In some countries, if you ever fail at a business venture, you will never be allowed to attempt another one. The venture capital in those companies is very risk averse to people who have failed before.
Failure and success are not just labels. If you *went bankrupt* then your business *failed*.
I'm sorry but I can't really understand the rest of your post and the point you are trying to make. Perhaps you could expand on your point a bit.
A classical robot is basically an artificial human.
From Wiki: The word robot comes from the Czech word robota, industrial labor. The word has first appeared in Karel apek's science fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1921, and has probably been invented by author's brother, painter Josef apek. See the article about Karel apek for more detailed etymological explanation.
The problem is that it has been stretched to include a lot of machines that are not as intelligent as humans.
Even if you accept a human intelligence and an Asimov-like morality, the machine may injure humans out of ignorance (like the industrial robot did) or by misinterpreting what constitutes harm. Asimov's "rules" were a mcguffin to move his stories. To explore the edges of a cleanly defined set of rules and *implicitly* included western secular values.
For example- if your robot believed in christianity it might take the view that people who believe in god should be killed as quickly as possible so they do not lose the faith (and their soul as a result). For some other religions, it might not view non-believes *as* human (and qualifying for protection). Humans do this so we shouldn't assume an intelligent machine won't do this.
But many "robots" don't have the intelligence of an ant or a pinworm. How could we expect them not to accidentally hurt people.
Clearly he thinks it belongs to the american indians who emigrated here from china about 10,000 bc.
This ignores the fact that every tract of land in Europe, china, russia, and most of the world except perhaps Australia was 'stolen' repeatedly through history with the boundaries of many countries only stabilizing in the thin sliver of recent history.
It is a fact, humans kill other humans and take their stuff (and even enslave them) in the absence of an external authority stopping them from doing so.
Well assuming it is not viral marketing or a paid shill, then I guess he really believes in gold and silver. There are quite a lot of real people out there compared to astroturfers. It is sometimes hard to tell the difference tho!
I have read that in many countries, you get one shot and if you fail that is it. America is rife with stories of people who failed several times before they finally succeeded big-time.
Re:First, take a look at why Dilbert is funny...
on
The Living Dilbert?
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· Score: 1
The sad thing, is that since SOX was passed, I've seen things that they used to joke about in Dilbert.
For example-- recently to change *one* letter in a text file (an easy 5 minute task) took 2 people a total of 12 hours creating the required documents (impact, budget, project initiation, project activation approval, requirements, technical, test results, qa notification document) . There will also be a verifiable testing document created by the QA team as well showing that they agree the change was made which will probably consume another 2-4 hours by the qa team.
Only 5 years ago, this would have taken 5 minutes.
Once my place is paid off, I'm going to work for a smaller company for less pay where I can actually work.
Of course... nothing you are talking about is propaganda. I stand corrected.
oh wait... yes it is.
If you *really* think we are on par with third world countries you have a very warped view of america.
Yes- I agree with you that the rich need to be taken down a notch. The main reason they have so much power right now is the abortion and gay rights issues. The religious conservatives are giving the republican part a free ride to the wealthy as long as they make some pitiful efforts at working on those two issues. I suspect that the republicans really don't want to win on those issues and I've spoken to democrats that think abortion has to be defeated before the republicans will lose power.
However.. a casual search of the web shows Norway has about 2/3 the unemployment of the US and in BOTH countries I have considerable doubt about what that number really means. However, since Norway has a grand total of LESS than 5 million people, there may be very particular reasons why it can maintain a lower unemployment rate.
Let's do a little digging... http://www.euro.who.int/eprise/main/who/progs/chhn or/demographic/20050131_1 Population profile About 4.6 million people were living in Norway in mid 2004. Compared to the averages for the Eur-A countries, Norway has a higher proportion of the population in the 0 to 14 years age group and a lower proportion aged 65 and over.... Norway is the only OECD country where child poverty rates are very low and continue to fall.... It should be kept in mind that national rates are based on estimates of the numbers of people available for and seeking employment and that the definitions of "labour force" and "unemployment" differ from country to country.
Like it or not- Europe made itself into a unit as of the EU. You are not quite a bunch of states like the united states yet but you are well on the path. And that's probably rightly so since many european countries have less population than some states in the united states.
