The thing is, economics is about the accumulation of things that are desirable (ie, "goods") for oneself (whether one happens to be a person, or a fictional entity like a corporation).
Money is not the only valuable thing. It's just the one that's easiest to measure, and it's pretty much universally exchangeable too.
One might assign a positive economic value to having clean air to breathe and clean water to use. One might also assign a positive value to, say, a legal environment that allows free experimentation with other people's inventions, and the right to improve upon them. One might say that freedom of speech in China is worth something.
All of those things cost money, and until there's a way to identify such intangible and semi-tangible social benefits and account for them (i.e., be rewared for accumulating them) properly, people and corporations will continue to accumulate money only.
That said, it's not Cisco's job to solve this problem unilaterally. Perhaps governments should impose regulation on such vendors that encourage the development of the social effects we want. By effectively imposing a tax on the entire industry, the operating environment changes and corporate innovation is steered a bit.
But of course there's no such thing as a global government with such power, and if Cisco and Juniper were subject to such regulateion, Huawei would not be. This is international trade for you.
It's great to see an investment in creative work, particularly one that will employ lots of people and deliver their work to a potentially large audience.
But does anyone else wonder about authenticity? The producers here appear to be saying, let's make lots of films and market them as cheesy B-movies. The cheesiness is part of the appeal! We'll sell them as B-movies, which everyone knows are funny precisely because they weren't intended to be so.
I'm not a movie expert, but a proper B-movie wouldn't be sold as such, at least not to the public at large.
My point: This project should be an opportunity for new writers, directors, et cetera to tell excellent sci-fi stories. If the effects or other production values can't be up to "Independence Day" spec, then fine. But the emphasis should be on the storytelling, not on the "cheap" nature of the production.
My daughter is too little to care yet, but I'm really looking forward to sharing my aviation hobby with her. I want to do this for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is that aviation represents a very good balance between nature, technology, and social behaviour.
Nature: It's all about physics and energy management, of course, and the physical beauty of nature can be striking from a small airplane.
Technology: While it's great fun to bumble around with no particular destination in mind, landing at country strips as the mood strikes you, it's equally but differently satisfying to plan a complicated route and use radio and satellite navigation to hit waypoints within seconds of prediction.
Society: To be a good pilot, and even just a safe one for that matter, you have to think about the other people around you. What do they (other pilots, the air-traffic controllers and other regulators, the people who are trying to sleep under your glide path early on Sunday morning) want?
Anyway, light aviation is the perfect balance between beauty and precision, and between nature and technology.
Exactly my point. I did make my education my own responsibility, and continue to do so -- on my own time as you said.
I would have more of "my own time" if I hadn't been at the university. I went because it was expected, but in retrospect it was generally a waste.
We don't disagree.
Bravo to Jobs for speaking the truth. Universities, American ones anyway, are largely a waste of time. They're commercial enterprises above all, and for that reason they inflate grades to keep students in place and corrupt research in order to attract grants.
I took a four-year degree from a reputable American school and thought it largely a waste of time. I had some worthwhile experiences, but the good parts could have fit into two or three semesters. It was basically a rip-off, and everything I do professionally today is the result of self-education and experience.
When my daughter grows up, I will propose to her that she read and travel (rigorously) instead of taking a formal degree.
A phone that connects by means of VoIP is a phone, first and most importantly. It is, among other things, what people pick up in a panic when they need help urgently.
A phone is not just a network device that generates a particular sort of traffic on the IP network. It is a telephone, and telephones are special.
I work with VoIP, and this is the key disconnect between "voice people" and "data people." Data people think VoIP phones are just network devices with some special performance requirements. Voice people know that voice is culturally significant in ways that other network services are not.
This is essence of the VoIP battle between Cisco on one side and Nortel/Alcatel/Avaya/etc on the other.
A another important emergency services question is how to deal with people here in Australia who, in a panic, dial "911" because they saw it on American television shows, when in fact the correct number here is "000."
Slashdot Mirror
Oi Oi Oi!
The thing is, economics is about the accumulation of things that are desirable (ie, "goods") for oneself (whether one happens to be a person, or a fictional entity like a corporation).
