It could be argued that making money as a musician has been a short-lived thing. Outside of top-tier composers producing music for nobility no one could earn a living. But over the last century, with the advent of various technologies being a musician became a viable career. Now, because of the commoditization of music and easy access to entertainment the opportunity to make money is evaporating for a lot of people.
Of course, it will never go back to that. Independents will flock to whatever service offers the best deal, or find their own methods of distribution. Music as a big business will always exist. Most consumers, especially youth, are not picky. Their music selections are based on what conforms to their lifestyle identities. And that's all based around conforming to whatever group they've pigeonholed themselves into. So they will continue to lap up whatever garbage the studios produce. Those catering to that demand, supported by the studios, will continue making a lot of money. It's every one else beneath them, who haven't reached that level of celebrity, who will struggle. This is all firmly intrenched in celebrity culture. Complain all we want but that, unfortunately, is not going to change.
If this had happened in the US how long would it have been before we'd have seen lawyers on TV advertising legal action? I'm sure findings from independent agencies would have been completely irrelevant to the case.
Immigration is extremely beneficial for a nation. When immigrants come here to study and work; when they thrive essentially. But if you've got a significant percentage of the immigrant population segregating themselves into closed communities or becoming a burden on social systems then there is a problem. The host nation benefits from immigration when there is integration because it opens channels for communication, understanding and embracing new ideas.
What happens when, for whatever reason, they are not productive and instead use our social programs without paying into them? Insensitive or not questions need to be addressed because we don't have the money to throw around. Even if we withdraw from all foreign occupation that doesn't mean we should be throwing money at this sort of thing instead of devoting it towards more beneficial programs like science and infrastructure. These are the things which in the long-term will produce more jobs instead of merely creating dependence. Certainly, there are a lot of Americans already in this situation. But why aggravate the problem before properly addressing it?
There's the constant claim that Americans are terrible towards immigrants, ironically perpetuated Americans themselves. The fact of the matter is that the US continues to be one of the friendliest towards immigrants. It's still relatively easy to immigrate to the US, compared to pretty much any other country. The requirements to come here are much lower and it's relatively easy to get established. In a lot of countries you can't even buy property without some kind of permanent residency status, in the US you don't even need a green card.
And I haven't even touched on illegal immigration. Perhaps granting these people legal status would be beneficial. But that's not a guarantee and it raises questions of fairness. Is it fair that people who couldn't be bothered to follow the rules deserve instant citizenship when legal immigrants are not? And doesn't that encourage increased illegal immigration when those people know it's only a matter of time before they're awarded the same status?
The situation is never clear cut. And even though some people take things too far it doesn't mean there isn't a legitimate concern buried in there.
You seem to believe that the stock market is a zero-sum game. While I agree that there are plenty of people gaming the system it doesn't mean you lose if you're not one of them. If you know what you're doing you can make money, you simply wont make quite as much as those guys.
"Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."
Who's the fucking dolt who wrote this article?
People seem to forget that 10 years ago Microsoft was beset by several challenges; there were the investigations into monopolistic practices in addition to the bad press they were enduring. That negative perception fed directly into the rise of Apple. Certainly Microsoft's decline wasn't the sole factor in Apple's success, but if definitely helped feed it. Apple was smart enough to strike out in their own direction instead of simply responding to whatever Microsoft was doing at the time. No company will ever be successful by merely being reactive.
Microsoft may have gotten too complacent with their success. Microsoft has done a lot of very compelling R&D over the years, I'd argue far more innovative than anything Apple has done, but Apple is able to take existing technology and refine it into a compelling user experience. They think things through more fully than anyone else out there. But a fundamental difference between the two is that MS is a software company first and foremost; they're dependent on others to produce the hardware. That's always going to be a big limitation. But regardless of how good Microsoft's products may actually be, they now are always fighting an uphill battle to win the hearts and minds of consumers.
Through the 90s Microsoft operated in a very different environment than we have today. If it wasn't Microsoft acquiring a monopolistic position it likely would have been someone else. And the fact is that consumers wanted a unified user experience and Microsoft gave them that. They really laid the groundwork for everyone else. Of course, in the process they drew everyone's ire.
In the interim, Microsoft has grown into a stable, conservative corporation. They could have flared out and died like so many others, but they're still reasonably successful. I don't see how anyone could fault them for that. There was a concerted push to unseat them from their position of dominance. Now that it has come to fruition, and MS has survived the process quite well, so-called experts are faulting them for that. Ballmer probably deserves a lot of credit for not turning Microsoft into a Yahoo.
It's incredible that Apple has managed to retain the perception of being a cool company somehow still maintaining an anti-establishment appeal. It goes to show how important good product design can be.
This comes off as another one of these "Europeans are great and Americans suck" articles. I know plenty of Americans, who are averse to throwing away old stuff. And if we're going to start comparing societies and their inclination to throw away perfectly good stuff I suggest visiting Asia.
It's also really easy to promote social cohesion when 95% of the population is of a single nationality. Institute a program like this and the odds are high people will participate. It's easy to conduct social engineering when you know how the population will respond. The United States, with a considerably larger variety of ethnic groups is far more unpredictable. Chances are high that a program like this would flop on a national or even regional level. This is the sort of thing that would only work at a community level, and even then it's not a guarantee.
Sometimes I wonder why it takes researchers so long to discover attributes in animals that any pet owner has observed countless times.
Here's one incident that comes to mind: A couple of years ago my father picked up my cat, as he's done many a time. But this time he took him over to another cat who, for whatever reason, he hated with passion. He patiently let my father hold him and return him to the other room. The instant my father released him the cat turned and bit him with all his strength.
Instead of freaking out while in a compromised position he patiently waited to exact his revenge when he was reasonably safe. That sounds fairly good control of emotion and planning to me. It's not collecting rocks, but I think it's compelling nonetheless.
