"What percentage of that market is going to say, "What, I can't get the manual in a non-.doc format?! You'll not get my business again!"
Up to about 10%. If they don't do it now is because they don't think to have an alternative. That's what marketing is for.
I myself have bought computers for total amounts in the tens of thousands US$ out of Linux compatibility as selective reason.
"I submit to you that they're removing themselves from the gene pool because anyone who's that completely rigid about such a ridiculous thing has almost no chance of producing offspring that will survive to adulthood."
My current spring is quite on his way to reach adulthood, thank you very much.
"The link forwards to a conversation between Wikipedia admins. It seems like there is just one user being a prick."
Yeah. And, as admins, they should know better.
Vandalizing is a *people* affair. IP addresses are a *computer* affair. They shouldn't try computer-level solutions to people-level problems. It never works.
"Try asking someone in Europe how important they think it is for Germany, or France or the UK to have a leading position in terms of supercomputing capability. It just doesn't feature on the radar for them."
Well, being Germany the 2nd world's biggest exporter (surpassed only by China some few months ago) maybe they are not all at arts and literature only.
"I visited some technical factories in China earlier this year and they have gotten to the point where they know they have a high, high turnover rate. The average worker jumps ship in 18 months to get a much, much higher salary."
This means nothing but that those companies will need to be much less labour intensive. To-date, due to very low wages they chose man labour against automations every day; luckily for them (and for companies selling these kinds of automations) they have a big and obvious path for optimization by automation (in some cases you can find the same kind of factory that currently uses 1000 workers in China totally automated in Japan with just 2 or three workers).
"CTO: it'll cost about $2000 per employee to retrain all our employees due to cost of trainers and time off for training. In addition, we nned to spend more money to convert our archived documents. CEO: don't forget to include the cost in changing how we work with our suppliers and partners GM: rofl, exec3 you stupid"
Exec3 (to the GM): Hummm... not to tell our CTO/CEO are wrong, but our internal data tells that luckily PDF transforming can be done as an outbound end process on 0.001 cents per doc, it won't affect any of our current customers and it will increase our market target by 10% which is the penetration for Linux on our products, opening a low rivality niche with an expected market cap for our company of 25% out from our current 2% (see exhibit #1 on really shiny colours). Now, please see the end result (thanks, Techwriter 1). With this, theoretical ROI will be less than a week with market cash results within a month and expected net benefits increased by 2.5% this year (see exhibit #2 on really shiny colours too). Oh, and I have other ideas for streamlining our production costs. GM: Humm... Exec3; tomorrow morning I'll be playing golf with Stockholder1; do you want to come with us?
"Exec1: Some random guy who at some point bought _one_ of our mainboards, making us around 0.1 cents of profit, who may or may not buy more of our products, asks us to change our process. Exec2: *rotfl*"
Exec3: How much does it cost us our current process? Would it be cheaper to change it to cover that guy instead of sending him to our rivals? Would that have any effect in the rest of our client base? General Manager: What do you think are you laughing at, Exec2?
"I hate taxes as much as anyone, but I really think paying (good) teachers top dollar is one of the best moves any country can make to ensure their economic future."
I'm with you, but I think that we still should be cynical prior to think on rising teacher's wages.
The interesting point is *good* teachers. Since it doesn't seem we have a problem now recluting teachers because it's a very vocational job (the one starting this thread would throw away a job paying 30% more because it's not teaching), we should focus on being *very* sure the ones we are recluting are certainly the best over the best. Once we can be sure our selection method is up to that standard, we could progressively rise wages as long as there were uncovered vacancies.
Oh! and that's not because I'm a cheap bastard but because: 1) I really think the critical problem is teachers' quality, and it's a difficult one to cope with. 2) If the salary is rised too much it could attract all kind of people "only for the money" and then, see previous point.
"I can kind of understand the decision. If someone gets hacked, is the Fedora distribution liable for providing the tool? (Similar to how you can be charged with Accessory to Murder for providing a weapon, or an ISP is now somehow responsible for any illegal traffic.)"
When was the last time Colt or Smith & Wesson were charged with Accessory to Murder?
"I understand that the people who only understand buzzwords are blindly seeking a particular match, but if they were smart, they would look instead for a person who was a skilled designer of software"
Who is hiring, now? The people who only understand buzzwords or the smart ones?
If you want to be hireable you want to fit to the ones hiring, don't you?
Re:Think carefully. Do you want to be close to MS?
on
Which Language To Learn?
·
· Score: 5, Funny
"Do you really want people easily de-compiling your code?"
Not!!! That's why I program in Perl, so people can't decompile even my *source* code.
