Perhaps cutting the jobs will save more money more quickly, but the long term costs will likely be exorbitant in terms of work lost. Some of the work loss cost they're incurring now, in hopes that the value that the work lost is less valuable than the money saved. Some of the work lost will stay with them, in the form of demoralized employees. Some of it will may never go away, if some of those laid off have strong working relationships with people outside the company - contractors, vendors, or otherwise.
If the executives had cut their own salaries, they could layed off fewer people. They could have been more selective instead of almost literally decimating their own ranks. But these days, corporate executives (and legislators too) seem to approve cuts in their own pay about as often as a Pope converts to Islam.
We have impossibly kawaii (moe?) set side by side with "Takeitaway! Takeitaway! DearHeavensNo!" It's official. Japanese designers just don't know when to quit.
quoth the parent: "Let's make a comparison: when you write a novel, the publishing house - before publishing - hire an editor to proof read what you've written. Because you missed out on some stuff, for sure. It's just goddamn impossible to be perfect (sic!). You need someone objective, and who's closer to the audience. That's what the producer is good for. He'll have totally new ideas, he'll have suggestions and most of all: he's likely to have a lot more experience than you have. You'll need that."
I like your comparison a great deal. I'm not an author (merely aspiring to be so), but having watched a relative get taken for a ride by XLibris (or a company of the same ilk) and having tried to puzzle out how I'll avoid the same fate, I think I have some sense of the wide gap in value between the average book published by self or subsidy as compared to the average book picked up by a legitimate publishing house. I can't say that every book that comes out in trade paper from Tor, Bantam, or Baen is flawless (or even good). I can't say that every author who publishes through a vanity publisher is a hopeless hack. I certainly can't vouch for the quality typesetting of a purely self-published author.
I can, however, apply certain heuristics in evaluating the three classes of book (and author). From pro-published books and authors, I can expect a certain degree of polish. I may not like the writing style of the author in question, but I can expect not to see above one or two typographical errors in a full-length novel. I can expect the paper and ink to be of reasonable quality. If the book disintegrates, I clearly wasn't being sufficiently gentle. (I can be hard on trade paper.) From strictly self-published authors, I can also expect a degree of sophisication. In this day and age, with teh intarwebs spangled with bogus publishers and warnings against them, a person who deliberately avoids the author mills shows a degree of insight and demonstrates that he cares more about the text than about the author. If these authors interests co-incide with mine, they're worth a look. If they don't, at least they were smart enough to dodge Xlibris or PublishAmerica. Finally, van-published authors may be worth a look, but I can reasonably expect the "publisher" to phone it in - the typesetting will be shoddy, the editting (line/and/ structural) will be half-arsed. The text itself will come to me more or less as the author sent it in for 'consideration.' If the author was diligent, produced multiple drafts, thought about the writing process, and had his work read and editted by capable friends and family, the text might still be good. If he merely dashed off a draft and bought his publishing deal, then it will be lamentable.
From your comments, the gap between the signed and the unsigned artist is similar. An author may not need to build a sound-proof room in which to work, but he is still likely to lack necessary experience. Later projects may benefit from his own harsh assessment of earlier works, but however harsh he allows himself to be or invites those around him to be, he is still too close to his own work to know its value to others. That, as you said, is the publisher/producer's function.
Industrialization is in its infancy only if one makes a straight, one-to-one comparison between time elapsed since the first planted crop with time elasped since the first operational factory. I think that metric is flawed, as it assumes that a year in the 1st or 2d century BC has the same production and innovation value as a year in the 19th or 20th century AD. Industrial processes have brought agriculture as close to maturity as possible considering the variables (quantity of sun and rain, quality of soil). I do agree, however, that we are pre-historic in terms of space travel and are more like the first tribes of humans teaching themselves to knap flint than the tribes which followed them (and taught themselves to grow gardens).
What amuses me is that this decision simultaneously annoys both the current administration and the People for the American Way. With opponents like that, it must be a good decision.:)
Ah, yes: run multiple jobs. That seems to work. Or, if the mother process doesn't lock up, let her run jobs as well before she starts to instantiate the child process, so you can both store future inputs.
My preference is to maintain a single mother process and as many child processes as come along. Usually, the child processes are spawned serially, but occasionally the instance forks spontaneously. In those cases, just hope and pray for a small number of child processes of the same byte-sex. That way you can delay drive partitioning for years. Eventually, each process will need its own semi-private/proc space, of course.