How about pets training owners into performing desired actions?
Having family and a good number of friends as immigrants I've noticed two significant patterns:
1) Arrive in the US and take fairly menial work due to lack of education or language abilities. They're extremely frugal and manage to save a good deal of money. They work hard, but smartly moving up to the point that they start a small business which leads to further success. Many get involved in real estate investment further increasing income. By the time they're middle-aged they're living comfortably. They tend to pool resources with family members to increase odds of success.
2) Arrive in the US and take menial work for the same reasons. Never become motivated enough to move beyond low-paying employment. They manage to get by, some even to the point that they eventually buy their own home, but never really thrive.
This group tends to branch off into two subsets. There are those who are extremely frugal and manage to accumulate a little bit of money by the time they hit retirement. Then there's the other group that is less careful with money and becomes overly reliant on family members or social security in retirement. But a consistent theme with this group in general is that although they might live within communities comprised of the same ethnic group they tend to be more isolated and less likely to pool resources.
I've noticed another essential dynamic is how immigrant raise their kids. In both cases, but especially the first group, they stress education as essential. They don't tolerate anything less than excellence. This tends to lead to their children going good schools. And because their parents have instilled more pragmatic tendencies in them they tend to favor careers that lead to better employment and higher incomes. Nowadays that means finance, but when I was younger engineering, computer science and medicine tended to be popular. Those who don't end up in top schools still tend to have that work ethic instill in them and generally thrive, enjoying a higher standard of living than their parents.
Amongst the parents who didn't get involved in their children's education, who didn't instill that work ethic, their kids tend to struggle later in life not being any better off than the parents were. More often than not, they end up screwing themselves but not having clear long-term plans and goals.
The interesting thing is that I've generally found foreigners to be far more optimistic about opportunities in America than Americans themselves. They're a lot more willing to sacrifice than Americans are. I've been surprised many a time by friends and family who've manage to save so much money with such relatively low incomes.
I'd love to know what Asian country you live in because they do everything Americans do. You either haven't lived there long enough or you led a sad life in the States. That's the only reason I can see for you to hold such delusions.
People in Asia go just as insane over pop stars as they do in the States. I'd say half of Asian celebrities are fundamentally no different than Kim Kardasian in that they have no appreciable talent but manage to continue to be successful. There are plenty of nobodies who become popular by virtue of being wealthy and befriending celebrities. If Asians didn't eat up that kind of shit these people would never get famous.
And pirating is extremely rampant; it's even prevalent in Japan. They've tried to combat pirating in some novel ways, like offering music CDs with collectables. Not that it helps, because pirating isn't only rampant, it's pretty much institutionalized. And they've gotten so good that people who thought they were getting a great deal on the real thing later realized they were being duped.
Nearly every smaller company I dealt with, and some bigger ones too, was running pirated software. A lot of companies would buy one legitimate copy and then get pirated copies for everyone else.
It bothered me from the perspective that it was all money going right in the pockets of gangsters. At least when people were actually going out to buy pirated music or software. And there were those who really overdid it, for some it's all they bought.
I'm not saying I have a fundamental problem with piracy. Software, for example, was outrageously expensive. Adobe software was far more expensive than it was in the States. So we found ourselves buying through people in the US. But even if they were charging US prices there was still buying power to consider. A lot of smaller companies couldn't afford to drop $5k on a handful of licenses. It's outrageous what these companies charge even in the US.
Music is a bit of a different issue for me in that it's neither a necessity nor is it particular expensive. Most popular music is junk, but it evidently still appeals to your average consumer. So I think in that case people are avoiding paying for the content simply because it's so easy to acquire it for free.
I do like how the US government is happy to help screw the third world. What does it matter what they do? They couldn't afford to pay for this stuff via the legal channels anyway. And from the perspective of companies this is a form of free marketing. Pirating exposes people to content they might not have otherwise had access to. Some day economic conditions may improve to the point that they have real buying power. Not that corporations have the ability to consider the long term.
This would have been a cool set of buildings on any other site. As a replacement for the WTC it's kind of lame. I wouldn't the buildings rebuilt has they'd been. But I would have liked something comparable. Perhaps the twin towers had a high vacancy rate and they saw no way of filling all that space?
It is extremely embarrassing to see how long it took to get the building to this point. As others have mentioned it speaks to the sad state of affairs in this country. Almost anywhere else it would have taken a fraction of the time and would have likely cost less to build too. I realize that a lot the delays were related to bureaucratic red tape, but it doesn't matter the reason, it's a problem because this happens every day across the United States. In my area a couple of large scale projects, which could have been a boon have stalled because of garbage like this. I guess those guys didn't have the political pull and financial backing to finally get things going.
I also find it rather obnoxious that standards allow a spire affixed to the structure to be counted towards total height. But it was rather amusing hearing all the talk this morning about this building being the tallest in the Western Hemisphere like that mattered.
There are excellent in-car media and stereo systems out there, it all depends on what automaker you're looking at. The Japanese generally pack their cars full of buttons in an attempt to account for every little function. Americans are decent, but it depends on the car and the automaker. They generally suffer from cost-cutting measures and insufficient thinking about how a driver interacts with the car. It's worse when the automaker goes through third-party vendors for their hardware. Too many of those companies are has-beens incapable of innovating putting no thought whatsoever into their designs. Then you've got the Europeans who do put a lot of thought into driver interaction but you still run the risk of ending up with a system that's seriously over-designed and confusing.
I've come across some very well-designed systems. The most successful, in my opinion, don't require you to look away from the road very long, if at all, and are easy to learn. The problem is that as functionality gets deeper inevitable it gets more involved interacting with that stuff, demanding more attention from the driver. Tactile feedback is essential, making touchscreens in cars a huge mistake.