"Two months after taking a job teaching math at the worst high school in the district, making $42k and working 7:30 - 7:30, I walked by a Wendy's posting wanted signs for a manager at $55k. Sigh."
"However, I really wish they offered better phones. Verizon gets the flagship Android phones."
That's a completely different issue. We were talking here about the company providing *only* the service and you wish *they* would provide better phones? Buy the one you want directly from the phone company (HTC, Samsung, Nokia...)
"When the dominant model is to buy the phone with the plan"
Have you thought that it might be the case that that's the dominant model because that's all the telcos offer?
Nobody is telling that telcos should gift away expensive smartphones but that you should be able to choose between a locked subsidized mobile with a data plan *or* a cheaper data plan without the mobile.
"Especially when considering price, amazon really charges boatloads of cash for relatively trivial resources."
How they won't while there are not real competitors? Cloud computing by current standards (that's to say, those stablished by Amazon) has big entry costs but, if you really think Amazon is really so much overcharging, hey, that's your opportunity of becoming millonaire by downpricing them!
But virtual machines plus on-demand self-servicing, plus elasticity on the number of deployed machines, plus per usage billing *is* cloud computing (of the IaaS kind, to be precise).
"You assume that government prints the money rather than paying it out of taxes already received."
No need to assume anything: in any case is money able to be privately expended instead of not being there. In both cases people comes from being able to expend "some" to be able to expend "some plus delta". This directly goes to prices rising "delta" unless productivity rises equally which is not the case (and no, imports don't count here, since they go against foreign debt).
"That doesn't mean however that arbitrage is without value. Price convergence is a common result of arbitrage and it tends to reduce price discrimination."
That's common wisdom but all those things are only true when an implicit is acomplished: arbitrage should offer an intrinsic value in exchange for the benefits it pumps off the system, usually making ends meet that otherwise wouldn't have met.
The exemplary arbitrage system is the silk route: it takes something from where it is more abundant/less valued to where it is scarce/more valued. Pay attention that value comes from relative scarcity. In exchange for fulfilling a useful task (providing something valued where it was scarce) the trader takes a benefit.
But that's not the case on "arbitrage-per-the-arbitrage" situations: they just take off a share that won't be used anywhere else (within the confined system) in exchange of anything; the seller and the buyer would meet each other nevertheless, so the arbitrage becomes a pure inefficency of the system.
"Without the ability to exploit price spreads profit is impossible."
If you limit yourself to be a trader, not a producer, that's true. But then, if you by trading don't add some value to the chain (like making some products avaliable where they wouldn't be otherwise), why the heck should you expect any profit to start with?
"I don't get why we can't even just have one-day ticks."
I used to think the same, but now I feel some things are still untied.
"Every day an order book accumulates, and at 5PM the exchange executes everything at the price that generates the most volume."
It still would make it worth waiting to 4PM to order in case there are interesting late news. And then waiting till 4:50, 4:59, 4:59:59...
"Within a price orders are executed in random order."
Then I'd make sure not to issue a 10 million dollars order but 10 million orders for one dollar (or a cent, or a millicent or whatever is the lowest order).
"the insiders don't have nearly the same advantage (getting news 15 minutes early can make a HUGE difference today)"
But insiders still could take advantage of news produced at 4:59 that, depending on the system other couldn't take advantage of.
"You could even make the trade settlement time midnight or something like that so that it is well after the business day so that last-minute news has more time to get around."
You know the world is round and economy is global, don't you?
"Yes, Borland is the first that comes in mind. Well, it's time to start a new company based on ideals that permeated Borland, SUN, SGI and all other pioneers of open standards."
That's all well and good, you know, but... how do you expect to monetize those ideals?
I try to imagine somebody going to a VC firm saying he's gonna try to retake the ideals that permeated Borland, Sun and SGI. I think the first the VC people would say is "What? those companies that broke? Why do you think taking visions that broke those companies is such a good idea?"
"You may laugh at this idea, but imagine if, instead of paying the Federal Government 35 percent of your income, you pay 10 percent to cover things like roads and defense. On an income of 70,000 per year, you have 17,000 in tax savings that you can put to work with like-minded people. Suppose you organize 2000 people in Toronto to start a foundation with a mission to pay for health-care for the indigent in Toronto."
Suppose you don't, and you take your money for you. Suppose you do, but the majority around you, do not.
Slashdot Mirror
"What percentage of that market is going to say, "What, I can't get the manual in a non-.doc format?! You'll not get my business again!"
Up to about 10%. If they don't do it now is because they don't think to have an alternative. That's what marketing is for.
I myself have bought computers for total amounts in the tens of thousands US$ out of Linux compatibility as selective reason.
"I submit to you that they're removing themselves from the gene pool because anyone who's that completely rigid about such a ridiculous thing has almost no chance of producing offspring that will survive to adulthood."
