that Apple SHOULD pay more to artists and SHOULD invest in new talent because if Apple can get away with it they'll actually want to pay less. They won't do it unless they have to, and he doesn't provide any suggestions for making them have to.
Arguably the money will be made at the expense of the brokers like Morgan Stanley who stepped in to prop up the share at launch and bought up billions of dollars worth.
The mistake they made was over-estimating demand and releasing too many shares. A smaller float could well have become a feeding frenzy - not that I think it's worth thirty bucks a share, or whatever it sinks to today either.
People do trades on Wall Street that last for milliseconds. What makes you think they'll invest in something that has no guarantee of working, then takes perhaps 60yrs+ to have the first possible return on investment?
you know i seem to remember another point when we sent out explores to to a new world without the guaranty of profit or of returns in the investors lifetime we later called it the Americas.
Um, you need to read a history book. At no point did anyone send out explorers for the hell of it. They sent them out to find exploitable resources. And once America was discovered and years later colonized, not a man, woman or child went to the Americas that didn't think they would have a better life because of it. And the vessels they embarked upon had been around for centuries beforehand and were already purposed for a million other uses. For your analogy to work, the pilgrim fathers would have had to bump up against America for the first time aboard the only hovercraft in existence. That did not happen. As far as we know. History is unreliable.
If two people walk in to an interview with the HR Drone, who is an actual real life (the nature of IT being automated systems, the snake that eats its own tail, suggests a future when we are able to do away with the IT guys altogether because the agents they created are as good as them and because they aren't real people with issues and lawyers we don't need as many HR people anyway. So rue the day that dawns upon an HR free world for that will be the day when the machine has taken over and all your qualifications and experience will count for naught as you drive the treadmills charging their batteries. I digress.) person by the way, will probably hire the one with the best interview technique, if their experience is similar. Qualifications don't count in actual interviews. Qualifications count in the screening process prior to getting an interview.
A forty-something wanting a degree to boost their career in IT, is akin to a chimp that wants to learn to smoke cigarettes because it'll make them more like a person. If you're still shuffling code at forty your career has gone so far off the rails that a degree won't save it. If you're a smart, accomplished, hard worker, you should be looking to retire by the time you're in your mid-fifties. If that isn't likely right now with ten years to go, then the cost of a degree isn't going to help you achieve it.
OP is making the classic mistake of thinking that his lack of opportunities can be fixed by a magic bullet. A degree course is not that magic bullet. Work harder, work better doing what you do and everything else will fall into place. At your age you shouldn't need qualifications to characterize who you are. You should have a body of work, and a trail of satisfied clients, employers and work-mates reinforcing it. You should be able to name names and call upon personal endorsements. You should be beyond this.
How hard would it be to find a geek on a geek site that could magic the submit button to ignore comments from spammers - leave them thinking they're posting but nobody else sees it? (or else they change their vector of attack - by letting them think it works, they'll keep doing the same thing. Naive? Possibly.)
It was Google that said they didn't want to do evil. But nobody wants to do evil. You think the Nazis unfurled the blueprint for Dachau and looked at each other with guilty expressions, until one summoned the courage to ask: "This is pretty evil, right?" No. No, they did not. They thought they were doing the right thing and that God and history would bathe them in glory.
How'd that work out for you Nazis?
Yeah, exactly.
Corporations, certainly in the US, are obliged to follow profit and enhance share-holders' wealth. There are laws they aren't supposed to break. These are the constraints we put upon capitalism, and they are legal boundaries not ethical ones. It is next to impossible to live in the modern world without drenching yourself in the blood sweat and tears of an exploited worker from some dusty corner of the globe, but their alternative is between being an exploited worker or starvation.
So, what is evil? Exploitation? Profit? Complacency? Guilt? Condescension?