My big annoyance with this article is the suggestion that Apple is a master of user interface design. As far as I'm concerned that's a myth. Their interfaces manage to be elegant only because they're one of the few companies willing to sacrifice functionality for the sake of usability. So how would they approach a car? Would they decide that a handful of functions are all we need and build a single distracting control interface around that? Everything else would, annoyingly, require several more steps than they would have under traditional systems.
But the fact is that whenever Apple is forced to implemented added functionality their applications become just as cumbersome and unintuitive as any other bit of comparable software out there. Look at iTunes, or iWork or even iOS. iOS is no more intuitive than Android or Windows Phone 7. People will only feel that way about it because it's what they're familiar with.
The integration of software and hardware is where Apple excels. But they don't make cars so they lose that edge in the automotive space.
Did life come about because of a confluence of circumstances unique to Earth or can it develop and thrive with a fairly broad set of conditions?
That's the fundamental question, because there are a variety of conditions on Earth that are relatively unique. But did live develop here specifically because of those conditions or was it only shaped because of them? I mean, if you examine life everything fits just right but what we have is a chicken and egg scenario.
Keep in mind that if life were as resilient and adaptable that we should be finding evidence of it surviving elsewhere within our own solar system. So far we haven't found anything which would imply that specific conditions are required. But how specific are the requirements. Earth isn't tidal locked, we've got a large satellite and a fairly stable star, plate tectonics, amongst countless other things. So who knows what the real odds are. I will concede, however, that it's far from being too late to find something on a neighboring planet.
I do like being optimistic about this, however, so I want to believe that life should be common. However, given the vastness of the universe "common" is an extremely relative term. What are the odds of finding complex multi-cellular life within a distance we can realistically travel? And what are the odds of finding life that is thriving within our time frame. Chances are that most life gets snuffed out long before it's able to evolve into anything noteworthy.
People don't just spend 5% of their income. They may spend 5% on food but we spend at least 8 hours a day earning money to enable us to buy that food. 500 years ago an individual might have grown many of their own crops, built their own home and sold or bartered excess crops to get whatever they couldn't grow themselves.
There's no way in hell a modern society can be compared to anything in the past. Technology has progressed for too much and society changed too dramatically. And what the hell is wrong with a better standard of living anyway?
I fully support the idea of a tax on grocery bags because that does have a clear, quantifiable impact on our climate. Being taxes for carbon emissions or paying for carbon credits, however, is nonsense. All those schemes do is make a handful of special interests very wealthy and screw the rest of us.
If you want cheap furniture there's no better place to go. They actually put thought into how the furniture is constructed and try to make the best of the materials they use. This is a far cry from other bargain furniture, like the junk you might find at Walmart.
This doesn't mean, however, that it makes sense to buy everything from Ikea. I would never buy certain items from Ikea I expect to use extensively. Sofas come to mind and office desks. But it really depends on the item, because Ikea does offer certain higher quality products that stand up to years of use.
When Ikea is offering a cabinet for $100 that starts at $400 anywhere else, you can't expect durability.
A lot of cars already do this, particularly if they've got drive-by-wire systems which I thought the Prius featured. But the fact is that this is not going to make a single bit of different for anyone who mashed the gas pedal in a panic thinking they're stomping on the brake.
And it's been demonstrated time and again that brakes will overpower any engine. The key, however, if being decisive when you first encounter a problem and not stupidly poking at and releasing the brakes to the point that they start overheating. And the fact is that every single car on the road, automatic and manual alike can be dropped into neutral at any time.
The problem here isn't limitations in the technology, it's inadequate driver training. People don't understand how cars work. There are certain things that should be mandatory. My state mandates a 8 hour course where they dwell on the obvious, like don't drink and drive, but don't get into the principles of how a car works. They gloss over important topics.
So instead of improving education they keep mandating more crap be stuffed in cars creating a false sense of security.
I grew up in neighborhoods and went to schools where whites were in the minority. I'd venture to say they numbered no more than 15% and this is including European immigrants. Otherwise racial makeup was predominantly Latino and Black, with Latinos being in the majority. I was in high school before I had my first white friend, meaning her parents were not immigrants.
From recollection I'd say maybe twice I ran into problems because I was white. Kids throwing around racial slurs was relatively common, especially during fights. I don't think white kids would venture to do so, however. From a very early age we were all taught about multiculturalism. Of course, the emphasis was always on not offending minorities. So it led to a situation where minorities, especially black kids were more comfortable with poking fun at someone's race. The most common target was Asians; the way they spoke, the fact that they were so studious, etc.
But generally, I think I had a very good experience throughout my childhood and through my teenage years. Everyone got a long reasonably well and there was generally enough of a mix that people barely noticed race. This is not to say that ethnic groups didn't stick together but in that environment everyone was forced to mingle.
Having experienced that and seen how it is in big cities like New York, I tend to think that racial instability in America tends to be overblown. I'm routinely shocked to hear how European family members speak of immigrants. Or to hear how migrant workers are treated in Asia. But then it's easy to get away with it in a country with a single dominant ethnic group.
This is not say there aren't problems. I've seen more problems in adulthood. Run through the wrong neighborhood and chances are some idiot will heckle because you're a white guy out for a jog. It's crazy the way some people lash out at anything they perceive as different.
I have little sympathy for kids who get into trouble. Having lived in this environment I was exposed to the problems of lower income neighborhoods. The problems have nothing to do with race and everything to do with upbringing, or lack thereof. There were kids who lived in these bad neighborhoods who were able to thrive even with parents who worked long hours. The consistent positive reinforcements were strong familial relationships and parents who disciplined and expected good performance in school.
The ones who weren't raised properly all too often end up ruining things for everyone. It's sad Trayvon Martin. But where's the outrage over all the murders happening every day. What about other crime? Or just plain vandalism. You can't leave out anything nice because it will get trashed by some asshole. There's too much of a lack of respect in this country. Of course it's hard to understand how much of a problem there is out there when you live in a safe little upscale neighborhood and only frequent trendy hotspots.
