The fact is, running a web site and having a staff of 20 writers and good salaries would cost under 3 million dollars a year. Less if the writers mostly work from home. You could have a small office to meet in.
A 3 million dollar a year business might justify perhaps 10 million a year in revenues-- divide that by 10 million readers and you get a cost of $1 a year.
All of these businesses are trying to charge the SAME price for when they had printing facilities, physical products, shipping costs, heating and airconditioning for a huge marble palace of an office in one of the more expensive cities in the world.
Songs should be $.25-- NOT $1.00. Because the audience size is not the 100,000 listeners it was 30 years ago but 100,000,000 listeners.
JK Rowlings Harry Potter books were grossly overpriced. They were priced for a single country audience but sold to a world wide audience.
We are not getting the benefits of capitalism. The books could have sold for $4 and she would have still had a hundred million dollars-- and we could have bought other books by other writers. Instead we pay $13-- she has over a billion dollars- and other writers get starved out.
So many products should cost a fraction of what they charge these days. MP3's have NO VINYL RECORD BREAKAGE for cripe's sake. And no restocking costs.
Lots of people could be making solid amounts of $500k to a few million- but instead we have a small number of people making hundreds of millions and a larger mass of poverty.
a) Put something in front of my browser and I couldn't close it until a certain period of time passed. b) jittered flashed and made noises constantly
I installed adblock.
I'm eligible to not see ads here and on the other site i frequent anyway so it's moot.
If the ads are polite, I don't block the ad site. If the ads are rude, I block it.
I have *never* used a web ad yet however. I use ebay or a search engine to find specifically what I want and then buy it. I never impulse buy except in brick and mortar stores.
Of course, I'm debt free- almost paid for house, etc. etc. I have some buyers remorse over upgrading to a smart phone recently since it looks like it's going to cost me an extra $360 a year (half a 100w solar panel).
It's funny that you think all other countries only care about making money.
Money only serves the goal.
--- China's manufacturing capacity is now about the same size as the US-- it's economy is about the size of california's. The USA as of a couple years ago was still the largest manufacturer in the world. That can't be sustaintable- things do have to even out.
---
China is going to lose a ton of money on this play to keep the Yuan up. At some point, inflation is going to kick in and make their investments pretty worthless. Trying to sell the bonds early only means they destroy the value of their investment earlier. China is willing to lose a ton of money.
---
The chinese people have a very strong racial superiority / inferiority complex going. They are a bit like the americans with manifest destiny ( "everyone who looks like a chinese person really is chinese...and we want "one china".. and the chinese people are better than the rest of the world... and we are still damn pissed about foriegn intervention last century "). The only thing that will fix that is interbreeding. So we need lots of non-chinese immigrant females to head on over there and suck up that extra 80 million bachelors (who are there because the chinese are terminating female pregnancies and in at least some documented cases, killing female children at birth ).
---
Inflation in china and india is high- 20% a year to 100% a year for wages. Things will even out-- maybe 6 more years a lot of the professional salaries will even out.
---
They are in the middle of an unbelievable housing bubble. In America, we couldn't even comprehend it. Essentially with wages of $5000-$10000, housing is going for 40 years to 20 years salary. That's like a normal house (non-mcmansion) in the US going for 1.6 million dollars.
---
I always think none of this really matters because we are overdue for a major war and most of the world systems are too fragile to handle it when it comes. So it's going to be extremely ugly when it does.
At my company, a large indian offshoring company has taken over about 80% of the top technical jobs.
And of our remaining programmers, at least 90% are not allowed to code any more- only design. out of a 200 person staff that coded for 10 to 20 years, less than 20 code.
I coded until 2007. Used to be pretty good too. Probably would take me 90 days to come back up to speed even with just installing the tools (and that's assuming I could get to the tools over a battle damaged internet).
And it's dumb to continue give them breaks as "American" companies.
Let's see-- for a start, you could pass a law that if a company sells a product cheaper elsewhere then it is legal to purchase it and resell it at a profit in the U.S. That would stop some of the worst abuses.