Much like HD televisions, the majority of which until quite recently were never used with HD media even when it was available, 4G seems like something that a purchaser either knows what it is at a technical level or they are blissfully unaware of it. Anyone with the interest to know what 4G is, knows that buying an iPad won't make it magically become available. There were plenty of technologically averse people (Apple customers I likes to call'em) swanning about the place, mentally gloating that their iPad was giving them an extra G's worth of data speed over the sorry Samsung users around them. All this litigation, fiery brand-waving and angry mobs is only serving to burst the smug bubble around these previously content consumers. It isn't hurting Apple (certainly not in any way reflected in their stock price) but it's hurting a lot of hipsters' feelings.
disclaimer: I am a very happy iPad owner. But I only use it ironically.
I love subtle humour as much as the next guy. Not enough arable land? Priceless.
Besides we can always eat insects, algae, people, fungi. The list is end- what? I said we can eat insects, algae and fungi. Jeeze. Why are you looking at me like that?
That's impossible. Lights have to be in a bulb shape, because that's how they've always been, and people don't like change.
I suspect in a lot of households, one half doesn't care what their "light bulbs" look like so long as they save them money, and one half doesn't care how much they cost to run so long as they look right in their decorative light fixtures. Typically the "it has to look right" half wins the buying decision.
This. At least in the US if you're a rich man you don't need to lock yourself away in a gated compound surrounded by security... no, no, I'm hearing myself say it. Never mind.
I've taken to hanging around HMV and tutting disapprovingly when I see anyone take a CD to the check-out. Don't they realise that money is going to fund a terrorist organization that seeks to censor the proletariat?
This is the same kind of bullshit that was flying around in the late 1990's. Time to short the NASDAQ 100.
The difference is that there aren't anywhere near as many big idea/no income tech IPOs this time around. Groupon is the only major Web 2.0 (or whatever the buzz-phrase is these days) IPO. Facebook may be the next, and will almost certainly be over-valued and over-subscribed - but it'll wilt in isolation. The economy in general is in the toilet. Glencore (global resources - you know, mines and oils wells and such.) was the biggest, I think, IPO in history and they lost about 15-20% of their launch price when the economic slow-down hit resources. The world isn't awash in the kind of money for people to throw around at companies without a revenue stream.
remember when the Republicans used to be all about civil liberties and keeping the government from crawling up your ass?
If that was the case, then why have laws at all? I don't understand how anybody can feel aggrieved that they're not being allowed to break the law. Don't get me wrong, if you want to speed or act like a dick in traffic, go right ahead - but whining that somebody is gonna try and catch you out isn't exactly the outlaw way. Oh, what's that you say Sundance? The sheriff is watching the bank? That's an outrageous invasion of my privacy. Hold my gun while I write my congressman...
The problem most people overlook is that you can't make plans for the next 30 years based on the current scenario. A lot of thing scan happen in such a large time span.
Which is kinda the point. Over 30 years a lot of things can happen, but in theory you have the benefit of handing your decisions over to statistical predictions, based on past performance. So there will be wars, and shortages, and fads but overall there will be growth and innovation - now, if there ISN'T then we have a far bigger problem than whether you're making a 4% return on your investment. Many of the rarer raw materials are becoming more difficult to harvest, but we've barely touched the ocean floor. Google Nautilus Minerals and take a look at the machines they're building to harvest minerals around volcanic vents.
We can safely assume our consumption will reduce in the years ahead, but falling populations globally in the next fifty years or so will alleviate some of the pressure. We'll get used to working with less in the short-term. Today's junkyards and landfills will be rich pickings for tomorrow. Orogen Gold (not a misspelling) are currently re-opening a Roman era gold mine that was closed down decades ago, because more efficient production techniques mean that not only is there probably a lot of mileage left in the actual mine, but a potential "goldmine" in the discarded "processed" ore which will could give up commercial quantities of gold using modern methods.
There'll be dips and crashes in the short term, but we live in a world where the poorest countries still have a long way to go. The average GDP growth across Africa, as a whole, is around 5% - and that's across an area that ranges from very stable to anarchic. The world's wealth is growing and becoming more fairly distributed. We need to get off the idea that we're doing badly because everyone else is catching us up.