Around here they are practically non-existent. There are none in my city, although there are 12 within a 20 mile radius. I'm definitely not going to drive 4 miles just to go to the closest 7-11.
I have a hard time understanding why people continually crap on GM about the Volt. It's a very novel approach to the hybrid, offering significantly more electric-only range than other hybrids without the range anxiety of something like a Nissan Leaf. As for pricing; yes, it's expensive, but it's also fledgling technology. Electric-only automakers like Fisker and Tesla talk big but have little to show for all the boasting. The practical issues facing electric-only vehicles are still quite daunting.
I also don't understand the conservative backlash against this car. Here we have an American corporation trying to respond to market demand and a changing world by actually innovating. They didn't just slap together a half-assed Prius knockoff. They actually went for something new, but still practical.
The nonsense I hear repeated time and again is that the US government somehow forced this on GM. Automakers don't just pull cars out of their asses. Years of planning go into a car before the public even knows they're in development. The Volt concept was unveiled in 2007, well before they turned to the government for a bailout.
Interestingly enough, in my part of the country I've already seen a number of Volts, less than 10 but still more than the lone Nissan Leaf I encountered recently. I find it interesting given that I live in a region I'd say easily favors foreign automakers. So I found it surprising to hear that the Volt wasn't doing well. Of course it doesn't help you've got people on both sides of the aisle dumping on this car.
Having known and worked with a number of people in the alternative energy industry I can assure you that they've long since stopped being scrappy little upstarts. They're big business and even big oil has entered alternative industry. They're not stupid. They know there's a ton of money in the industry and a massive amount more to be made.
As for the Chinese, they do have a propensity for dumping goods on other countries. It's something the EU has responded a number of times in the past. And of course a lot of it is driven by protectionist policies, as was the case when the EU imposed tariffs on Chinese clothing several years ago. The problem is that the line between meeting consumer demand for cheap goods and dumping is quite blurred. The Chinese government also has countless policies intended to favor their own companies. It's something you'd expect any rational government to do if they want to ensure the success of their own nation. The global economy will eventually change to the point where these practices might not make sense, but we're not at that point yet.
That is not to suggest that these moves are necessarily a good thing. And they don't fix the core problems with American manufacturing. The government is treating the symptoms not the disease. And that's assuming that they're not pandering to special interests, which of course we all know is not the case. But this sort of thing is definitely very complicated.
All companies care about is advertising turning into real sales. Gay guys are likely closer to females in terms of frequent frivolous spending, i.e. spending on clothing and other accessories. Not that guys necessarily spend less, but their spending is more focused and comes in bigger chunks at less frequent intervals. Also, gay guys, like women, are more fashion and image conscious which means they'll buy into fads more readily and willfully overpay for products they fund appealing. The invention of the metrosexual was an attempt to bring that same mindset to straight men. I'd say it's met with some success, but it's certainly not as reliable as other demographics.
The interest in Facebook is obvious; targeted advertising. The ultimate goal for any company in the consumer space is that we all turn into consumer whores; gender or sexual orientation is irrelevant unless a particular demographic shows increased inclination to spend.
I don't judge anyone based on anything but their performance. I've never made an assessment of anyone's ability until I've worked with them for at least several weeks. With that clear, I think the suggestion that women are somehow better bosses is pure nonsense. They might be operate differently from men, but what do they do that makes them inherently better? Over my career I've been exposed to enough managers of both sexes to have seen some consistent patterns.
The attributes I've seen in bosses some how gets amplified when you're dealing with middle-management, or worse, at a company small enough that people feel excessively important, but big enough that politics become an issue.
I've found male bosses certainly have a tendency to have more of an ego. Some guys are obnoxious, carrying themselves around like they run the show. Because they think they're important they can't be bothered to learn anything and will go right on repeating them same mistakes over and over again. Some guys are downright stupid and disruptive to the process for that reason. It becomes a huge problem when they're micro-managers, which is a tendency I've found more in men. But otherwise in the scheme of things these are annoyances more than anything. Although I've also worked were guys who were a pain in the ass, but were amazing at what they did.
Female managers, however, have a distinct tendency to be emotional, stubborn and are not risk takers when they happen to be middle-managers. That's a particularly big problem because they'll dismiss a good idea that deviates from the usual routine. I get the feeling they're there to draw that paycheck and not actually provide any value beyond just doing the bare minimum required of them.
I also find them less committed to their employer, working remotely far more than men. Maybe they're smarter for gaming the system, but it's definitely disruptive to anyone working with them. It's difficult to make smart decisions when you're not fully aware of what your employees are doing. The emotional component is another issue. I've seen too many women take offense to things that weren't directed at them personally. Or making decisions based on the feelings of the moment as opposed to actually analyzing the issues at hand.
My assessment is derived from numerous specific examples throughout my career. And certainly it goes both ways. I've worked with men who are truly awful managers and set the bar for bad management. But my experience tells me that frequency of bad management has been higher in women. But then in general I think there are too many managers out there not equipped for the job. I think this is a universal problem with American companies, promoting based having a business degree and not real ability.
I will add that one of the best managers I've ever worked with was a woman. I think what made her so good was that she was always closely involved in what we were doing but never micromanaged, giving us the freedom to execute successful work.
There are situations where viewer input could be fun, within very specific niches and informed audiences. Unfortunately, I think what we'll end up seeing is exemplified quite well with The Office. It's dragged on far too long; the storyline meandering, the writers grasping at straws and it long having since missed the original point of the series. The love interests have become far too dominant and the sharp edges have all been filed down making the whole thing a bit too easy-going. Whatever content made the series relatable to actual office workers has long since disappeared. Although that last point I tend to attribute more to writers too intrenched in Hollywood, not really having a grasp on how the rest of the world actually works.