Selling movies in China for $2.49-- okay- but that means they'll be selling for $4 in the US instead of $19.99 very quickly. Selling developer kits for $100 in india but $800 in the U.S. Same thing.
Video Shows Reuters Camerman With Insurgents Being Killed [BUMPED/UPDATED: Vidcaps Show Weapons]
UPDATE 4/06/2010 AM: I've uploaded a moving image created by Ryno which clearly shows weapons being carried by the so-called "civilians" who were killed along with the news that we have photos of rifles and grenades at the scene.
UPDATE 4/06/2010 PM: We've added important info to the new post linked above, including the fact that an RPG was found at the scene. Click here for more recent updates.
Looking at the geneva convention I don't find it to match what you say.
I only find the following.
Art. 6. Hospital and safety zones shall be marked by means of oblique red bands on a white ground, placed on the buildings and outer precincts.
Art. 18. Civilian hospitals shall be marked by means of the emblem provided for in Article 38 of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of 12 August 1949, but only if so authorized by the State.
---
The wiki says this:
Ambulances may also carry an emblem (either as part of the passive warning markings or not), such as a Red Cross, Red Crescent or Red Crystal (collective known as the Protective Symbols). These are symbols laid down by the Geneva Convention, and all countries signatory to it agree to restrict their use to either (1) Military Ambulances or (2) the national Red Cross or Red Crescent society. Use by any other person, organization or agency is in breach of international law. The protective symbols are designed to indicate to all people (especially combatants in the case of war) that the vehicle is neutral and is not to be fired upon, hence giving protection to the medics and their casualties, although this has not always been adhered to.
---
Note that without the protective symbols, the ambulance is not indicating that the vehicle is neutral.
--- Answers.com had this to say:
Why is the red cross required to be placed on any vehicle considered to be a ambulance by Geneva Convention? In: World War 2, War and Military History [Edit categories] [Improve] It signals that the vehicle is officially an ambulance: if a marked vehicle suddenly begins partaking in combat then it is in breach of the Geneva Convention; if an unmarked vehicle is attacked but later claimed or discovered to be an ambulance, no fault can be placed on the attackers.
--- Here: http://www.brooksidepress.org/Products/OperationalMedicine/DATA/operationalmed/Manuals/FM81015/1015appg.pdf APPENDIX G THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS G-1. Law of Land Warfare (1) Personnel exclusively engaged in the performance of medical duties in connection with the sick or wounded in medical units or establishments shall wear, affixed to the left arm, a water-resistant brassard/arm band bearing the distinctive emblem (the red cross on a white background) prescribed by the Geneva Conventions. The wearing of brassards/armbands will be at the discretion of the tactical commander in far forward areas. (2) [N/A about required medical id card] (3) [N/A about captured medical personel] (4) [N/A about captured medical personel] (5) Personnel protected as medical personnel under the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field must be exclusively engaged in medical duties or administration of medical units. This includes all members of a medical unit, even cooks, mechanics, drivers, or administration personnel. However, this protection is given only if the soldier is exclusively engaged in medical duties. Performance of any nonmedical duty removes the protection, and the DD 1934 must be withdrawn. For example, if an ambulance driver is tasked with driving an unmarked vehicle forward with ammunition prior to evacuating casualties rearward, he would not be exclusively engaged in medical duties and could not be considered or credentialed as "medical personnel."
--- f. Marking of Medical Units/Facilities and Ambulances. (2) Ambulances. (a) Air and ground ambulances will be marked with the distinctive red cross emblem. There is no legal reason why the ambulances could not have the red cross removed and then be used for nonmedical roles. It should be remembered that the aviators and drivers may not do nonmedical tasks without losing t
IBM's top executive receives $21.2M pay package for '09. (That's just ONE of them. There are probably dozens who make over $10m if they are similar to other companies these days)
You really think they are in it for the shareholders any more?
How much more would the stock be worth if $100 million a year wasn't going into executives who are clearly not providing value ( 4% return in 10 years? After 10 years of average 2% or more inflation? )
The executive class is out for themselves these days. not for their countries. not for their shareholders.