Okay, so last tech bubble, how long after everybody started calling it a tech bubble did the bubble burst? And when a bubble like this bursts is it only the newer companies that get hurt, or does it affect established companies as well? I mean, Samsung is a technology company, but it makes and sells things. So does Apple. But will people look at Google and say that sure it makes a profit but it's all intangible? They have a P/E of under 20 which doesn't seem heinous. Whereas Facebook, based on current estimated value, has a P/E of over 50 and must be at the limits of the expansion phase by now as far as number of active users (maybe, maybe not) - so I could see Facebook getting hurt. And Groupon? Oh dear.
But, most importantly, there haven't really BEEN that many big tech flotations recently, have there?
Well, eventually everything will be hosted and the TV, probably like the phone and the computer, will just be a device to stream moving pictures across the internet, with the apps and browsing happening at a data centre. Eventually.
So Christianity is every bit as nutty? You don't say!
The point is that regardless of what the evangelicals might wish, you can't get arrested for calling them out on their shit in the US. This makes the US "better" than India on this score, regardless of how equally ridiculous the respective "common" religion is.
Well there you have it, your new national motto. "The US - currently better than India". You go guys!
What gets me about this is that there ARE a bunch of different faiths in India, and they're trying, officially at least and in parts some better than others, to get along by studiously ignoring each other's mutually exclusive beliefs. So a sceptic comes along and disproves a miracle, IN HIS OPINION, which is rude but within the scope of his unprotected belief system. I don't understand how a Christian system based on faith can really ever take offence at someone poking holes in a local miracle, or the entire canon even. I genuinely mean this - if you're Christian and you're letting someone bamboozle you with logic and facts then it shows a profound lack of faith and a misunderstanding of the teachings of Jesus if your first reaction is anger. If those Indian Christians had simply blessed the sceptic and agreed to disagree there'd be no issue. The people with REAL faith could believe in whatever they want, and the people with actual FACTS can be smug in their knowledge and the impending empty soulless non-existence they have to look forward to when they die. Everybody's happy.
Will consumers be able to transmit/receive a data throughput of 1 Gb/s?
Yes, but not on Sundays if the DUP have anything to do with it. FWIW I wouldn't trust our politicians to do anything but piss away the money. Mainly though I do wonder what the "problem" is. I'm on a low internet speed through Virgin Media of 20Mb, which I could upgrade to 60Mb for free but I just can't see the point (need to change the router - the hassle isn't worth it). The Internet speeds in Belfast seem fine, but the culchies are still using hairy string and baked bean tins - throw some money their way.
Have you ever seen a lead-acid battery powered vehicle?
Yes. I've driven a few, too.
So... you were a milk man? You don't see the old battery-powered milk floats any more, do you? You don't really see milkies any more either, and the ones that do still deliver use regular vans - we're more tolerant of the noise these days I guess.
And access would cost another $20/month in a world where (gasp!) many kids are going to school without breakfast and are relying on the school district to provide them with lunch, since their parents simply can't afford it.
Those people are, however, notoriously underrepresented on slashdot.
People without internet access under-represented on Slashdot? Something needs to be done. We need a paper version of Slashdot ASAP, one with long rolls of paper to allow for the comments to be accurately modelled. You could even break it up into easily quotable sheets.
Slashdot Mirror
If you think smartphones will ever last for days on a charge, you're delusional. Old dumbphones only lasted that long because they could only do 1/100th of what a smartphone can do.
If you DON'T think smartphones will eventually last days and weeks or longer on a single charge, then YOU'RE delusion.
Most musicians made their living from live performance for all but 60 years or so of human history
No they didn't, they made it from patronage; a wealthy aristocrat or lord indulging themselves by hiring Mozart to whip up a new fugue.
How many musicians do you believe received patronage, versus those who were travelling troubadours and minstrels or played music for touring theatre groups, churches and orchestras? Anyway, back then armies probably employed the vast majority of professional musicians.