My current spring is quite on his way to reach adulthood, thank you very much.
"The link forwards to a conversation between Wikipedia admins. It seems like there is just one user being a prick."
Yeah. And, as admins, they should know better.
Vandalizing is a *people* affair. IP addresses are a *computer* affair. They shouldn't try computer-level solutions to people-level problems. It never works.
"Try asking someone in Europe how important they think it is for Germany, or France or the UK to have a leading position in terms of supercomputing capability. It just doesn't feature on the radar for them."
Well, being Germany the 2nd world's biggest exporter (surpassed only by China some few months ago) maybe they are not all at arts and literature only.
"I visited some technical factories in China earlier this year and they have gotten to the point where they know they have a high, high turnover rate. The average worker jumps ship in 18 months to get a much, much higher salary."
This means nothing but that those companies will need to be much less labour intensive. To-date, due to very low wages they chose man labour against automations every day; luckily for them (and for companies selling these kinds of automations) they have a big and obvious path for optimization by automation (in some cases you can find the same kind of factory that currently uses 1000 workers in China totally automated in Japan with just 2 or three workers).
"CTO: it'll cost about $2000 per employee to retrain all our employees due to cost of trainers and time off for training. In addition, we nned to spend more money to convert our archived documents.
CEO: don't forget to include the cost in changing how we work with our suppliers and partners
GM: rofl, exec3 you stupid"
Exec3 (to the GM): Hummm... not to tell our CTO/CEO are wrong, but our internal data tells that luckily PDF transforming can be done as an outbound end process on 0.001 cents per doc, it won't affect any of our current customers and it will increase our market target by 10% which is the penetration for Linux on our products, opening a low rivality niche with an expected market cap for our company of 25% out from our current 2% (see exhibit #1 on really shiny colours). Now, please see the end result (thanks, Techwriter 1). With this, theoretical ROI will be less than a week with market cash results within a month and expected net benefits increased by 2.5% this year (see exhibit #2 on really shiny colours too). Oh, and I have other ideas for streamlining our production costs.
GM: Humm... Exec3; tomorrow morning I'll be playing golf with Stockholder1; do you want to come with us?
"Exec1: Some random guy who at some point bought _one_ of our mainboards, making us around 0.1 cents of profit, who may or may not buy more of our products, asks us to change our process.
Exec2: *rotfl*"
Exec3: How much does it cost us our current process? Would it be cheaper to change it to cover that guy instead of sending him to our rivals? Would that have any effect in the rest of our client base?
General Manager: What do you think are you laughing at, Exec2?
"I hate taxes as much as anyone, but I really think paying (good) teachers top dollar is one of the best moves any country can make to ensure their economic future."
I'm with you, but I think that we still should be cynical prior to think on rising teacher's wages.
The interesting point is *good* teachers. Since it doesn't seem we have a problem now recluting teachers because it's a very vocational job (the one starting this thread would throw away a job paying 30% more because it's not teaching), we should focus on being *very* sure the ones we are recluting are certainly the best over the best. Once we can be sure our selection method is up to that standard, we could progressively rise wages as long as there were uncovered vacancies.
Oh! and that's not because I'm a cheap bastard but because:
1) I really think the critical problem is teachers' quality, and it's a difficult one to cope with.
2) If the salary is rised too much it could attract all kind of people "only for the money" and then, see previous point.
"I can kind of understand the decision. If someone gets hacked, is the Fedora distribution liable for providing the tool? (Similar to how you can be charged with Accessory to Murder for providing a weapon, or an ISP is now somehow responsible for any illegal traffic.)"
When was the last time Colt or Smith & Wesson were charged with Accessory to Murder?
"I like teaching."
Why were you whinning, then?
"I understand that the people who only understand buzzwords are blindly seeking a particular match, but if they were smart, they would look instead for a person who was a skilled designer of software"
Who is hiring, now? The people who only understand buzzwords or the smart ones?
If you want to be hireable you want to fit to the ones hiring, don't you?
"Do you really want people easily de-compiling your code?"
Not!!! That's why I program in Perl, so people can't decompile even my *source* code.
"Two months after taking a job teaching math at the worst high school in the district, making $42k and working 7:30 - 7:30, I walked by a Wendy's posting wanted signs for a manager at $55k. Sigh."
Why didn't you take it, then?
"However, I really wish they offered better phones. Verizon gets the flagship Android phones."
That's a completely different issue. We were talking here about the company providing *only* the service and you wish *they* would provide better phones? Buy the one you want directly from the phone company (HTC, Samsung, Nokia...)
"When the dominant model is to buy the phone with the plan"
Have you thought that it might be the case that that's the dominant model because that's all the telcos offer?