There is, however, the problem of process upkeep. One child process is a resource-hog. Multiple child processes seem to consume resources exponentially rather than linearly. How do you propose to optimize bandwidth to the mother process(es), supply sufficient inputs to the child process(es), or redirect the child process(es)' regularly scheduled core dumps? As a note, mother and child processes don't respond well to preemptive multitasking.
That's just it: I don't feel like cleaning it up. It's perfect already. It's syntactically correct, functionally correct, and appropriate in context. What's to fix?
A mod point, a mod point, my kingdom for a mod point.
I would mod you up +1 funny for that bit of obfuscation. Intentional or otherwise, the indirection of that algorithm (which I know you got elsewhere, for I've read your comment to another reply already) and your decision not to streamline it is a commentary in and of itself. Well played, fellow/.er.
I've felt a great disturbance in the comment queue, as if a grepload of slashdotters all thought of the same joke at once . . . and then tried to post it.
Anthill one: We have one atom of Weapons-grade uranium, and we know how to use it!
Anthill two: We have three atoms and we're not afraid to use them!
Anti-nuke protest ants: You must dismantle your weapons! No nukes in the back yard! The walking mountains and the walking forests already have weapons and sprays! Bite them, not each other!
Anthill three, which never admitted it also had Uranium atoms Ok. We'll dismantle our weapon. *BOOM go the protest ants* Who's next?
Braying is the right word. You can hear my parents' donkey from a long way off if he's decided to be noisy. Often, he just sounds off for no apparent reason. I can only guess whether he brays because he hears other equines, wants something, or just feels like saying 'here I am'! Simply put, I wouldn't count any given mule or donkey to be stealthy or biddable in a combat situation, or even in a non-combat emergency.
19.5 billion is about a week and a half in Iraq, using the $12billion a week figure I've heard bandied, or using generous estimates, a WGA strike lasting a year and a half (with a loss figure of $2.1billion over nine weeks extrapolating out to about 19.5 billion over the course of ~80 weeks).
I think you're presenting a false dichotomy. It's possible to both fear and favor a given course of action - expanding our nuclear energy base, changing jobs, or owning a fire-arm for self-defense, for example - if the alternatives are less favorable or more fearful than the one which worries one even as one chooses it.
"""We are told that we live in an "advanced", "civilized" society, where people have abandoned brutal, cruel, petty and bigoted ways of life. That's a crock. The only thing that has happened is that it has become taboo to support such things in public life."""
Those of us living down the legacy of upper class Victorian England (partially re-incarnated in post-War American society) are the spiritual descendants of an "advanced, civilized" society which felt justified in its brutality, cruelty, and bigotry precisely because it though itself more civilized than all other societies. As such, we may even be foolish enough to think ourselves more advanced than those who came before us. I agree with you. We aren't more advanced; we are merely differently depraved.
We've had those for a long time. We call ourselves Americans - though the ones we send up are usually in peak physical condition and might not care much about guns - and we're very proud of our astronauts.
So, who's going to make the crack about missing their vodka and finding orbit warmer than winters back home?
Have we shot any cheese-eating bistro crawlers into space yet?
(3) Polluting the environment is recursive. Say a Hail Mary to be forgiven, exhale CO2, have to say another one...
But, the O2 we convert to CO2 and then we exhale is the same CO2 other organisms convert to O2 and then exhale. Is that pollution or just the proper working of a closed system?
Generally, I agree with you. However, I think you may have extended the analogy too far:
"Of course, individuals fall into that same trap. If you make $25,000 a year, you want $50K. If you make $100K, you want $200K."
I can agree that wanting 200k when one makes 100K could well be greed. However, I think wanting 50k rather than 25 is likely more about attaining a decent standard of living than about trying to swaddle oneself in luxury. In some places, the difference between 25K and 50K is the difference between eating or getting your ( car fixed | roof replaced | (( medical bills | school loans) paid off )) and doing as many of the above as necessary with minimal worry.
"If you were being forced to pay someone $4500 to get them not to sue you, for something you hadn't done, I think it would be crystal clear why one needs a license to be an investigator. It's because lawsuits are being based on their work, and people's lives are being destroyed by their work. . . Absent a license, the state's only authority is to pursue them criminally for having sidestepped the licensing law."
I wonder: what differentiates MediaSentry's activities from racketeering (or extortion)?
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps cutting the jobs will save more money more quickly, but the long term costs will likely be exorbitant in terms of work lost. Some of the work loss cost they're incurring now, in hopes that the value that the work lost is less valuable than the money saved. Some of the work lost will stay with them, in the form of demoralized employees. Some of it will may never go away, if some of those laid off have strong working relationships with people outside the company - contractors, vendors, or otherwise.