1) shooting the van was legal because they were carrying combatants away from the scene and were not surrendering. The van wasn't clearly marked as an ambulance. Consider it this alternative way: Osama Bin Ladin was there, shot, and a supporter drove up in a van and carried him away. No way to be sure since everyone (civilians and bad guys) are dressed in civilian clothes. I get this part upsets some folks- it upsets me less than some other parts.
2) That's how I interpreted 5:06. The journalist runs, they are shooting, he falls, and then they shoot him some more because his head is moving.
One of the general points of my post is that you are an idiot if you fall in love with ANY corporation.
Many people do. Plenty of people love microsoft or apple or IBM and then get upset when the corporation screws them over later.
Use a corporation and it's products but never trust it. Don't buy any of it's "feel good" propoganda- it will kill people (as in Nigeria) if it can make an extra buck.
Open source makes sense. Because it's free in india and it's free in the U.S.
The problem we have with IBM, Microsoft, The Movie Industry, the Music Industry, The Drug industry, is that they don't want to hire americans but they have had laws passed which allow them to charge americans premium rates and we can't legally reimport products from elsewhere.
I'm fine with competing with someone from india or china-- but why should I compete with them and pay $20 for movies, $5 for pills, and $798 for the development tools when those same products are $2,.10, and greatly discounted (I forget but I think Microsoft let indian developers get the kit for under $100).
If pills and movies sell for 1% of the price elsewhere, I should be able to reimport from there. Then I don't have to make as much money- so I CAN compete.
It's NOT CAPITALISM when YOU get to pay $.10 for blood pressure pills- I pay $5.00 and my government prevents anyone from taking advantage of the $4.90 difference in prices. In capitalism, the cost of goods drop when the cost of labor drops.
There's nothing wrong with a company being indian or chinese.
Pretending to be an american company, going for national security jobs, getting "US Job" tax breaks, getting the benefits of the american legal system, etc. when you are not is something that people should point out. So I did and I will continue to do so in the future.
It's daft that microsoft ships 7000 jobs over seas and THEN washington gives them a 100,000,000 tax break and THEN raises taxes on small programming shops 100% based on washington by 10%.
They have shipped so many jobs overseas that they have stopped saying how many jobs they are shipping overseas. Like Microsoft (and others), they are probably very close to dropping below 50% american employees.
Like all large corporations (including Google), they will do evil to make money. They just don't care any more. They are usually strong enough to put the government off indefinitely or are willing to pay a small fine to make a large profit.
So they are open source friendly if it makes them money, and not if it loses them money.
They are not your friend. As the VB developers found out a few years ago, they'll dump you with no upgrade path if it makes financial sense to do so.
IBM does some good stuff (Eclipse) but they are not your friend.
Procedure for hemorrhoids 20 years ago. 15 minutes with a scalpel in the doctor's office. $50. Basically lance the hemorrhoid, tweeze the blood clot and draw it out. Hemorrhoid fixed.
Procedure for hemorrhoids 20 years ago. Multiple visits with a special infra-red machine at $500 each. But the negotiated price with the insurance companies is more like $250 (which is profitable since that's $250 for 15 minutes). Government probably pays $200.
Doctors are grossly over compensated and don't *touch* the patients like they used to.
In the video at 3:40-3:45, two of them are carrying items which are obviously something big.
The left person appears to be carrying a gun- that does not look like an ak-47 to me.
The right person is carrying a long object which is definitely not an ak-47. It might be a rocket launcher but it might also be a tripod. What ever it is, it has a lot of weight in the end the man is carrying because the longer part of it is sticking up in the air so the longer part must be light weight.
Your post (as short as it is) seems to have several errors.
What they did seemed pretty repugnant to me. I'm not sure how it is legal to shoot a person that is down, not moving, and unarmed a second time to make sure they are dead.
And there was not a lot of pressure on the pilot and gunners-- they sounded *HAPPY*, not scared.
I think they were eager to kill someone and were seeing what they wanted to see.
