. To quote one, "If I don't know it's not true then I haven't lied to the customer."
Thanks for proving my point. Your limited experience does not a fact make.
My dad owns a good sized marketing company; they deal mostly with B2B marketing plans. The data they gather to determine what markets various businesses should penetrate is derived carefully, almost scientifically. I've been around that environment my whole life; most marketing/PR types are no-bullshit. Don't confuse a Madison Avenue cornflakes-ad company with a majority of the professional marketing firms.
I was looking at the photos linked on your website -- great work. Do you do B&W only on conventional print film, or do you use the D30? If you do use digital, how do you get acceptable prints? I know there are some good piezo systems out there, but they're a fortune. My i960 prints noticably blue photos, as do, so far as I know, all inkjets.
I don't agree that 99% of logins are accurate. Perhaps 99% of logins are plausible. While I don't believe that *everyone* falsifies logins, I've made my own best effort to pick up the slack, and I know plenty of people who aren't slashdorks who put their correct address on their VISA card application with some reluctance.
What makes you disagree? It seems a bit illogical that you conclude this based on plenty of people you know. Odds are, even if they aren't slashbots, they have a similar worldview to your own.
I guess my point is, your disagreement is based on gut feeling, where his data might be based on scientific fact (it would be interesing to have her/him chime in again). If he called a random sample of people on his list, enough to be statistically satisfying, and found it to be 99% accurate, would you then believe things? He is, after all, a marketing person; they tend to back these things up with real-life data.
There are still many, many AOL users and know-nothing baby boomers out there who blithely feed their personal data to whomever asks for it.
In CompE school we took intro programming courses and datastructures freshmen year, followed by a full year of Assembly/Machine Programming the following year. I thought this was a pretty good approach; define the basic abstractions of what you'll be doing, and then go learn exactly how they work. (and then moving on to silicon programming and digital design, progressing even further from there, you *really* get to understand how those little C programs work)
Yeah, sounds extreme, but this guy grew up very poor; his relatively cushy union job had him feeling he could perpetually enjoy the symbol of wealth from his childhood -- a side a beef.
Maybe it was just his body quitting. The guy probably sweat A1 sauce. BTW -- I think McDonald's chicken is just the beef that's been bleached white.;-)
I don't think it's his liver you necessarily have to worry about. I'd be more concerned about cardiovascular problems, i.e., arterial plaque. That much red meat and/or fried foods is deadly. The grease that all of these places use (mostly partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, with some animal fat mixed in for good measure) is laden with trans-fatty acids. These are the worst cancer-causing food agents known to man.
I had a neighbor several years ago, union automotive employee, always on his feet doing heavy work, muscular and fit-looking. Had steaks and fries every night for dinner. *Every night*. Age 46, died in his sleep of a heart-attack. Complete blockages of several arteries. I'm not saying that example is scientific proof, but it gives you a pretty good idea. Burning off calories is only part of the total picture when it comes to health.
Intuitively you seem right, but materials science disagrees with you a little.
Cast iron, in fact, is a very poor conductor. I'm sure a hot gas burner heats your pan very quickly, but the conductivity of cast iron is only about a third that of aluminum, and an eighth of copper. Copper remains a superior conductor in every way, but like you, I reserve it for egg whites (or occassionally a good sauce). I hate cleaning it. That all-clad copper core is tempting, though...
But I digress. There is yet another major material thermal characteristic: heat capacity. The amount of heat it takes to raise the temperature of a material per unit mass. As you've suggested, iron has decent heat capacity, and is very dense, and a poor conductor, so it holds its heat for a long time. But there are extremely dense materials (tungsten comes to mind, it's more dense than lead) that have very poor thermal capacity. In fact, given equal *weights* of aluminum and cast iron, I think the aluminum would actually hold more heat, but it would still disapate it much more quickly through convection.
So I believe you're half right -- density does affect total thermal capacity, it's just that it does not completely dictate it.
Absolutely. Any PIM 'bathtub' that's designed to hold electronics will have gone through thorough thermal analysis. The fan is really only half the picture.
A cell phone is a good example of a case that must purely disapate its own heat. Most cell phones would benefit (structurally speaking) from a thicker case. In fact, I've seen design engineers at at least one major mobile phone maker that constantly want to double and triple the size of the "ribs" that reinforce the B-class interior surfaces. This is followed, everytime, by an engineering analyst who's bitching about the fact that the new plan will fry all the electronics.