As of 2004 this quote provides a basis for my earlier statement... Second, the evolution of the average European unemployment rate hides large cross-country differences. In the four large continental countries -- France, Germany, Spain, and Italy -- the unemployment rate has increased steadily and remains very high, around 10 percent. (The Spanish unemployment rate has been cut in half since its peak, but remains above 10 percent.) In a number of smaller countries, notably Ireland and the Netherlands, unemployment increased until the early 1980s, but has steadily decreased since then. Unemployment is less than 5 percent in both countries today. In a number of other countries, notably Sweden and Denmark, unemployment has remained consistently low -- except for a bout of high cyclical unemployment at the start of the 1990s. Unemployment is below 5 percent in both countries today.
---
To sum up: In my opinion, the countries comprising the EU can reasonably be treated as a unit (and it becomes more reasonable with each increase in power of the central authority). Norway is a very nice cherry picked example with some particular reasons why it is doing so well. The united states has problems -- MAJOR problems-- but you sir have drunk the kool-aid with regard to it being some kind of 3rd world country.
There are a lot of benefits to us as a group but it can be very harsh on particular individuals (such as the guy who spent 50k on training and now is being outsourced).
The european economies have a lot of protections for individuals but they sacrifice a lot of benefits as a group (which affects a lot of individuals such as students who can't get their first job).
Both have their benefits and advantages. I can't form an honest opinion since there is so much propaganda about how great things are going here and I'm sure you have the same propaganda there.
As for me personally- my life is damn good and I know it. I'm try very hard every day to keep my feet on the sucess path and avoid the 'your life is ruined' path. And it is tricky and sometimes you just have to be lucky.
There is a difference between "better" and "less than the minimum wage it takes to support a family".
Because of a very short term difference in currency values, you are a third of the price right now. These things even out. It will take roughly a decade but clearly once our currencies and economies even out some there will always be additional cost associated with hiring over seas vs having feet on the ground here.
Besides- there just are not that many *qualified* people. Already we are getting a lot of overseas people that claim skills they dont' have (just like here back in the 80's)
We are pumping money out of the country right now.
The dollar becomes less viable because of this and will decline against foreign currencies.
At some point- they will stop buying our treasury bills and the financial shows i listen to predict a fairly rapid decline of about a third in value at that point.
So virtually overnight- the cost of all these overseas workers will go up by about 50%.
All products from overseas will go up in cost by about 50%.
On top of that- these countries are already inflating fairly rapidly. Pay increases of 40% a year are not uncommon (along with rampant job hopping- we did the same back in the 80s).
I give the entire thing about eight more years. Then the few of us who managed to hold on to technical skills will become fairly valuable (I'm planning on going contract again at that point).
I think it could be an art-- but today it is mostly automatic optimizers that tune databases. Some of the tunings are counter-intuitive.
Clearly any complex setup with multiple tradeoffs and ill-defined specs requires a bit of an artist to set up. Your wiki link was nice, but many businesses don't budget enough money to do it that rigorously.
What you are saying I don't understand is *exactly* the point I'm making.
They *can* afford to purchase a big TV *if* they want a big TV. However many will choose to afford other things (gun, motorcycle, telescope, trip to europe/vegas, lottery tickets, etc.)
And just above I repeatedly argue that 32" is plenty big from 10 to 12 feet away. Perhaps you meant to respond to one of the other posters? We seem to be making the same point.
And yet people still manage to buy motorcycles, $2400 pc's, boats, vacations to disneyland, to europe, $200 shirts to go out in, $110 girls sandals,... shall I go on?
Even a person at $35k can typically afford a grand a year (under 3% of their income) for their particular hobby.
It may be going to movies, it may be going out dancing on the weekend.
I have a bud who makes half what I make and yet has a bigger TV, a newer house, and a really expensive telescope (over $3k). And he has a 2 year old. Clearly he's not saving for the two year olds college yet but that may not be his thing in life.
I had a kid too- and only finished putting her through college last year.
$1200 is only 4 months of eating at home instead of at chili's/logan's.
Man- people used to sit 8 to 10' from 25" screens.
32" were "big screens" back in the mid 90's and viewed from across the living room.
Clearly someone is defining "optimal" to some new standard. Several of the sites I see providing helpful calculators are *big screen tv sellers* which makes those calculators a little suspicious to me.
Seriously- think back-- living rooms are the same size. So either TV's used to be sitting in the middle of the room or else the "optimal" distance is getting shorter. For example- consider that 70's show living room. The couch is about 8' from a 25" console screen and it looks correct.