Being a great singer or musician is relatively commonplace. You see hundreds of new ones every year on those talent shows on TV - most will never make a career in music. Being a great composer or song writer is a lot less common. Being a great singer-song-writer, now that's how you make money.
I read that entire article and it's just some guy complaining about how everything was better in the old days, without offering any alternatives. You don't say that Apple SHOULD pay more to artists and SHOULD invest in new talent because if Apple can get away with it they'll actually want to pay less. They won't do it unless they have to, and he doesn't provide any suggestions for making them have to.
Arguably the money will be made at the expense of the brokers like Morgan Stanley who stepped in to prop up the share at launch and bought up billions of dollars worth.
The mistake they made was over-estimating demand and releasing too many shares. A smaller float could well have become a feeding frenzy - not that I think it's worth thirty bucks a share, or whatever it sinks to today either.
No, but hypothetically speaking yes
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
"I'll clean the Jeffries Tubes." - Do we wonder why there's so much Star Trek slash fiction? Do we?
People do trades on Wall Street that last for milliseconds. What makes you think they'll invest in something that has no guarantee of working, then takes perhaps 60yrs+ to have the first possible return on investment?
you know i seem to remember another point when we sent out explores to to a new world without the guaranty of profit or of returns in the investors lifetime we later called it the Americas.
Um, you need to read a history book. At no point did anyone send out explorers for the hell of it. They sent them out to find exploitable resources. And once America was discovered and years later colonized, not a man, woman or child went to the Americas that didn't think they would have a better life because of it. And the vessels they embarked upon had been around for centuries beforehand and were already purposed for a million other uses. For your analogy to work, the pilgrim fathers would have had to bump up against America for the first time aboard the only hovercraft in existence. That did not happen. As far as we know. History is unreliable.
If two people walk in to an interview with the HR Drone, who is an actual real life (the nature of IT being automated systems, the snake that eats its own tail, suggests a future when we are able to do away with the IT guys altogether because the agents they created are as good as them and because they aren't real people with issues and lawyers we don't need as many HR people anyway. So rue the day that dawns upon an HR free world for that will be the day when the machine has taken over and all your qualifications and experience will count for naught as you drive the treadmills charging their batteries. I digress.) person by the way, will probably hire the one with the best interview technique, if their experience is similar. Qualifications don't count in actual interviews. Qualifications count in the screening process prior to getting an interview.
A forty-something wanting a degree to boost their career in IT, is akin to a chimp that wants to learn to smoke cigarettes because it'll make them more like a person. If you're still shuffling code at forty your career has gone so far off the rails that a degree won't save it. If you're a smart, accomplished, hard worker, you should be looking to retire by the time you're in your mid-fifties. If that isn't likely right now with ten years to go, then the cost of a degree isn't going to help you achieve it.
OP is making the classic mistake of thinking that his lack of opportunities can be fixed by a magic bullet. A degree course is not that magic bullet. Work harder, work better doing what you do and everything else will fall into place. At your age you shouldn't need qualifications to characterize who you are. You should have a body of work, and a trail of satisfied clients, employers and work-mates reinforcing it. You should be able to name names and call upon personal endorsements. You should be beyond this.
How hard would it be to find a geek on a geek site that could magic the submit button to ignore comments from spammers - leave them thinking they're posting but nobody else sees it? (or else they change their vector of attack - by letting them think it works, they'll keep doing the same thing. Naive? Possibly.)
It was Google that said they didn't want to do evil. But nobody wants to do evil. You think the Nazis unfurled the blueprint for Dachau and looked at each other with guilty expressions, until one summoned the courage to ask: "This is pretty evil, right?" No. No, they did not. They thought they were doing the right thing and that God and history would bathe them in glory.
How'd that work out for you Nazis?
Yeah, exactly.