If the case was nearly a perfect insulator, and the fan was responsible for pushing all the hot and cool air in and out of the case, you'd have a laptop that sounded like a small jet engine.;-)
You seem to imply that obtaining a PHD makes one more innovative -- I would simply argue that innovative, disciplined thinkers *tend* to pursue a PHD. Having the degree itself shows that you've done independent, unique work in your field. *Not* having the degree in no way implies that you can't do independent, unique work.
I work in the MechE field with many talented engineers. Some are PHDs, many aren't. They all do superlative, important work.
Microsoft is as much about SERVICE as they are about CONSUMER SALES.
What the hell does this matter? So they mark up the margin on service as much as the margin on software. What's the difference? Overpriced o/s, overpriced service. It's all the same. Only an idiot MS groupthinker would suggest otherwise.
I think The Who is still a relevant band, I think the White Stripes is too. I think Bach is a relavant artist, too -- what does the publish age have to do with relevancy?
I totally agree that too many/. readers make poor attempts to justify piracy. There is no justification for P2P piracy, in my opinion. My own media? I should be able to fill my house with copies of a CD I bought. I should not be penalized b/c of the *potential* for crime.
Why is much (most?) of today's music is shit? It's over-produced, has too small a footprint in its most prominent sales venues, and its dissemination is controlled by too few large media conglomerates that are unwilling to play anything different the status quo on radio/tv. Go watch the Frontline that was on recently. People pirate b/c the single is the only track worth listening to. You can bet that hardly anyone's downloading the b-tracks to Beyonce's latest album.
Until the music industry wakes up and realizes that they should be not just a trader of commodities, but a champion of art, innovation, and expression, they will continue to see dropping record sales. Until they recognize the validity of the digital pipe as a distribution method, and allow people to buy individual tracks, they will continue to suffer widespread piracy.
Hey Sivaram -- some great points made here. Just one thing to add:
don't see why people who watch "good" programs will automatically shun being polled
This is *always* a contentious issue in polling, and it's why good pollsters get paid lots of money. They write efficient, streamlined questionnaires that don't inconvenience the pollee to any great extent. As the commitment required to complete the poll increase, the error increases greatly. Or, often in the case of then nielsens, I suspect, people just don't fill out the diaries accurately.
As I've said to a couple of other posters, I meant no offense to those that've done it. There certainly exists intelligent and good nielsen families. I apologize if I offended.
BUT -- having a degree in mathematics, I do know a couple of things about statistics. I know that random statistical samples are dependent, if you'll allow the tautology, on being truly random. As soon as you add an inconvenience to the polling process (and this is indeed a poll, not a pure statistical sample based on observation alone) you've perverted any chance of the sample being 'random'. You only achieve an accurate sample of a single demographic -- 'those that are willing to be inconvenienced'. This certainly provides skewed data. Why do you think exit polls in political elections somtimes end up being tripe? And those things are designed to be brief and streamlined, not like the bulky nielsen process.
As for thinking most are uneducated, ignorant, or elderly? I'll offer up the success of both 'American Idol' and 'The Bachelor' as examples; would you care to defend?
No offense meant, dmitriy -- as I said in my most, there are notable and numerous exceptions to the 'utter loser' generalization. Just the fact that you can log on to the internet shows you to be in the upper echelons of nielsen families.;-)
This actually raises an interesting point that most Americans don't even understand, let alone the rest of the world.
Programming in America is determined by the *statistical* success of the programming, as described by the dominent Nielsen Media Research.
Nielsen chooses a number of households that report their television viewing habits. From this sample, they extrapolate viewing habits. If the news says that 40 million watched the superbowl in the US, it's really saying that Nielsen judged that 40 million watched the superbowl based on a sample of less than 1% of the US population.
What makes this extremely inaccurate is the process that's used to choose a 'Nielsen Family'. They do choose the households at random to attempt to make things statistically accurate, but no one is obligated to become a Nielsen reporter. It's a cumbersome duty with no reward. At the very least the family must keep a complete diary of their viewing habits, at worst they must have their house wired with equipment that electronically scope what they're watching.
Who would do such a thing, you ask? Complete and utter losers. People that feel they have no voice; the uneducated; the elderly; etc, etc. I'm sure some/. readers are Nielsen Family members, and I'll say now that there exceptions to the rules, normal people that do this. The ratings do show that 'high brow' TV does get watched But you can bet that the technically-oriented, educated, well-read television viewer has little proportional impact on the Nielsen ratings.