If the executives had cut their own salaries, they could layed off fewer people. They could have been more selective instead of almost literally decimating their own ranks. But these days, corporate executives (and legislators too) seem to approve cuts in their own pay about as often as a Pope converts to Islam.
We have impossibly kawaii (moe?) set side by side with "Takeitaway! Takeitaway! DearHeavensNo!" It's official. Japanese designers just don't know when to quit.
So, when the Constitution establishes itself (plus treaties) as the Supreme Law of the Land, it does so in error?
No, only the Communist Chinese can control the weather.
quoth the parent: "Let's make a comparison: when you write a novel, the publishing house - before publishing - hire an editor to proof read what you've written. Because you missed out on some stuff, for sure. It's just goddamn impossible to be perfect (sic!). You need someone objective, and who's closer to the audience. That's what the producer is good for. He'll have totally new ideas, he'll have suggestions and most of all: he's likely to have a lot more experience than you have. You'll need that."
/and/ structural) will be half-arsed. The text itself will come to me more or less as the author sent it in for 'consideration.' If the author was diligent, produced multiple drafts, thought about the writing process, and had his work read and editted by capable friends and family, the text might still be good. If he merely dashed off a draft and bought his publishing deal, then it will be lamentable.
I like your comparison a great deal. I'm not an author (merely aspiring to be so), but having watched a relative get taken for a ride by XLibris (or a company of the same ilk) and having tried to puzzle out how I'll avoid the same fate, I think I have some sense of the wide gap in value between the average book published by self or subsidy as compared to the average book picked up by a legitimate publishing house. I can't say that every book that comes out in trade paper from Tor, Bantam, or Baen is flawless (or even good). I can't say that every author who publishes through a vanity publisher is a hopeless hack. I certainly can't vouch for the quality typesetting of a purely self-published author.
I can, however, apply certain heuristics in evaluating the three classes of book (and author). From pro-published books and authors, I can expect a certain degree of polish. I may not like the writing style of the author in question, but I can expect not to see above one or two typographical errors in a full-length novel. I can expect the paper and ink to be of reasonable quality. If the book disintegrates, I clearly wasn't being sufficiently gentle. (I can be hard on trade paper.) From strictly self-published authors, I can also expect a degree of sophisication. In this day and age, with teh intarwebs spangled with bogus publishers and warnings against them, a person who deliberately avoids the author mills shows a degree of insight and demonstrates that he cares more about the text than about the author. If these authors interests co-incide with mine, they're worth a look. If they don't, at least they were smart enough to dodge Xlibris or PublishAmerica. Finally, van-published authors may be worth a look, but I can reasonably expect the "publisher" to phone it in - the typesetting will be shoddy, the editting (line
From your comments, the gap between the signed and the unsigned artist is similar. An author may not need to build a sound-proof room in which to work, but he is still likely to lack necessary experience. Later projects may benefit from his own harsh assessment of earlier works, but however harsh he allows himself to be or invites those around him to be, he is still too close to his own work to know its value to others. That, as you said, is the publisher/producer's function.
Obligatory Penny Arcade reference:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/08/22
Industrialization is in its infancy only if one makes a straight, one-to-one comparison between time elapsed since the first planted crop with time elasped since the first operational factory. I think that metric is flawed, as it assumes that a year in the 1st or 2d century BC has the same production and innovation value as a year in the 19th or 20th century AD. Industrial processes have brought agriculture as close to maturity as possible considering the variables (quantity of sun and rain, quality of soil). I do agree, however, that we are pre-historic in terms of space travel and are more like the first tribes of humans teaching themselves to knap flint than the tribes which followed them (and taught themselves to grow gardens).
What amuses me is that this decision simultaneously annoys both the current administration and the People for the American Way. With opponents like that, it must be a good decision. :)
ision-inspiring performance as Queen Hummadinga. The Romanians have been dealing with science fiction horrors for a long time and have no pa
Ah, yes: run multiple jobs. That seems to work. Or, if the mother process doesn't lock up, let her run jobs as well before she starts to instantiate the child process, so you can both store future inputs.
/proc space, of course.
My preference is to maintain a single mother process and as many child processes as come along. Usually, the child processes are spawned serially, but occasionally the instance forks spontaneously. In those cases, just hope and pray for a small number of child processes of the same byte-sex. That way you can delay drive partitioning for years. Eventually, each process will need its own semi-private
Am I stretching this metaphor too far?