In any case, 57" is plenty to give me a "movie" feeling from roughly 18' away sitting on my couch.
You can get a very large phillips projection screen TV for 1199 from circuit city when it goes on sale on the major holidays. After taxes-- 1299. After taxes and service plan 1699.
That's in the budget of anyone making 50k a year and up. If it is the main thing you want in life -- it's in the budget of people making a lot less-- probably down to about $35k.
It's heavily DRM encumbered. They have a history of disabling previously working hardware without warning (HDCP, Cablecards). The standards are not settled yet and very soon there will likely be a Dual drive. The average human can't tell the difference on a 55" screen across a 20' living room from a 720p.
Some errors are a few cents. Some are easy to see. Some are very large dollar amounts and not easy to see.
For example- say you have a government withholding table built into your spreadsheet and "underwithhold" taxes by 200 grand during a year.
For example- say you are calculating your profit loss but omit some major cost (like your electric bills).
The *amount* of some errors has been large enough to destroy small businesses in some cases.
---
Businesses used to spend a lot of money checking their results (and there were *huge* errors but businesses were a lot tougher in the old days because the margins were not so thin). The problem with spreadsheets is that people start to trust that they are correct and never perform a reality check until it is too late.
So you would simply ask for a refund after the product ruined your electronic device?
That's what it does to computers now and as devices get more computer like, it may happen to other devices that you cannot reinstall or reformat. For example- several DVD recorders are basically computers that can be upgraded. They also play CD's. A CD could be designed that would patch your DVD recorder secretly so it would not be able to perform normally.
Sony got off way too light. They should have had to pay for every computer reinstall (to the tune of $70 to $100 per computer).
Slashdot Mirror
In some countries, if you ever fail at a business venture, you will never be allowed to attempt another one. The venture capital in those companies is very risk averse to people who have failed before.
Failure and success are not just labels. If you *went bankrupt* then your business *failed*.
I'm sorry but I can't really understand the rest of your post and the point you are trying to make. Perhaps you could expand on your point a bit.
A classical robot is basically an artificial human.
From Wiki:
The word robot comes from the Czech word robota, industrial labor. The word has first appeared in Karel apek's science fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1921, and has probably been invented by author's brother, painter Josef apek. See the article about Karel apek for more detailed etymological explanation.
The problem is that it has been stretched to include a lot of machines that are not as intelligent as humans.
Even if you accept a human intelligence and an Asimov-like morality, the machine may injure humans out of ignorance (like the industrial robot did) or by misinterpreting what constitutes harm. Asimov's "rules" were a mcguffin to move his stories. To explore the edges of a cleanly defined set of rules and *implicitly* included western secular values.
For example- if your robot believed in christianity it might take the view that people who believe in god should be killed as quickly as possible so they do not lose the faith (and their soul as a result). For some other religions, it might not view non-believes *as* human (and qualifying for protection). Humans do this so we shouldn't assume an intelligent machine won't do this.
But many "robots" don't have the intelligence of an ant or a pinworm. How could we expect them not to accidentally hurt people.
Clearly he thinks it belongs to the american indians who emigrated here from china about 10,000 bc.
This ignores the fact that every tract of land in Europe, china, russia, and most of the world except perhaps Australia was 'stolen' repeatedly through history with the boundaries of many countries only stabilizing in the thin sliver of recent history.
It is a fact, humans kill other humans and take their stuff (and even enslave them) in the absence of an external authority stopping them from doing so.
Well assuming it is not viral marketing or a paid shill, then I guess he really believes in gold and silver. There are quite a lot of real people out there compared to astroturfers.
It is sometimes hard to tell the difference tho!
I have read that in many countries, you get one shot and if you fail that is it. America is rife with stories of people who failed several times before they finally succeeded big-time.
The sad thing, is that since SOX was passed, I've seen things that they used to joke about in Dilbert.
For example-- recently to change *one* letter in a text file (an easy 5 minute task) took 2 people a total of 12 hours creating the required documents (impact, budget, project initiation, project activation approval, requirements, technical, test results, qa notification document) . There will also be a verifiable testing document created by the QA team as well showing that they agree the change was made which will probably consume another 2-4 hours by the qa team.
Only 5 years ago, this would have taken 5 minutes.
Once my place is paid off, I'm going to work for a smaller company for less pay where I can actually work.
Of course... nothing you are talking about is propaganda. I stand corrected.
n or/demographic/20050131_1 ... ...
oh wait... yes it is.