I'll give one good recent example. Futurama and The Family Guy had terrible ratings on Fox. After the shows were cancelled, they were released on DVD. They're post-cancellation sales have been through the roof; very disproportionate to the ratings. So they're bringing at least one of those shows back -- but how will they sell advertising when the Nielsen's will still reflect low-brow ratings?
One more thing -- the oh-so-annoying 'watermarked' station ID now so popular? It's for Nielsen idiots that never write the correct station down. Basically, if a Nielsen viewer writes down that they watched Friends on Fox, that datum is invalidated. So stations have to accomodate the drooling fools that don't even know what they're tuned in to.
So don't for a second believe that the programming being offered in the US reflects 'typical' American viewing habits. Unfortunately, it's typically the mouth-breathers that dictate our long-running programmming. (aside -- I would dearly love to see how different Tivo's national statistics are from the Nielsens; I'd wager that they look like they judge two entirely different populations, which they probably do)
Perhaps he was trying to inform our Indian bretheren or pan-Asian/other non-Eurocentric readers. Not all/. fans are from the USA. I assume many of them don't delve into the details of Greek mythology in primary school.
People criticize Americans for not realizing that there are countries outside of the US, but in reality there has long been a painful problem of general Eurocentrism throughout the Western hemisphere.
You haven't read/. very much if you think anti-American sentiment will get you a troll mod. I'll more likely get it for trying to offer an honest rebuttle.
I think the problem with much of the USA-related rhetoric that's thrown around is it's mostly hyperbole -- too severe.
The States absolutely have a huge problem with its foreign policy. Too much mucking with foreign government's leading to terrorism, leading to yet again more mucking with foreign goverments.
The size of the domestic government has grown too much. The pendulum has swung too far with the advent of legislation like Patriot and DMCA. There sits a severely mentally impaired justice secretary. The President has the leadership qualities of a piece of cardboard.
But to say the US is Authoritarian is just too severe. You cannot compare the Chinese government and the US. By comparison to communist China, the USA is certainly the Land of the Free.
Do they block internet content? Have pro-choice folks been shot protesting in front of the white house and Supreme Court? Do you register with the government before going on vacation? Will the secret police come to get you in the night because your neighbor told the authorities about your anti-Bush discussion at the block party?
Authority certainly *does not* equal Authoritarianism. Nowhere in the West do we see the kind of tyranny that exists in Korea.
And yes, the voting/party system is screwed up and manipulative in America. But again -- that makes freedom an illusion? If the people of the USA got their collective heads out of their asses and elected a qualified, effective, third party to a major office, would the incumbant demo-plican stage a military uprising to stop the election results? Have the police ever visited your home for voting for another party, including the socialist party? I don't think Mary Cal Hollis has ever been imprisoned for what she believed.
I think all pleads/"Wake up America!" arguments I hear fall on deaf ears because of their extremity. You will not convince people to change their government by saying that it's just as bad as al-Qaeda. You will not convince people to change their government if you try to say that they're liberties are as restricted as the Chinese. It's not an apt comparison, and it turns most people off. Identify the problems for what they are, don't label them with such exaggerated terms.
In my humble opinion, the Chinese are prisoners of their government -- the Americans are prisoners of their own c complacency. But that does not disqualify them as free people, and it does not make their government Authoritarian.
the employees bought company stock with part of thier income, and the company matched it with more stock?
You *can* do that, but most don't. Say I invest $50 a paycheck in my 401k each week. I can buy $50 worth of any investment available to me, but my company will then give me $50 worth of just their stock. So I now have $50 worth of whatever I want, and $50 worth of their stock, a total of $100. So you can invest your income in whatever you want, the company will match the dollar amount in their stock.
After you're 'vested' in this contribution (the extra $50 in company stock, usually after a short number of months or years), you can again diversify however you want.
So for the most part no one has to keep all their eggs in one basket. Those that do are pretty foolish. Some end up very rich, others end up like Enron employees. Many people had a hard time feeling sorry for the Enron workers because they were the same ones who were gloating a year before about how much money they were earning off of Enron stock. Great risks have the potential for great rewards, or great penalties.
Settle down! I think he meant "most/. users use OSS, so windows doesn't cost us anything." As if to say, "we don't use windows at all."