Corporations, certainly in the US, are obliged to follow profit and enhance share-holders' wealth. There are laws they aren't supposed to break. These are the constraints we put upon capitalism, and they are legal boundaries not ethical ones. It is next to impossible to live in the modern world without drenching yourself in the blood sweat and tears of an exploited worker from some dusty corner of the globe, but their alternative is between being an exploited worker or starvation.
So, what is evil? Exploitation? Profit? Complacency? Guilt? Condescension?
Much like HD televisions, the majority of which until quite recently were never used with HD media even when it was available, 4G seems like something that a purchaser either knows what it is at a technical level or they are blissfully unaware of it. Anyone with the interest to know what 4G is, knows that buying an iPad won't make it magically become available. There were plenty of technologically averse people (Apple customers I likes to call'em) swanning about the place, mentally gloating that their iPad was giving them an extra G's worth of data speed over the sorry Samsung users around them. All this litigation, fiery brand-waving and angry mobs is only serving to burst the smug bubble around these previously content consumers. It isn't hurting Apple (certainly not in any way reflected in their stock price) but it's hurting a lot of hipsters' feelings.
disclaimer: I am a very happy iPad owner. But I only use it ironically.
I love subtle humour as much as the next guy. Not enough arable land? Priceless.
Besides we can always eat insects, algae, people, fungi. The list is end- what? I said we can eat insects, algae and fungi. Jeeze. Why are you looking at me like that?
That's impossible. Lights have to be in a bulb shape, because that's how they've always been, and people don't like change.
I suspect in a lot of households, one half doesn't care what their "light bulbs" look like so long as they save them money, and one half doesn't care how much they cost to run so long as they look right in their decorative light fixtures. Typically the "it has to look right" half wins the buying decision.
This. At least in the US if you're a rich man you don't need to lock yourself away in a gated compound surrounded by security... no, no, I'm hearing myself say it. Never mind.
I've taken to hanging around HMV and tutting disapprovingly when I see anyone take a CD to the check-out. Don't they realise that money is going to fund a terrorist organization that seeks to censor the proletariat?
This is the same kind of bullshit that was flying around in the late 1990's. Time to short the NASDAQ 100.
The difference is that there aren't anywhere near as many big idea/no income tech IPOs this time around. Groupon is the only major Web 2.0 (or whatever the buzz-phrase is these days) IPO. Facebook may be the next, and will almost certainly be over-valued and over-subscribed - but it'll wilt in isolation. The economy in general is in the toilet. Glencore (global resources - you know, mines and oils wells and such.) was the biggest, I think, IPO in history and they lost about 15-20% of their launch price when the economic slow-down hit resources. The world isn't awash in the kind of money for people to throw around at companies without a revenue stream.
I just don't understand Bitcoin and "mining" whatsoever.
Oh, you didn't recently invest half a million dollars in a start-up, did you?
remember when the Republicans used to be all about civil liberties and keeping the government from crawling up your ass?
If that was the case, then why have laws at all? I don't understand how anybody can feel aggrieved that they're not being allowed to break the law. Don't get me wrong, if you want to speed or act like a dick in traffic, go right ahead - but whining that somebody is gonna try and catch you out isn't exactly the outlaw way. Oh, what's that you say Sundance? The sheriff is watching the bank? That's an outrageous invasion of my privacy. Hold my gun while I write my congressman...
The problem most people overlook is that you can't make plans for the next 30 years based on the current scenario. A lot of thing scan happen in such a large time span.
Which is kinda the point. Over 30 years a lot of things can happen, but in theory you have the benefit of handing your decisions over to statistical predictions, based on past performance. So there will be wars, and shortages, and fads but overall there will be growth and innovation - now, if there ISN'T then we have a far bigger problem than whether you're making a 4% return on your investment. Many of the rarer raw materials are becoming more difficult to harvest, but we've barely touched the ocean floor. Google Nautilus Minerals and take a look at the machines they're building to harvest minerals around volcanic vents.