If you *really* think we are on par with third world countries you have a very warped view of america.
Yes- I agree with you that the rich need to be taken down a notch. The main reason they have so much power right now is the abortion and gay rights issues. The religious conservatives are giving the republican part a free ride to the wealthy as long as they make some pitiful efforts at working on those two issues. I suspect that the republicans really don't want to win on those issues and I've spoken to democrats that think abortion has to be defeated before the republicans will lose power.
However.. a casual search of the web shows Norway has about 2/3 the unemployment of the US and in BOTH countries I have considerable doubt about what that number really means. However, since Norway has a grand total of LESS than 5 million people, there may be very particular reasons why it can maintain a lower unemployment rate.
Let's do a little digging...
http://www.euro.who.int/eprise/main/who/progs/chh
Population profile
About 4.6 million people were living in Norway in mid 2004. Compared to the averages for the Eur-A countries, Norway has a higher proportion of the population in the 0 to 14 years age group and a lower proportion aged 65 and over.
Norway is the only OECD country where child poverty rates are very low and continue to fall.
It should be kept in mind that national rates are based on estimates of the numbers of people available for and seeking employment and that the definitions of "labour force" and "unemployment" differ from country to country.
Like it or not- Europe made itself into a unit as of the EU. You are not quite a bunch of states like the united states yet but you are well on the path. And that's probably rightly so since many european countries have less population than some states in the united states.
As of 2004 this quote provides a basis for my earlier statement...
Second, the evolution of the average European unemployment rate hides large cross-country differences. In the four large continental countries -- France, Germany, Spain, and Italy -- the unemployment rate has increased steadily and remains very high, around 10 percent. (The Spanish unemployment rate has been cut in half since its peak, but remains above 10 percent.) In a number of smaller countries, notably Ireland and the Netherlands, unemployment increased until the early 1980s, but has steadily decreased since then. Unemployment is less than 5 percent in both countries today. In a number of other countries, notably Sweden and Denmark, unemployment has remained consistently low -- except for a bout of high cyclical unemployment at the start of the 1990s. Unemployment is below 5 percent in both countries today.
---
To sum up: In my opinion, the countries comprising the EU can reasonably be treated as a unit (and it becomes more reasonable
with each increase in power of the central authority). Norway is a very nice cherry picked example with some particular reasons why it is doing so well. The united states has problems -- MAJOR problems-- but you sir have drunk the kool-aid with regard to it being some kind of 3rd world country.
America has a pretty ruthless economy.
There are a lot of benefits to us as a group but it can be very harsh on particular individuals (such as the guy who spent 50k on training and now is being outsourced).
The european economies have a lot of protections for individuals but they sacrifice a lot of benefits as a group (which affects a lot of individuals such as students who can't get their first job).
Both have their benefits and advantages. I can't form an honest opinion since there is so much propaganda about how great things are going here and I'm sure you have the same propaganda there.
As for me personally- my life is damn good and I know it. I'm try very hard every day to keep my feet on the sucess path and avoid the 'your life is ruined' path. And it is tricky and sometimes you just have to be lucky.
Oh come on- this wasn't a troll- it was a joke.
LOL
There is a difference between "better" and "less than the minimum wage it takes to support a family".
Because of a very short term difference in currency values, you are a third of the price right now. These things even out. It will take roughly a decade but clearly once our currencies and economies even out some there will always be additional cost associated with hiring over seas vs having feet on the ground here.
Besides- there just are not that many *qualified* people. Already we are getting a lot of overseas people that claim skills they dont' have (just like here back in the 80's)
We are pumping money out of the country right now.
The dollar becomes less viable because of this and will decline against foreign currencies.
At some point- they will stop buying our treasury bills and the financial shows i listen to predict a fairly rapid decline of about a third in value at that point.
So virtually overnight- the cost of all these overseas workers will go up by about 50%.
All products from overseas will go up in cost by about 50%.
On top of that- these countries are already inflating fairly rapidly. Pay increases of 40% a year are not uncommon (along with rampant job hopping- we did the same back in the 80s).
I give the entire thing about eight more years. Then the few of us who managed to hold on to technical skills will become fairly valuable (I'm planning on going contract again at that point).
always survives nuclear missile (which kills fist... which kills mutated cockroach).
or something like that. (70's show I think?)
I think it could be an art-- but today it is mostly automatic optimizers that tune databases.