Money is not the only valuable thing. It's just the one that's easiest to measure, and it's pretty much universally exchangeable too.
One might assign a positive economic value to having clean air to breathe and clean water to use. One might also assign a positive value to, say, a legal environment that allows free experimentation with other people's inventions, and the right to improve upon them. One might say that freedom of speech in China is worth something.
All of those things cost money, and until there's a way to identify such intangible and semi-tangible social benefits and account for them (i.e., be rewared for accumulating them) properly, people and corporations will continue to accumulate money only.
That said, it's not Cisco's job to solve this problem unilaterally. Perhaps governments should impose regulation on such vendors that encourage the development of the social effects we want. By effectively imposing a tax on the entire industry, the operating environment changes and corporate innovation is steered a bit.
But of course there's no such thing as a global government with such power, and if Cisco and Juniper were subject to such regulateion, Huawei would not be. This is international trade for you.
Whoa, dude.
I am so toasted, in a high manner.
It's great to see an investment in creative work, particularly one that will employ lots of people and deliver their work to a potentially large audience.
But does anyone else wonder about authenticity? The producers here appear to be saying, let's make lots of films and market them as cheesy B-movies. The cheesiness is part of the appeal! We'll sell them as B-movies, which everyone knows are funny precisely because they weren't intended to be so.
I'm not a movie expert, but a proper B-movie wouldn't be sold as such, at least not to the public at large.
My point: This project should be an opportunity for new writers, directors, et cetera to tell excellent sci-fi stories. If the effects or other production values can't be up to "Independence Day" spec, then fine. But the emphasis should be on the storytelling, not on the "cheap" nature of the production.
I find that I can switch back and forth between QWERTY (for English) and AZERTY (for French) pretty easily.
East of what?
My daughter is too little to care yet, but I'm really looking forward to sharing my aviation hobby with her. I want to do this for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is that aviation represents a very good balance between nature, technology, and social behaviour.
Nature: It's all about physics and energy management, of course, and the physical beauty of nature can be striking from a small airplane.
Technology: While it's great fun to bumble around with no particular destination in mind, landing at country strips as the mood strikes you, it's equally but differently satisfying to plan a complicated route and use radio and satellite navigation to hit waypoints within seconds of prediction.
Society: To be a good pilot, and even just a safe one for that matter, you have to think about the other people around you. What do they (other pilots, the air-traffic controllers and other regulators, the people who are trying to sleep under your glide path early on Sunday morning) want?
Anyway, light aviation is the perfect balance between beauty and precision, and between nature and technology.
Exactly my point. I did make my education my own responsibility, and continue to do so -- on my own time as you said. I would have more of "my own time" if I hadn't been at the university. I went because it was expected, but in retrospect it was generally a waste. We don't disagree.
Bravo to Jobs for speaking the truth. Universities, American ones anyway, are largely a waste of time. They're commercial enterprises above all, and for that reason they inflate grades to keep students in place and corrupt research in order to attract grants.
I took a four-year degree from a reputable American school and thought it largely a waste of time. I had some worthwhile experiences, but the good parts could have fit into two or three semesters. It was basically a rip-off, and everything I do professionally today is the result of self-education and experience.
When my daughter grows up, I will propose to her that she read and travel (rigorously) instead of taking a formal degree.
I'm delighted to learn that the crew of the Enterprise has put together a cricket team.
Telephones are special devices.
A phone that connects by means of VoIP is a phone, first and most importantly. It is, among other things, what people pick up in a panic when they need help urgently.
A phone is not just a network device that generates a particular sort of traffic on the IP network. It is a telephone, and telephones are special.
I work with VoIP, and this is the key disconnect between "voice people" and "data people." Data people think VoIP phones are just network devices with some special performance requirements. Voice people know that voice is culturally significant in ways that other network services are not.
This is essence of the VoIP battle between Cisco on one side and Nortel/Alcatel/Avaya/etc on the other.
A another important emergency services question is how to deal with people here in Australia who, in a panic, dial "911" because they saw it on American television shows, when in fact the correct number here is "000."
That is, "Data hate when you anthropomorphize them."