>Even if the long dark object was an RPG, that doesn't seem like a reason to gun down the 8 other people that were obviously unarmed.
I agree with you.
What's more- the casual behavior of the people says volumes. If you had hostile intentions would you be casually strolling around while a helicopter circled your position?
To me it looked like gunning down a bunch of people who were not a threat. A more reasonable policy would be to send in troops on the ground, validate what was occurring and use the helicopters for support. It was indiscriminate slaughter.
How much pent up demand is there? There are already over 4000 strippers in my city. If we, say, doubled the number of strippers, do you think there would be any increase in the total amount the 8,000 strippers got vs the 4,000 strippers?
They are being attracted by high pay. My bartender friends indicate things are getting dicey in the normal bars. I would reasonably expect they are getting tough in the strip clubs too.
As people run out of unemployment benefits, lose buying power to inflation, lose bonuses and get no raises-- it's not exactly a growth market.
But I suppose a stripper is a cheaper than a girlfriend or a wife as long as you don't lose control.
Potential strippers do need to consider the risk of falling into substance abuse and prostitution. Of course, there are downsides to any job.
Slashdot Mirror
How is she able to swear with her mouth full?
The fact is, running a web site and having a staff of 20 writers and good salaries would cost under 3 million dollars a year.
Less if the writers mostly work from home. You could have a small office to meet in.
A 3 million dollar a year business might justify perhaps 10 million a year in revenues-- divide that by 10 million readers and you get a cost of $1 a year.
All of these businesses are trying to charge the SAME price for when they had printing facilities, physical products, shipping costs, heating and airconditioning for a huge marble palace of an office in one of the more expensive cities in the world.
Songs should be $.25-- NOT $1.00. Because the audience size is not the 100,000 listeners it was 30 years ago but 100,000,000 listeners.
JK Rowlings Harry Potter books were grossly overpriced. They were priced for a single country audience but sold to a world wide audience.
We are not getting the benefits of capitalism. The books could have sold for $4 and she would have still had a hundred million dollars-- and we could have bought other books by other writers. Instead we pay $13-- she has over a billion dollars- and other writers get starved out.
So many products should cost a fraction of what they charge these days. MP3's have NO VINYL RECORD BREAKAGE for cripe's sake. And no restocking costs.
Lots of people could be making solid amounts of $500k to a few million- but instead we have a small number of people making hundreds of millions and a larger mass of poverty.
After running into ads on mainstream sites which
a) Put something in front of my browser and I couldn't close it until a certain period of time passed.
b) jittered flashed and made noises constantly
I installed adblock.
I'm eligible to not see ads here and on the other site i frequent anyway so it's moot.
If the ads are polite, I don't block the ad site.
If the ads are rude, I block it.
I have *never* used a web ad yet however. I use ebay or a search engine to find specifically what I want and then buy it. I never impulse buy except in brick and mortar stores.
Of course, I'm debt free- almost paid for house, etc. etc. I have some buyers remorse over upgrading to a smart phone recently since it looks like it's going to cost me an extra $360 a year (half a 100w solar panel).
Several unrelated points here..
---
First...
It's funny that you think all other countries only care about making money.
Money only serves the goal.
---
China's manufacturing capacity is now about the same size as the US-- it's economy is about the size of california's.
The USA as of a couple years ago was still the largest manufacturer in the world. That can't be sustaintable- things do have to even out.
---
China is going to lose a ton of money on this play to keep the Yuan up. At some point, inflation is going to kick in and make their investments pretty worthless. Trying to sell the bonds early only means they destroy the value of their investment earlier. China is willing to lose a ton of money.
---
The chinese people have a very strong racial superiority / inferiority complex going. They are a bit like the americans with manifest destiny ( "everyone who looks like a chinese person really is chinese...and we want "one china".. and the chinese people are better than the rest of the world... and we are still damn pissed about foriegn intervention last century "). The only thing that will fix that is interbreeding. So we need lots of non-chinese immigrant females to head on over there and suck up that extra 80 million bachelors (who are there because the chinese are terminating female pregnancies and in at least some documented cases, killing female children at birth ).