Nobody is telling that telcos should gift away expensive smartphones but that you should be able to choose between a locked subsidized mobile with a data plan *or* a cheaper data plan without the mobile.
"Something like Gmail is clearly a "cloud" service."
Yes. Of the SaaS kind.
"Amazon, for its part"
Is cloud computing too, of the IaaS kind.
How this gets so hard to understand?
"Especially when considering price, amazon really charges boatloads of cash for relatively trivial resources."
How they won't while there are not real competitors? Cloud computing by current standards (that's to say, those stablished by Amazon) has big entry costs but, if you really think Amazon is really so much overcharging, hey, that's your opportunity of becoming millonaire by downpricing them!
"Virtual machines are not true cloud computing."
True.
But virtual machines plus on-demand self-servicing, plus elasticity on the number of deployed machines, plus per usage billing *is* cloud computing (of the IaaS kind, to be precise).
And that's exactly what they are asking for.
"Identifying the problem class and the appropriate strategy to solve it is hard"
And that's exactly what professional mathematicians expends their entire lifes with.
I really don't see what are the (mental) skill set differences between programming and applied maths, but I certainly would accept enlightment.
"You assume that government prints the money rather than paying it out of taxes already received."
No need to assume anything: in any case is money able to be privately expended instead of not being there. In both cases people comes from being able to expend "some" to be able to expend "some plus delta". This directly goes to prices rising "delta" unless productivity rises equally which is not the case (and no, imports don't count here, since they go against foreign debt).
"That doesn't mean however that arbitrage is without value. Price convergence is a common result of arbitrage and it tends to reduce price discrimination."
That's common wisdom but all those things are only true when an implicit is acomplished: arbitrage should offer an intrinsic value in exchange for the benefits it pumps off the system, usually making ends meet that otherwise wouldn't have met.
The exemplary arbitrage system is the silk route: it takes something from where it is more abundant/less valued to where it is scarce/more valued. Pay attention that value comes from relative scarcity. In exchange for fulfilling a useful task (providing something valued where it was scarce) the trader takes a benefit.
But that's not the case on "arbitrage-per-the-arbitrage" situations: they just take off a share that won't be used anywhere else (within the confined system) in exchange of anything; the seller and the buyer would meet each other nevertheless, so the arbitrage becomes a pure inefficency of the system.
"Without the ability to exploit price spreads profit is impossible."
If you limit yourself to be a trader, not a producer, that's true. But then, if you by trading don't add some value to the chain (like making some products avaliable where they wouldn't be otherwise), why the heck should you expect any profit to start with?
"I don't get why we can't even just have one-day ticks."
I used to think the same, but now I feel some things are still untied.
"Every day an order book accumulates, and at 5PM the exchange executes everything at the price that generates the most volume."
It still would make it worth waiting to 4PM to order in case there are interesting late news. And then waiting till 4:50, 4:59, 4:59:59...
"Within a price orders are executed in random order."
Then I'd make sure not to issue a 10 million dollars order but 10 million orders for one dollar (or a cent, or a millicent or whatever is the lowest order).
"the insiders don't have nearly the same advantage (getting news 15 minutes early can make a HUGE difference today)"
But insiders still could take advantage of news produced at 4:59 that, depending on the system other couldn't take advantage of.
"You could even make the trade settlement time midnight or something like that so that it is well after the business day so that last-minute news has more time to get around."
You know the world is round and economy is global, don't you?
"Why would people stop comparison-shopping? Cash is fungible. A $100k bonus to buy a house isn't - it can only be used for one thing."
Because it makes exactly 0 differences. As soon as you increase overall money without acting on overall productivity you get inflation.
"Yes, Borland is the first that comes in mind. Well, it's time to start a new company based on ideals that permeated Borland, SUN, SGI and all other pioneers of open standards."
That's all well and good, you know, but... how do you expect to monetize those ideals?
I try to imagine somebody going to a VC firm saying he's gonna try to retake the ideals that permeated Borland, Sun and SGI. I think the first the VC people would say is "What? those companies that broke? Why do you think taking visions that broke those companies is such a good idea?"
"We're not committing economic suicide"
Have a look at your foreign debt, have a look at who is buying it and repeat that on straight face.
"You may laugh at this idea, but imagine if, instead of paying the Federal Government 35 percent of your income, you pay 10 percent to cover things like roads and defense. On an income of 70,000 per year, you have 17,000 in tax savings that you can put to work with like-minded people. Suppose you organize 2000 people in Toronto to start a foundation with a mission to pay for health-care for the indigent in Toronto."
Suppose you don't, and you take your money for you. Suppose you do, but the majority around you, do not.