Ironically, the consuming masses will almost certainly produce a more homogenized product than the most focus group obsessed producer in Hollywood could ever dream up. A big part of the problem is that the masses have been educated by Hollywood for a long time. So their decisions will inevitably lead them to the same place a Hollywood writer would go.
It's a bit pathetic that the case for this "Amiga" is essentially a bad Apple Mini knockoff with some Commodore and Amiga logo photoshopped on.
Couldn't they have invested effort in getting a custom case designed that evokes the original? The Amiga 1000 had a cool looking case which could look awesome as a modernized, compact unit. I wish the Apple aesthetic would just die. Not that it's a bad design, but most companies, outside of Japan anyway, seem too uncreative to come up with their own designs.
And they have the gall to charge $2500 for this generic crap?
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It could be argued that making money as a musician has been a short-lived thing. Outside of top-tier composers producing music for nobility no one could earn a living. But over the last century, with the advent of various technologies being a musician became a viable career. Now, because of the commoditization of music and easy access to entertainment the opportunity to make money is evaporating for a lot of people.
Of course, it will never go back to that. Independents will flock to whatever service offers the best deal, or find their own methods of distribution. Music as a big business will always exist. Most consumers, especially youth, are not picky. Their music selections are based on what conforms to their lifestyle identities. And that's all based around conforming to whatever group they've pigeonholed themselves into. So they will continue to lap up whatever garbage the studios produce. Those catering to that demand, supported by the studios, will continue making a lot of money. It's every one else beneath them, who haven't reached that level of celebrity, who will struggle. This is all firmly intrenched in celebrity culture. Complain all we want but that, unfortunately, is not going to change.
If this had happened in the US how long would it have been before we'd have seen lawyers on TV advertising legal action? I'm sure findings from independent agencies would have been completely irrelevant to the case.
If only things were so black and white.
Immigration is extremely beneficial for a nation. When immigrants come here to study and work; when they thrive essentially. But if you've got a significant percentage of the immigrant population segregating themselves into closed communities or becoming a burden on social systems then there is a problem. The host nation benefits from immigration when there is integration because it opens channels for communication, understanding and embracing new ideas.
What happens when, for whatever reason, they are not productive and instead use our social programs without paying into them? Insensitive or not questions need to be addressed because we don't have the money to throw around. Even if we withdraw from all foreign occupation that doesn't mean we should be throwing money at this sort of thing instead of devoting it towards more beneficial programs like science and infrastructure. These are the things which in the long-term will produce more jobs instead of merely creating dependence. Certainly, there are a lot of Americans already in this situation. But why aggravate the problem before properly addressing it?
There's the constant claim that Americans are terrible towards immigrants, ironically perpetuated Americans themselves. The fact of the matter is that the US continues to be one of the friendliest towards immigrants. It's still relatively easy to immigrate to the US, compared to pretty much any other country. The requirements to come here are much lower and it's relatively easy to get established. In a lot of countries you can't even buy property without some kind of permanent residency status, in the US you don't even need a green card.
And I haven't even touched on illegal immigration. Perhaps granting these people legal status would be beneficial. But that's not a guarantee and it raises questions of fairness. Is it fair that people who couldn't be bothered to follow the rules deserve instant citizenship when legal immigrants are not? And doesn't that encourage increased illegal immigration when those people know it's only a matter of time before they're awarded the same status?
The situation is never clear cut. And even though some people take things too far it doesn't mean there isn't a legitimate concern buried in there.
You seem to believe that the stock market is a zero-sum game. While I agree that there are plenty of people gaming the system it doesn't mean you lose if you're not one of them. If you know what you're doing you can make money, you simply wont make quite as much as those guys.
"Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."
Who's the fucking dolt who wrote this article?
People seem to forget that 10 years ago Microsoft was beset by several challenges; there were the investigations into monopolistic practices in addition to the bad press they were enduring. That negative perception fed directly into the rise of Apple. Certainly Microsoft's decline wasn't the sole factor in Apple's success, but if definitely helped feed it. Apple was smart enough to strike out in their own direction instead of simply responding to whatever Microsoft was doing at the time. No company will ever be successful by merely being reactive.
Microsoft may have gotten too complacent with their success. Microsoft has done a lot of very compelling R&D over the years, I'd argue far more innovative than anything Apple has done, but Apple is able to take existing technology and refine it into a compelling user experience. They think things through more fully than anyone else out there. But a fundamental difference between the two is that MS is a software company first and foremost; they're dependent on others to produce the hardware. That's always going to be a big limitation. But regardless of how good Microsoft's products may actually be, they now are always fighting an uphill battle to win the hearts and minds of consumers.
Through the 90s Microsoft operated in a very different environment than we have today. If it wasn't Microsoft acquiring a monopolistic position it likely would have been someone else. And the fact is that consumers wanted a unified user experience and Microsoft gave them that. They really laid the groundwork for everyone else. Of course, in the process they drew everyone's ire.
In the interim, Microsoft has grown into a stable, conservative corporation. They could have flared out and died like so many others, but they're still reasonably successful. I don't see how anyone could fault them for that. There was a concerted push to unseat them from their position of dominance. Now that it has come to fruition, and MS has survived the process quite well, so-called experts are faulting them for that. Ballmer probably deserves a lot of credit for not turning Microsoft into a Yahoo.
It's incredible that Apple has managed to retain the perception of being a cool company somehow still maintaining an anti-establishment appeal. It goes to show how important good product design can be.
This comes off as another one of these "Europeans are great and Americans suck" articles. I know plenty of Americans, who are averse to throwing away old stuff. And if we're going to start comparing societies and their inclination to throw away perfectly good stuff I suggest visiting Asia.