There is, however, the problem of process upkeep. One child process is a resource-hog. Multiple child processes seem to consume resources exponentially rather than linearly. How do you propose to optimize bandwidth to the mother process(es), supply sufficient inputs to the child process(es), or redirect the child process(es)' regularly scheduled core dumps? As a note, mother and child processes don't respond well to preemptive multitasking.
That's just it: I don't feel like cleaning it up. It's perfect already. It's syntactically correct, functionally correct, and appropriate in context. What's to fix?
A mod point, a mod point, my kingdom for a mod point.
/.er.
I would mod you up +1 funny for that bit of obfuscation. Intentional or otherwise, the indirection of that algorithm (which I know you got elsewhere, for I've read your comment to another reply already) and your decision not to streamline it is a commentary in and of itself. Well played, fellow
I've felt a great disturbance in the comment queue, as if a grepload of slashdotters all thought of the same joke at once . . . and then tried to post it.
Ah, a literal atomic weapon!
Anthill one: We have one atom of Weapons-grade uranium, and we know how to use it!
Anthill two: We have three atoms and we're not afraid to use them!
Anti-nuke protest ants: You must dismantle your weapons! No nukes in the back yard! The walking mountains and the walking forests already have weapons and sprays! Bite them, not each other!
Anthill three, which never admitted it also had Uranium atoms Ok. We'll dismantle our weapon. *BOOM go the protest ants* Who's next?
Braying is the right word. You can hear my parents' donkey from a long way off if he's decided to be noisy. Often, he just sounds off for no apparent reason. I can only guess whether he brays because he hears other equines, wants something, or just feels like saying 'here I am'! Simply put, I wouldn't count any given mule or donkey to be stealthy or biddable in a combat situation, or even in a non-combat emergency.
19.5 billion is about a week and a half in Iraq, using the $12billion a week figure I've heard bandied, or using generous estimates, a WGA strike lasting a year and a half (with a loss figure of $2.1billion over nine weeks extrapolating out to about 19.5 billion over the course of ~80 weeks).
Now, how does that fireball spell go again?
I think you're presenting a false dichotomy. It's possible to both fear and favor a given course of action - expanding our nuclear energy base, changing jobs, or owning a fire-arm for self-defense, for example - if the alternatives are less favorable or more fearful than the one which worries one even as one chooses it.
"""We are told that we live in an "advanced", "civilized" society, where people have abandoned brutal, cruel, petty and bigoted ways of life. That's a crock. The only thing that has happened is that it has become taboo to support such things in public life."""
Those of us living down the legacy of upper class Victorian England (partially re-incarnated in post-War American society) are the spiritual descendants of an "advanced, civilized" society which felt justified in its brutality, cruelty, and bigotry precisely because it though itself more civilized than all other societies. As such, we may even be foolish enough to think ourselves more advanced than those who came before us. I agree with you. We aren't more advanced; we are merely differently depraved.
We've had those for a long time. We call ourselves Americans - though the ones we send up are usually in peak physical condition and might not care much about guns - and we're very proud of our astronauts.
So, who's going to make the crack about missing their vodka and finding orbit warmer than winters back home?
Have we shot any cheese-eating bistro crawlers into space yet?
(3) Polluting the environment is recursive. Say a Hail Mary to be forgiven, exhale CO2, have to say another one...
But, the O2 we convert to CO2 and then we exhale is the same CO2 other organisms convert to O2 and then exhale. Is that pollution or just the proper working of a closed system?
Generally, I agree with you. However, I think you may have extended the analogy too far:
"Of course, individuals fall into that same trap. If you make $25,000 a year, you want $50K. If you make $100K, you want $200K."
I can agree that wanting 200k when one makes 100K could well be greed. However, I think wanting 50k rather than 25 is likely more about attaining a decent standard of living than about trying to swaddle oneself in luxury. In some places, the difference between 25K and 50K is the difference between eating or getting your ( car fixed | roof replaced | (( medical bills | school loans) paid off )) and doing as many of the above as necessary with minimal worry.
"If you were being forced to pay someone $4500 to get them not to sue you, for something you hadn't done, I think it would be crystal clear why one needs a license to be an investigator. It's because lawsuits are being based on their work, and people's lives are being destroyed by their work. . . Absent a license, the state's only authority is to pursue them criminally for having sidestepped the licensing law."
I wonder: what differentiates MediaSentry's activities from racketeering (or extortion)?
Unfortunately, there's only one other universe. It's Wild West-themed. I doubt accuracy will be possible under present circumstances.