---
Inflation in china and india is high- 20% a year to 100% a year for wages. Things will even out-- maybe 6 more years a lot of the professional salaries will even out.
---
They are in the middle of an unbelievable housing bubble. In America, we couldn't even comprehend it. Essentially with wages of $5000-$10000, housing is going for 40 years to 20 years salary. That's like a normal house (non-mcmansion) in the US going for 1.6 million dollars.
---
I always think none of this really matters because we are overdue for a major war and most of the world systems are too fragile to handle it when it comes. So it's going to be extremely ugly when it does.
Nope.
At my company, a large indian offshoring company has taken over about 80% of the top technical jobs.
And of our remaining programmers, at least 90% are not allowed to code any more- only design. out of a 200 person staff that coded for 10 to 20 years, less than 20 code.
I coded until 2007. Used to be pretty good too. Probably would take me 90 days to come back up to speed even with just installing the tools (and that's assuming I could get to the tools over a battle damaged internet).
And it's dumb to continue give them breaks as "American" companies.
Let's see-- for a start, you could pass a law that if a company sells a product cheaper elsewhere then it is legal to purchase it and resell it at a profit in the U.S. That would stop some of the worst abuses.
Selling movies in China for $2.49-- okay- but that means they'll be selling for $4 in the US instead of $19.99 very quickly.
Selling developer kits for $100 in india but $800 in the U.S. Same thing.
Yea.. quite a bit back in 2005-2007 period. I don't develop any more tho. Hands went bad.
Thank you for taking the time to post that.
I was looking mainly at the 4th one and an "appendix G" at the link in the other post.
To me the initial attack seems to violate Art 57, sec. 2.
You really had potential civilians walking near men with weapons. And they killed those potential civilians even tho they were unarmed.
Killing the people with weapons (including the journalists) might have been legitimate but going after the unarmed seemed wrong to me from the get go.
Also came across this site:
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201878.php
Video Shows Reuters Camerman With Insurgents Being Killed [BUMPED/UPDATED: Vidcaps Show Weapons]
UPDATE 4/06/2010 AM: I've uploaded a moving image created by Ryno which clearly shows weapons being carried by the so-called "civilians" who were killed along with the news that we have photos of rifles and grenades at the scene.
UPDATE 4/06/2010 PM: We've added important info to the new post linked above, including the fact that an RPG was found at the scene. Click here for more recent updates.
Looking at the geneva convention I don't find it to match what you say.
I only find the following.
Art. 6. Hospital and safety zones shall be marked by means of oblique red bands on a white ground, placed on the buildings and outer precincts.
Art. 18.
Civilian hospitals shall be marked by means of the emblem provided for in Article 38 of the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of 12 August 1949, but only if so authorized by the State.
---
The wiki says this:
Ambulances may also carry an emblem (either as part of the passive warning markings or not), such as a Red Cross, Red Crescent or Red Crystal (collective known as the Protective Symbols). These are symbols laid down by the Geneva Convention, and all countries signatory to it agree to restrict their use to either (1) Military Ambulances or (2) the national Red Cross or Red Crescent society. Use by any other person, organization or agency is in breach of international law. The protective symbols are designed to indicate to all people (especially combatants in the case of war) that the vehicle is neutral and is not to be fired upon, hence giving protection to the medics and their casualties, although this has not always been adhered to.
---
Note that without the protective symbols, the ambulance is not indicating that the vehicle is neutral.
---
Answers.com had this to say:
Why is the red cross required to be placed on any vehicle considered to be a ambulance by Geneva Convention?
In: World War 2, War and Military History [Edit categories]
[Improve]
It signals that the vehicle is officially an ambulance: if a marked vehicle suddenly begins partaking in combat then it is in breach of the Geneva Convention; if an unmarked vehicle is attacked but later claimed or discovered to be an ambulance, no fault can be placed on the attackers.