It's also really easy to promote social cohesion when 95% of the population is of a single nationality. Institute a program like this and the odds are high people will participate. It's easy to conduct social engineering when you know how the population will respond. The United States, with a considerably larger variety of ethnic groups is far more unpredictable. Chances are high that a program like this would flop on a national or even regional level. This is the sort of thing that would only work at a community level, and even then it's not a guarantee.
Sometimes I wonder why it takes researchers so long to discover attributes in animals that any pet owner has observed countless times.
Here's one incident that comes to mind:
A couple of years ago my father picked up my cat, as he's done many a time. But this time he took him over to another cat who, for whatever reason, he hated with passion. He patiently let my father hold him and return him to the other room. The instant my father released him the cat turned and bit him with all his strength.
Instead of freaking out while in a compromised position he patiently waited to exact his revenge when he was reasonably safe. That sounds fairly good control of emotion and planning to me. It's not collecting rocks, but I think it's compelling nonetheless.
How about pets training owners into performing desired actions?
Having family and a good number of friends as immigrants I've noticed two significant patterns:
1) Arrive in the US and take fairly menial work due to lack of education or language abilities. They're extremely frugal and manage to save a good deal of money. They work hard, but smartly moving up to the point that they start a small business which leads to further success. Many get involved in real estate investment further increasing income. By the time they're middle-aged they're living comfortably. They tend to pool resources with family members to increase odds of success.
2) Arrive in the US and take menial work for the same reasons. Never become motivated enough to move beyond low-paying employment. They manage to get by, some even to the point that they eventually buy their own home, but never really thrive.
This group tends to branch off into two subsets. There are those who are extremely frugal and manage to accumulate a little bit of money by the time they hit retirement. Then there's the other group that is less careful with money and becomes overly reliant on family members or social security in retirement. But a consistent theme with this group in general is that although they might live within communities comprised of the same ethnic group they tend to be more isolated and less likely to pool resources.
I've noticed another essential dynamic is how immigrant raise their kids. In both cases, but especially the first group, they stress education as essential. They don't tolerate anything less than excellence. This tends to lead to their children going good schools. And because their parents have instilled more pragmatic tendencies in them they tend to favor careers that lead to better employment and higher incomes. Nowadays that means finance, but when I was younger engineering, computer science and medicine tended to be popular. Those who don't end up in top schools still tend to have that work ethic instill in them and generally thrive, enjoying a higher standard of living than their parents.
Amongst the parents who didn't get involved in their children's education, who didn't instill that work ethic, their kids tend to struggle later in life not being any better off than the parents were. More often than not, they end up screwing themselves but not having clear long-term plans and goals.
The interesting thing is that I've generally found foreigners to be far more optimistic about opportunities in America than Americans themselves. They're a lot more willing to sacrifice than Americans are. I've been surprised many a time by friends and family who've manage to save so much money with such relatively low incomes.
I'd love to know what Asian country you live in because they do everything Americans do. You either haven't lived there long enough or you led a sad life in the States. That's the only reason I can see for you to hold such delusions.
People in Asia go just as insane over pop stars as they do in the States. I'd say half of Asian celebrities are fundamentally no different than Kim Kardasian in that they have no appreciable talent but manage to continue to be successful. There are plenty of nobodies who become popular by virtue of being wealthy and befriending celebrities. If Asians didn't eat up that kind of shit these people would never get famous.
And pirating is extremely rampant; it's even prevalent in Japan. They've tried to combat pirating in some novel ways, like offering music CDs with collectables. Not that it helps, because pirating isn't only rampant, it's pretty much institutionalized. And they've gotten so good that people who thought they were getting a great deal on the real thing later realized they were being duped.
Nearly every smaller company I dealt with, and some bigger ones too, was running pirated software. A lot of companies would buy one legitimate copy and then get pirated copies for everyone else.
It bothered me from the perspective that it was all money going right in the pockets of gangsters. At least when people were actually going out to buy pirated music or software. And there were those who really overdid it, for some it's all they bought.
I'm not saying I have a fundamental problem with piracy. Software, for example, was outrageously expensive. Adobe software was far more expensive than it was in the States. So we found ourselves buying through people in the US. But even if they were charging US prices there was still buying power to consider. A lot of smaller companies couldn't afford to drop $5k on a handful of licenses. It's outrageous what these companies charge even in the US.
Music is a bit of a different issue for me in that it's neither a necessity nor is it particular expensive. Most popular music is junk, but it evidently still appeals to your average consumer. So I think in that case people are avoiding paying for the content simply because it's so easy to acquire it for free.
I do like how the US government is happy to help screw the third world. What does it matter what they do? They couldn't afford to pay for this stuff via the legal channels anyway. And from the perspective of companies this is a form of free marketing. Pirating exposes people to content they might not have otherwise had access to. Some day economic conditions may improve to the point that they have real buying power. Not that corporations have the ability to consider the long term.
This would have been a cool set of buildings on any other site. As a replacement for the WTC it's kind of lame. I wouldn't the buildings rebuilt has they'd been. But I would have liked something comparable. Perhaps the twin towers had a high vacancy rate and they saw no way of filling all that space?
It is extremely embarrassing to see how long it took to get the building to this point. As others have mentioned it speaks to the sad state of affairs in this country. Almost anywhere else it would have taken a fraction of the time and would have likely cost less to build too. I realize that a lot the delays were related to bureaucratic red tape, but it doesn't matter the reason, it's a problem because this happens every day across the United States. In my area a couple of large scale projects, which could have been a boon have stalled because of garbage like this. I guess those guys didn't have the political pull and financial backing to finally get things going.
I also find it rather obnoxious that standards allow a spire affixed to the structure to be counted towards total height. But it was rather amusing hearing all the talk this morning about this building being the tallest in the Western Hemisphere like that mattered.