Some of the tunings are counter-intuitive.
Clearly any complex setup with multiple tradeoffs and ill-defined specs requires a bit of an artist to set up. Your wiki link was nice, but many businesses don't budget enough money to do it that rigorously.
Are you even reading what I'm typing?
What you are saying I don't understand is *exactly* the point I'm making.
They *can* afford to purchase a big TV *if* they want a big TV. However many will choose to afford other things (gun, motorcycle, telescope, trip to europe/vegas, lottery tickets, etc.)
And just above I repeatedly argue that 32" is plenty big from 10 to 12 feet away. Perhaps you meant to respond to one of the other posters? We seem to be making the same point.
Thinking back, I remember waiting a lot of times while Blizard did some extra polishing instead of releasing the product on the original schedule.
Perhaps Blizzard has lost less customers because of buggy early releases.
And yet people still manage to buy motorcycles, $2400 pc's, boats, vacations to disneyland, to europe, $200 shirts to go out in, $110 girls sandals, ... shall I go on?
Even a person at $35k can typically afford a grand a year (under 3% of their income) for their particular hobby.
It may be going to movies, it may be going out dancing on the weekend.
I have a bud who makes half what I make and yet has a bigger TV, a newer house, and a really expensive telescope (over $3k). And he has a 2 year old. Clearly he's not saving for the two year olds college yet but that may not be his thing in life.
I had a kid too- and only finished putting her through college last year.
$1200 is only 4 months of eating at home instead of at chili's/logan's.
LoL.
Man- people used to sit 8 to 10' from 25" screens.
32" were "big screens" back in the mid 90's and viewed from across the living room.
Clearly someone is defining "optimal" to some new standard. Several of the sites I see providing helpful calculators are *big screen tv sellers* which makes those calculators a little suspicious to me.
Seriously- think back-- living rooms are the same size. So either TV's used to be sitting in the middle of the room or else the "optimal" distance is getting shorter. For example- consider that 70's show living room. The couch is about 8' from a 25" console screen and it looks correct.
In any case, 57" is plenty to give me a "movie" feeling from roughly 18' away sitting on my couch.
I guess it depends on what you define as "rich".
You can get a very large phillips projection screen TV for 1199 from circuit city when it goes on sale on the major holidays. After taxes-- 1299. After taxes and service plan 1699.
That's in the budget of anyone making 50k a year and up. If it is the main thing you want in life -- it's in the budget of people making a lot less-- probably down to about $35k.
Agree with the AC poster.
We are getting some wierd moderating around here lately.
There is no way the above post was a "troll".
My living room is 22'x12'. I have a 57" tv. Sitting on the couch, my head is about that 19' from the front of the screen. It seems large.
My god man- when I go to my friend's house we are a good 15' from a 32" TV and it is big enough.
I think you may be sitting a bit too close.
It's heavily DRM encumbered.
They have a history of disabling previously working hardware without warning (HDCP, Cablecards).
The standards are not settled yet and very soon there will likely be a Dual drive.
The average human can't tell the difference on a 55" screen across a 20' living room from a 720p.
In my opinion, you should be able to boot a system from a CD and clean it by comparing it to a known "clean" system for all system files.
The error rate is 1%.
Some errors are a few cents. Some are easy to see. Some are very large dollar amounts and not easy to see.
For example- say you have a government withholding table built into your spreadsheet and "underwithhold" taxes by 200 grand during a year.
For example- say you are calculating your profit loss but omit some major cost (like your electric bills).
The *amount* of some errors has been large enough to destroy small businesses in some cases.
---
Businesses used to spend a lot of money checking their results (and there were *huge* errors but businesses were a lot tougher in the old days because the margins were not so thin). The problem with spreadsheets is that people start to trust that they are correct and never perform a reality check until it is too late.
So you would simply ask for a refund after the product ruined your electronic device?
That's what it does to computers now and as devices get more computer like, it may happen to other devices that you cannot reinstall or reformat. For example- several DVD recorders are basically computers that can be upgraded. They also play CD's. A CD could be designed that would patch your DVD recorder secretly so it would not be able to perform normally.
Sony got off way too light. They should have had to pay for every computer reinstall (to the tune of $70 to $100 per computer).
I owned betamax and vhs.
VHS was *never* even close to betamax in terms of image quality.
But it had 6 hour (and some 8 hour) tapes instead of 5.5 hour tapes.