---
Here: http://www.brooksidepress.org/Products/OperationalMedicine/DATA/operationalmed/Manuals/FM81015/1015appg.pdf
APPENDIX G
THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS
G-1. Law of Land Warfare
(1) Personnel exclusively engaged in the performance of medical duties in connection with
the sick or wounded in medical units or establishments shall wear, affixed to the left arm, a water-resistant
brassard/arm band bearing the distinctive emblem (the red cross on a white background) prescribed by the
Geneva Conventions. The wearing of brassards/armbands will be at the discretion of the tactical commander
in far forward areas.
(2) [N/A about required medical id card]
(3) [N/A about captured medical personel]
(4) [N/A about captured medical personel]
(5) Personnel protected as medical personnel under the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration
of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field must be exclusively engaged in
medical duties or administration of medical units. This includes all members of a medical unit, even cooks,
mechanics, drivers, or administration personnel. However, this protection is given only if the soldier is
exclusively engaged in medical duties. Performance of any nonmedical duty removes the protection, and
the DD 1934 must be withdrawn. For example, if an ambulance driver is tasked with driving an unmarked
vehicle forward with ammunition prior to evacuating casualties rearward, he would not be exclusively
engaged in medical duties and could not be considered or credentialed as "medical personnel."
---
f. Marking of Medical Units/Facilities and Ambulances.
(2) Ambulances.
(a) Air and ground ambulances will be marked with the distinctive red cross emblem.
There is no legal reason why the ambulances could not have the red cross removed and then be used for
nonmedical roles. It should be remembered that the aviators and drivers may not do nonmedical tasks
without losing t
IBM price in September, 2000: $122.
IBM price today, 2010: $129.
IBM's top executive receives $21.2M pay package for '09. (That's just ONE of them. There are probably dozens who make over $10m if they are similar to other companies these days)
You really think they are in it for the shareholders any more?
How much more would the stock be worth if $100 million a year wasn't going into executives who are clearly not providing value ( 4% return in 10 years? After 10 years of average 2% or more inflation? )
The executive class is out for themselves these days. not for their countries. not for their shareholders.
I really wish slashdot had a better editor and it let you edit your posts.
So your figures are even more grim.
The problem is this means a race to the bottom by labor and an increasingly small class of ultra wealthy.
In much of the world there will be no democratic fix once the lock is in. In many ways, we are already losing the democratic fix in the U.S.
Total headcount 400k.
US headcount 121k.
http://www.cio.com/article/485823/IBM_s_U.S._Workforce_Declines_in_08_As_Headcount_Grows_Overseas ...Brazil, China, India and Russia, but that number increased by 15 percent to 113,000 last year. Most of those employees are in India. ...In 2007, IBM said it had 74,000 workers in India.
1)
shooting the van was legal because they were carrying combatants away from the scene and were not surrendering. The van wasn't clearly marked as an ambulance. Consider it this alternative way: Osama Bin Ladin was there, shot, and a supporter drove up in a van and carried him away. No way to be sure since everyone (civilians and bad guys) are dressed in civilian clothes. I get this part upsets some folks- it upsets me less than some other parts.
2)
That's how I interpreted 5:06. The journalist runs, they are shooting, he falls, and then they shoot him some more because his head is moving.
One of the general points of my post is that you are an idiot if you fall in love with ANY corporation.
Many people do. Plenty of people love microsoft or apple or IBM and then get upset when the corporation screws them over later.
Use a corporation and it's products but never trust it. Don't buy any of it's "feel good" propoganda- it will kill people (as in Nigeria) if it can make an extra buck.
Open source makes sense. Because it's free in india and it's free in the U.S.
The problem we have with IBM, Microsoft, The Movie Industry, the Music Industry, The Drug industry, is that they don't want to hire americans but they have had laws passed which allow them to charge americans premium rates and we can't legally reimport products from elsewhere.
I'm fine with competing with someone from india or china-- but why should I compete with them and pay $20 for movies, $5 for pills, and $798 for the development tools when those same products are $2, .10, and greatly discounted (I forget but I think Microsoft let indian developers get the kit for under $100).
If pills and movies sell for 1% of the price elsewhere, I should be able to reimport from there. Then I don't have to make as much money- so I CAN compete.