If you want quality educational programming you still have to go to public television. Shows like Nova come to mind.
There are excellent in-car media and stereo systems out there, it all depends on what automaker you're looking at. The Japanese generally pack their cars full of buttons in an attempt to account for every little function. Americans are decent, but it depends on the car and the automaker. They generally suffer from cost-cutting measures and insufficient thinking about how a driver interacts with the car. It's worse when the automaker goes through third-party vendors for their hardware. Too many of those companies are has-beens incapable of innovating putting no thought whatsoever into their designs. Then you've got the Europeans who do put a lot of thought into driver interaction but you still run the risk of ending up with a system that's seriously over-designed and confusing.
I've come across some very well-designed systems. The most successful, in my opinion, don't require you to look away from the road very long, if at all, and are easy to learn. The problem is that as functionality gets deeper inevitable it gets more involved interacting with that stuff, demanding more attention from the driver. Tactile feedback is essential, making touchscreens in cars a huge mistake.
My big annoyance with this article is the suggestion that Apple is a master of user interface design. As far as I'm concerned that's a myth. Their interfaces manage to be elegant only because they're one of the few companies willing to sacrifice functionality for the sake of usability. So how would they approach a car? Would they decide that a handful of functions are all we need and build a single distracting control interface around that? Everything else would, annoyingly, require several more steps than they would have under traditional systems.
But the fact is that whenever Apple is forced to implemented added functionality their applications become just as cumbersome and unintuitive as any other bit of comparable software out there. Look at iTunes, or iWork or even iOS. iOS is no more intuitive than Android or Windows Phone 7. People will only feel that way about it because it's what they're familiar with.
The integration of software and hardware is where Apple excels. But they don't make cars so they lose that edge in the automotive space.
Did life come about because of a confluence of circumstances unique to Earth or can it develop and thrive with a fairly broad set of conditions?
That's the fundamental question, because there are a variety of conditions on Earth that are relatively unique. But did live develop here specifically because of those conditions or was it only shaped because of them? I mean, if you examine life everything fits just right but what we have is a chicken and egg scenario.
Keep in mind that if life were as resilient and adaptable that we should be finding evidence of it surviving elsewhere within our own solar system. So far we haven't found anything which would imply that specific conditions are required. But how specific are the requirements. Earth isn't tidal locked, we've got a large satellite and a fairly stable star, plate tectonics, amongst countless other things. So who knows what the real odds are. I will concede, however, that it's far from being too late to find something on a neighboring planet.
I do like being optimistic about this, however, so I want to believe that life should be common. However, given the vastness of the universe "common" is an extremely relative term. What are the odds of finding complex multi-cellular life within a distance we can realistically travel? And what are the odds of finding life that is thriving within our time frame. Chances are that most life gets snuffed out long before it's able to evolve into anything noteworthy.
People don't just spend 5% of their income. They may spend 5% on food but we spend at least 8 hours a day earning money to enable us to buy that food. 500 years ago an individual might have grown many of their own crops, built their own home and sold or bartered excess crops to get whatever they couldn't grow themselves.
There's no way in hell a modern society can be compared to anything in the past. Technology has progressed for too much and society changed too dramatically. And what the hell is wrong with a better standard of living anyway?
I fully support the idea of a tax on grocery bags because that does have a clear, quantifiable impact on our climate. Being taxes for carbon emissions or paying for carbon credits, however, is nonsense. All those schemes do is make a handful of special interests very wealthy and screw the rest of us.
If you want cheap furniture there's no better place to go. They actually put thought into how the furniture is constructed and try to make the best of the materials they use. This is a far cry from other bargain furniture, like the junk you might find at Walmart.
This doesn't mean, however, that it makes sense to buy everything from Ikea. I would never buy certain items from Ikea I expect to use extensively. Sofas come to mind and office desks. But it really depends on the item, because Ikea does offer certain higher quality products that stand up to years of use.
When Ikea is offering a cabinet for $100 that starts at $400 anywhere else, you can't expect durability.
A lot of cars already do this, particularly if they've got drive-by-wire systems which I thought the Prius featured. But the fact is that this is not going to make a single bit of different for anyone who mashed the gas pedal in a panic thinking they're stomping on the brake.
And it's been demonstrated time and again that brakes will overpower any engine. The key, however, if being decisive when you first encounter a problem and not stupidly poking at and releasing the brakes to the point that they start overheating. And the fact is that every single car on the road, automatic and manual alike can be dropped into neutral at any time.
The problem here isn't limitations in the technology, it's inadequate driver training. People don't understand how cars work. There are certain things that should be mandatory. My state mandates a 8 hour course where they dwell on the obvious, like don't drink and drive, but don't get into the principles of how a car works. They gloss over important topics.
So instead of improving education they keep mandating more crap be stuffed in cars creating a false sense of security.
I grew up in neighborhoods and went to schools where whites were in the minority. I'd venture to say they numbered no more than 15% and this is including European immigrants. Otherwise racial makeup was predominantly Latino and Black, with Latinos being in the majority. I was in high school before I had my first white friend, meaning her parents were not immigrants.
From recollection I'd say maybe twice I ran into problems because I was white. Kids throwing around racial slurs was relatively common, especially during fights. I don't think white kids would venture to do so, however. From a very early age we were all taught about multiculturalism. Of course, the emphasis was always on not offending minorities. So it led to a situation where minorities, especially black kids were more comfortable with poking fun at someone's race. The most common target was Asians; the way they spoke, the fact that they were so studious, etc.
But generally, I think I had a very good experience throughout my childhood and through my teenage years. Everyone got a long reasonably well and there was generally enough of a mix that people barely noticed race. This is not to say that ethnic groups didn't stick together but in that environment everyone was forced to mingle.