And I don't believe you're going to convince many people here that pirated software equals lost revenue. That's about as weak an argument as the RIAA's.
I'm not from the states, but I just can't imagine having all my retirement savings tied up as stock
This is a time-honered tradition in the States. Given the overall market averages of the past 50 years or so, most people are encouraged to put a percentage of their income into a well-diversified (100+ stocks, mutual funds, etc) aggressive investment fund. Often money invested directly from income is matched by the employer in the form of that companies stock. Often as an employee approaches retirement age, they change strategies and move money from NYSE/NASDAQ to money market accounts, bonds, etc., investments that are (fairly) immune to the quarterly churning of the fortune 500.
In the case of a company like Enron, many employees had *all* their eggs in one basket, and were buggered when the company went tits-up.
Slashdot Mirror
They're releasing all the code that changes the bannerhead to some cute picture on holidays. Powerful stuff.
Thanks for proving my point. Your limited experience does not a fact make.
My dad owns a good sized marketing company; they deal mostly with B2B marketing plans. The data they gather to determine what markets various businesses should penetrate is derived carefully, almost scientifically. I've been around that environment my whole life; most marketing/PR types are no-bullshit. Don't confuse a Madison Avenue cornflakes-ad company with a majority of the professional marketing firms.
I was looking at the photos linked on your website -- great work. Do you do B&W only on conventional print film, or do you use the D30? If you do use digital, how do you get acceptable prints? I know there are some good piezo systems out there, but they're a fortune. My i960 prints noticably blue photos, as do, so far as I know, all inkjets.
What makes you disagree? It seems a bit illogical that you conclude this based on plenty of people you know. Odds are, even if they aren't slashbots, they have a similar worldview to your own.
I guess my point is, your disagreement is based on gut feeling, where his data might be based on scientific fact (it would be interesing to have her/him chime in again). If he called a random sample of people on his list, enough to be statistically satisfying, and found it to be 99% accurate, would you then believe things? He is, after all, a marketing person; they tend to back these things up with real-life data.
There are still many, many AOL users and know-nothing baby boomers out there who blithely feed their personal data to whomever asks for it.
In CompE school we took intro programming courses and datastructures freshmen year, followed by a full year of Assembly/Machine Programming the following year. I thought this was a pretty good approach; define the basic abstractions of what you'll be doing, and then go learn exactly how they work. (and then moving on to silicon programming and digital design, progressing even further from there, you *really* get to understand how those little C programs work)
Maybe it was just his body quitting. The guy probably sweat A1 sauce. BTW -- I think McDonald's chicken is just the beef that's been bleached white. ;-)
I had a neighbor several years ago, union automotive employee, always on his feet doing heavy work, muscular and fit-looking. Had steaks and fries every night for dinner. *Every night*. Age 46, died in his sleep of a heart-attack. Complete blockages of several arteries. I'm not saying that example is scientific proof, but it gives you a pretty good idea. Burning off calories is only part of the total picture when it comes to health.
Cast iron, in fact, is a very poor conductor. I'm sure a hot gas burner heats your pan very quickly, but the conductivity of cast iron is only about a third that of aluminum, and an eighth of copper. Copper remains a superior conductor in every way, but like you, I reserve it for egg whites (or occassionally a good sauce). I hate cleaning it. That all-clad copper core is tempting, though...
But I digress. There is yet another major material thermal characteristic: heat capacity. The amount of heat it takes to raise the temperature of a material per unit mass. As you've suggested, iron has decent heat capacity, and is very dense, and a poor conductor, so it holds its heat for a long time. But there are extremely dense materials (tungsten comes to mind, it's more dense than lead) that have very poor thermal capacity. In fact, given equal *weights* of aluminum and cast iron, I think the aluminum would actually hold more heat, but it would still disapate it much more quickly through convection.
So I believe you're half right -- density does affect total thermal capacity, it's just that it does not completely dictate it.
A cell phone is a good example of a case that must purely disapate its own heat. Most cell phones would benefit (structurally speaking) from a thicker case. In fact, I've seen design engineers at at least one major mobile phone maker that constantly want to double and triple the size of the "ribs" that reinforce the B-class interior surfaces. This is followed, everytime, by an engineering analyst who's bitching about the fact that the new plan will fry all the electronics.