It's NOT CAPITALISM when YOU get to pay $.10 for blood pressure pills- I pay $5.00 and my government prevents anyone from taking advantage of the $4.90 difference in prices. In capitalism, the cost of goods drop when the cost of labor drops.
We don't have capitalism any more.
There's nothing wrong with a company being indian or chinese.
Pretending to be an american company, going for national security jobs, getting "US Job" tax breaks, getting the benefits of the american legal system, etc. when you are not is something that people should point out. So I did and I will continue to do so in the future.
It's daft that microsoft ships 7000 jobs over seas and THEN washington gives them a 100,000,000 tax break and THEN raises taxes on small programming shops 100% based on washington by 10%.
The van driver looks directly at the helicopter several times.
He may have known the wounded man was a journalist and thought the firing was over. He was heroic to take such a risk knowingly.
From the posts above, shooting at the van was legal.
However, also from the posts above, taking a "double tap" on the person who was down, barely moving, and unarmed may not have been.
They have shipped so many jobs overseas that they have stopped saying how many jobs they are shipping overseas. Like Microsoft (and others), they are probably very close to dropping below 50% american employees.
Like all large corporations (including Google), they will do evil to make money. They just don't care any more. They are usually strong enough to put the government off indefinitely or are willing to pay a small fine to make a large profit.
So they are open source friendly if it makes them money, and not if it loses them money.
They are not your friend. As the VB developers found out a few years ago, they'll dump you with no upgrade path if it makes financial sense to do so.
IBM does some good stuff (Eclipse) but they are not your friend.
Fair enough-- do you think they have 24" monitors? 18" monitors?
Procedure for hemorrhoids 20 years ago. 15 minutes with a scalpel in the doctor's office. $50.
Basically lance the hemorrhoid, tweeze the blood clot and draw it out. Hemorrhoid fixed.
Procedure for hemorrhoids 20 years ago. Multiple visits with a special infra-red machine at $500 each.
But the negotiated price with the insurance companies is more like $250 (which is profitable since that's $250 for 15 minutes).
Government probably pays $200.
Doctors are grossly over compensated and don't *touch* the patients like they used to.
In the video at 3:40-3:45, two of them are carrying items which are obviously something big.
The left person appears to be carrying a gun- that does not look like an ak-47 to me.
The right person is carrying a long object which is definitely not an ak-47. It might be a rocket launcher but it might also be a tripod. What ever it is, it has a lot of weight in the end the man is carrying because the longer part of it is sticking up in the air so the longer part must be light weight.
Your post (as short as it is) seems to have several errors.
What they did seemed pretty repugnant to me. I'm not sure how it is legal to shoot a person that is down, not moving, and unarmed a second time to make sure they are dead.
And there was not a lot of pressure on the pilot and gunners-- they sounded *HAPPY*, not scared.
I think they were eager to kill someone and were seeing what they wanted to see.
>Even if the long dark object was an RPG, that doesn't seem like a reason to gun down the 8 other people that were obviously unarmed.
I agree with you.
What's more- the casual behavior of the people says volumes. If you had hostile intentions would you be casually strolling around while a helicopter circled your position?
To me it looked like gunning down a bunch of people who were not a threat. A more reasonable policy would be to send in troops on the ground, validate what was occurring and use the helicopters for support. It was indiscriminate slaughter.
Aye,
How much pent up demand is there? There are already over 4000 strippers in my city. If we, say, doubled the number of strippers, do you think there would be any increase in the total amount the 8,000 strippers got vs the 4,000 strippers?
They are being attracted by high pay. My bartender friends indicate things are getting dicey in the normal bars. I would reasonably expect they are getting tough in the strip clubs too.
As people run out of unemployment benefits, lose buying power to inflation, lose bonuses and get no raises-- it's not exactly a growth market.
But I suppose a stripper is a cheaper than a girlfriend or a wife as long as you don't lose control.
Potential strippers do need to consider the risk of falling into substance abuse and prostitution. Of course, there are downsides to any job.