We can safely assume our consumption will reduce in the years ahead, but falling populations globally in the next fifty years or so will alleviate some of the pressure. We'll get used to working with less in the short-term. Today's junkyards and landfills will be rich pickings for tomorrow. Orogen Gold (not a misspelling) are currently re-opening a Roman era gold mine that was closed down decades ago, because more efficient production techniques mean that not only is there probably a lot of mileage left in the actual mine, but a potential "goldmine" in the discarded "processed" ore which will could give up commercial quantities of gold using modern methods.
There'll be dips and crashes in the short term, but we live in a world where the poorest countries still have a long way to go. The average GDP growth across Africa, as a whole, is around 5% - and that's across an area that ranges from very stable to anarchic. The world's wealth is growing and becoming more fairly distributed. We need to get off the idea that we're doing badly because everyone else is catching us up.
Okay, so last tech bubble, how long after everybody started calling it a tech bubble did the bubble burst? And when a bubble like this bursts is it only the newer companies that get hurt, or does it affect established companies as well? I mean, Samsung is a technology company, but it makes and sells things. So does Apple. But will people look at Google and say that sure it makes a profit but it's all intangible? They have a P/E of under 20 which doesn't seem heinous. Whereas Facebook, based on current estimated value, has a P/E of over 50 and must be at the limits of the expansion phase by now as far as number of active users (maybe, maybe not) - so I could see Facebook getting hurt. And Groupon? Oh dear.
But, most importantly, there haven't really BEEN that many big tech flotations recently, have there?
Well, eventually everything will be hosted and the TV, probably like the phone and the computer, will just be a device to stream moving pictures across the internet, with the apps and browsing happening at a data centre. Eventually.
So Christianity is every bit as nutty? You don't say!
The point is that regardless of what the evangelicals might wish, you can't get arrested for calling them out on their shit in the US. This makes the US "better" than India on this score, regardless of how equally ridiculous the respective "common" religion is.
Well there you have it, your new national motto. "The US - currently better than India". You go guys!
What gets me about this is that there ARE a bunch of different faiths in India, and they're trying, officially at least and in parts some better than others, to get along by studiously ignoring each other's mutually exclusive beliefs. So a sceptic comes along and disproves a miracle, IN HIS OPINION, which is rude but within the scope of his unprotected belief system. I don't understand how a Christian system based on faith can really ever take offence at someone poking holes in a local miracle, or the entire canon even. I genuinely mean this - if you're Christian and you're letting someone bamboozle you with logic and facts then it shows a profound lack of faith and a misunderstanding of the teachings of Jesus if your first reaction is anger. If those Indian Christians had simply blessed the sceptic and agreed to disagree there'd be no issue. The people with REAL faith could believe in whatever they want, and the people with actual FACTS can be smug in their knowledge and the impending empty soulless non-existence they have to look forward to when they die. Everybody's happy.
Will consumers be able to transmit/receive a data throughput of 1 Gb/s?
Yes, but not on Sundays if the DUP have anything to do with it. FWIW I wouldn't trust our politicians to do anything but piss away the money. Mainly though I do wonder what the "problem" is. I'm on a low internet speed through Virgin Media of 20Mb, which I could upgrade to 60Mb for free but I just can't see the point (need to change the router - the hassle isn't worth it). The Internet speeds in Belfast seem fine, but the culchies are still using hairy string and baked bean tins - throw some money their way.
Have you ever seen a lead-acid battery powered vehicle?
Yes. I've driven a few, too.
So... you were a milk man? You don't see the old battery-powered milk floats any more, do you? You don't really see milkies any more either, and the ones that do still deliver use regular vans - we're more tolerant of the noise these days I guess.
And access would cost another $20/month in a world where (gasp!) many kids are going to school without breakfast and are relying on the school district to provide them with lunch, since their parents simply can't afford it.
Those people are, however, notoriously underrepresented on slashdot.
People without internet access under-represented on Slashdot? Something needs to be done. We need a paper version of Slashdot ASAP, one with long rolls of paper to allow for the comments to be accurately modelled. You could even break it up into easily quotable sheets.