If the case was nearly a perfect insulator, and the fan was responsible for pushing all the hot and cool air in and out of the case, you'd have a laptop that sounded like a small jet engine. ;-)
Yeah, you know if 'bastards' brings up your site before a mention of the republicans, you're doing something very wrong.
You seem to imply that obtaining a PHD makes one more innovative -- I would simply argue that innovative, disciplined thinkers *tend* to pursue a PHD. Having the degree itself shows that you've done independent, unique work in your field. *Not* having the degree in no way implies that you can't do independent, unique work.
I work in the MechE field with many talented engineers. Some are PHDs, many aren't. They all do superlative, important work.
What the hell does this matter? So they mark up the margin on service as much as the margin on software. What's the difference? Overpriced o/s, overpriced service. It's all the same. Only an idiot MS groupthinker would suggest otherwise.
I totally agree that too many /. readers make poor attempts to justify piracy. There is no justification for P2P piracy, in my opinion. My own media? I should be able to fill my house with copies of a CD I bought. I should not be penalized b/c of the *potential* for crime.
Why is much (most?) of today's music is shit? It's over-produced, has too small a footprint in its most prominent sales venues, and its dissemination is controlled by too few large media conglomerates that are unwilling to play anything different the status quo on radio/tv. Go watch the Frontline that was on recently. People pirate b/c the single is the only track worth listening to. You can bet that hardly anyone's downloading the b-tracks to Beyonce's latest album.
Until the music industry wakes up and realizes that they should be not just a trader of commodities, but a champion of art, innovation, and expression, they will continue to see dropping record sales. Until they recognize the validity of the digital pipe as a distribution method, and allow people to buy individual tracks, they will continue to suffer widespread piracy.
don't see why people who watch "good" programs will automatically shun being polled
This is *always* a contentious issue in polling, and it's why good pollsters get paid lots of money. They write efficient, streamlined questionnaires that don't inconvenience the pollee to any great extent. As the commitment required to complete the poll increase, the error increases greatly. Or, often in the case of then nielsens, I suspect, people just don't fill out the diaries accurately.
Certainly -- very good point. Cost/benefit ratios always have a place in business.
BUT -- having a degree in mathematics, I do know a couple of things about statistics. I know that random statistical samples are dependent, if you'll allow the tautology, on being truly random. As soon as you add an inconvenience to the polling process (and this is indeed a poll, not a pure statistical sample based on observation alone) you've perverted any chance of the sample being 'random'. You only achieve an accurate sample of a single demographic -- 'those that are willing to be inconvenienced'. This certainly provides skewed data. Why do you think exit polls in political elections somtimes end up being tripe? And those things are designed to be brief and streamlined, not like the bulky nielsen process.
As for thinking most are uneducated, ignorant, or elderly? I'll offer up the success of both 'American Idol' and 'The Bachelor' as examples; would you care to defend?
No offense meant, dmitriy -- as I said in my most, there are notable and numerous exceptions to the 'utter loser' generalization. Just the fact that you can log on to the internet shows you to be in the upper echelons of nielsen families. ;-)
I can't cite any evidence, unfortunately, other than to take my sister's word who is the marketing director at a large-market TV station. ;-)
...the original uber-cool use of the Fresnel lens, namely, in the first actually useful lighthouses.
Programming in America is determined by the *statistical* success of the programming, as described by the dominent Nielsen Media Research.
Nielsen chooses a number of households that report their television viewing habits. From this sample, they extrapolate viewing habits. If the news says that 40 million watched the superbowl in the US, it's really saying that Nielsen judged that 40 million watched the superbowl based on a sample of less than 1% of the US population.
What makes this extremely inaccurate is the process that's used to choose a 'Nielsen Family'. They do choose the households at random to attempt to make things statistically accurate, but no one is obligated to become a Nielsen reporter. It's a cumbersome duty with no reward. At the very least the family must keep a complete diary of their viewing habits, at worst they must have their house wired with equipment that electronically scope what they're watching.
Who would do such a thing, you ask? Complete and utter losers. People that feel they have no voice; the uneducated; the elderly; etc, etc. I'm sure some /. readers are Nielsen Family members, and I'll say now that there exceptions to the rules, normal people that do this. The ratings do show that 'high brow' TV does get watched But you can bet that the technically-oriented, educated, well-read television viewer has little proportional impact on the Nielsen ratings.
I'll give one good recent example. Futurama and The Family Guy had terrible ratings on Fox. After the shows were cancelled, they were released on DVD. They're post-cancellation sales have been through the roof; very disproportionate to the ratings. So they're bringing at least one of those shows back -- but how will they sell advertising when the Nielsen's will still reflect low-brow ratings?
One more thing -- the oh-so-annoying 'watermarked' station ID now so popular? It's for Nielsen idiots that never write the correct station down. Basically, if a Nielsen viewer writes down that they watched Friends on Fox, that datum is invalidated. So stations have to accomodate the drooling fools that don't even know what they're tuned in to.
So don't for a second believe that the programming being offered in the US reflects 'typical' American viewing habits. Unfortunately, it's typically the mouth-breathers that dictate our long-running programmming. (aside -- I would dearly love to see how different Tivo's national statistics are from the Nielsens; I'd wager that they look like they judge two entirely different populations, which they probably do)
People criticize Americans for not realizing that there are countries outside of the US, but in reality there has long been a painful problem of general Eurocentrism throughout the Western hemisphere.
I think the problem with much of the USA-related rhetoric that's thrown around is it's mostly hyperbole -- too severe.
The States absolutely have a huge problem with its foreign policy. Too much mucking with foreign government's leading to terrorism, leading to yet again more mucking with foreign goverments.
The size of the domestic government has grown too much. The pendulum has swung too far with the advent of legislation like Patriot and DMCA. There sits a severely mentally impaired justice secretary. The President has the leadership qualities of a piece of cardboard.
But to say the US is Authoritarian is just too severe. You cannot compare the Chinese government and the US. By comparison to communist China, the USA is certainly the Land of the Free.
Do they block internet content? Have pro-choice folks been shot protesting in front of the white house and Supreme Court? Do you register with the government before going on vacation? Will the secret police come to get you in the night because your neighbor told the authorities about your anti-Bush discussion at the block party?
Authority certainly *does not* equal Authoritarianism. Nowhere in the West do we see the kind of tyranny that exists in Korea.
And yes, the voting/party system is screwed up and manipulative in America. But again -- that makes freedom an illusion? If the people of the USA got their collective heads out of their asses and elected a qualified, effective, third party to a major office, would the incumbant demo-plican stage a military uprising to stop the election results? Have the police ever visited your home for voting for another party, including the socialist party? I don't think Mary Cal Hollis has ever been imprisoned for what she believed.
I think all pleads/"Wake up America!" arguments I hear fall on deaf ears because of their extremity. You will not convince people to change their government by saying that it's just as bad as al-Qaeda. You will not convince people to change their government if you try to say that they're liberties are as restricted as the Chinese. It's not an apt comparison, and it turns most people off. Identify the problems for what they are, don't label them with such exaggerated terms.
In my humble opinion, the Chinese are prisoners of their government -- the Americans are prisoners of their own c complacency. But that does not disqualify them as free people, and it does not make their government Authoritarian.
You *can* do that, but most don't. Say I invest $50 a paycheck in my 401k each week. I can buy $50 worth of any investment available to me, but my company will then give me $50 worth of just their stock. So I now have $50 worth of whatever I want, and $50 worth of their stock, a total of $100. So you can invest your income in whatever you want, the company will match the dollar amount in their stock.
After you're 'vested' in this contribution (the extra $50 in company stock, usually after a short number of months or years), you can again diversify however you want.
So for the most part no one has to keep all their eggs in one basket. Those that do are pretty foolish. Some end up very rich, others end up like Enron employees. Many people had a hard time feeling sorry for the Enron workers because they were the same ones who were gloating a year before about how much money they were earning off of Enron stock. Great risks have the potential for great rewards, or great penalties.
And I don't believe you're going to convince many people here that pirated software equals lost revenue. That's about as weak an argument as the RIAA's.
This is a time-honered tradition in the States. Given the overall market averages of the past 50 years or so, most people are encouraged to put a percentage of their income into a well-diversified (100+ stocks, mutual funds, etc) aggressive investment fund. Often money invested directly from income is matched by the employer in the form of that companies stock. Often as an employee approaches retirement age, they change strategies and move money from NYSE/NASDAQ to money market accounts, bonds, etc., investments that are (fairly) immune to the quarterly churning of the fortune 500.
In the case of a company like Enron, many employees had *all* their eggs in one basket, and were buggered when the company went tits-up.