Having experienced that and seen how it is in big cities like New York, I tend to think that racial instability in America tends to be overblown. I'm routinely shocked to hear how European family members speak of immigrants. Or to hear how migrant workers are treated in Asia. But then it's easy to get away with it in a country with a single dominant ethnic group.
This is not say there aren't problems. I've seen more problems in adulthood. Run through the wrong neighborhood and chances are some idiot will heckle because you're a white guy out for a jog. It's crazy the way some people lash out at anything they perceive as different.
I have little sympathy for kids who get into trouble. Having lived in this environment I was exposed to the problems of lower income neighborhoods. The problems have nothing to do with race and everything to do with upbringing, or lack thereof. There were kids who lived in these bad neighborhoods who were able to thrive even with parents who worked long hours. The consistent positive reinforcements were strong familial relationships and parents who disciplined and expected good performance in school.
The ones who weren't raised properly all too often end up ruining things for everyone. It's sad Trayvon Martin. But where's the outrage over all the murders happening every day. What about other crime? Or just plain vandalism. You can't leave out anything nice because it will get trashed by some asshole. There's too much of a lack of respect in this country. Of course it's hard to understand how much of a problem there is out there when you live in a safe little upscale neighborhood and only frequent trendy hotspots.
Around here they are practically non-existent. There are none in my city, although there are 12 within a 20 mile radius. I'm definitely not going to drive 4 miles just to go to the closest 7-11.
I have a hard time understanding why people continually crap on GM about the Volt. It's a very novel approach to the hybrid, offering significantly more electric-only range than other hybrids without the range anxiety of something like a Nissan Leaf. As for pricing; yes, it's expensive, but it's also fledgling technology. Electric-only automakers like Fisker and Tesla talk big but have little to show for all the boasting. The practical issues facing electric-only vehicles are still quite daunting.
I also don't understand the conservative backlash against this car. Here we have an American corporation trying to respond to market demand and a changing world by actually innovating. They didn't just slap together a half-assed Prius knockoff. They actually went for something new, but still practical.
The nonsense I hear repeated time and again is that the US government somehow forced this on GM. Automakers don't just pull cars out of their asses. Years of planning go into a car before the public even knows they're in development. The Volt concept was unveiled in 2007, well before they turned to the government for a bailout.
Interestingly enough, in my part of the country I've already seen a number of Volts, less than 10 but still more than the lone Nissan Leaf I encountered recently. I find it interesting given that I live in a region I'd say easily favors foreign automakers. So I found it surprising to hear that the Volt wasn't doing well. Of course it doesn't help you've got people on both sides of the aisle dumping on this car.
Having known and worked with a number of people in the alternative energy industry I can assure you that they've long since stopped being scrappy little upstarts. They're big business and even big oil has entered alternative industry. They're not stupid. They know there's a ton of money in the industry and a massive amount more to be made.
As for the Chinese, they do have a propensity for dumping goods on other countries. It's something the EU has responded a number of times in the past. And of course a lot of it is driven by protectionist policies, as was the case when the EU imposed tariffs on Chinese clothing several years ago. The problem is that the line between meeting consumer demand for cheap goods and dumping is quite blurred. The Chinese government also has countless policies intended to favor their own companies. It's something you'd expect any rational government to do if they want to ensure the success of their own nation. The global economy will eventually change to the point where these practices might not make sense, but we're not at that point yet.
That is not to suggest that these moves are necessarily a good thing. And they don't fix the core problems with American manufacturing. The government is treating the symptoms not the disease. And that's assuming that they're not pandering to special interests, which of course we all know is not the case. But this sort of thing is definitely very complicated.
All companies care about is advertising turning into real sales. Gay guys are likely closer to females in terms of frequent frivolous spending, i.e. spending on clothing and other accessories. Not that guys necessarily spend less, but their spending is more focused and comes in bigger chunks at less frequent intervals. Also, gay guys, like women, are more fashion and image conscious which means they'll buy into fads more readily and willfully overpay for products they fund appealing. The invention of the metrosexual was an attempt to bring that same mindset to straight men. I'd say it's met with some success, but it's certainly not as reliable as other demographics.
The interest in Facebook is obvious; targeted advertising. The ultimate goal for any company in the consumer space is that we all turn into consumer whores; gender or sexual orientation is irrelevant unless a particular demographic shows increased inclination to spend.
I don't judge anyone based on anything but their performance. I've never made an assessment of anyone's ability until I've worked with them for at least several weeks. With that clear, I think the suggestion that women are somehow better bosses is pure nonsense. They might be operate differently from men, but what do they do that makes them inherently better? Over my career I've been exposed to enough managers of both sexes to have seen some consistent patterns.
The attributes I've seen in bosses some how gets amplified when you're dealing with middle-management, or worse, at a company small enough that people feel excessively important, but big enough that politics become an issue.
I've found male bosses certainly have a tendency to have more of an ego. Some guys are obnoxious, carrying themselves around like they run the show. Because they think they're important they can't be bothered to learn anything and will go right on repeating them same mistakes over and over again. Some guys are downright stupid and disruptive to the process for that reason. It becomes a huge problem when they're micro-managers, which is a tendency I've found more in men. But otherwise in the scheme of things these are annoyances more than anything. Although I've also worked were guys who were a pain in the ass, but were amazing at what they did.
Female managers, however, have a distinct tendency to be emotional, stubborn and are not risk takers when they happen to be middle-managers. That's a particularly big problem because they'll dismiss a good idea that deviates from the usual routine. I get the feeling they're there to draw that paycheck and not actually provide any value beyond just doing the bare minimum required of them.
I also find them less committed to their employer, working remotely far more than men. Maybe they're smarter for gaming the system, but it's definitely disruptive to anyone working with them. It's difficult to make smart decisions when you're not fully aware of what your employees are doing. The emotional component is another issue. I've seen too many women take offense to things that weren't directed at them personally. Or making decisions based on the feelings of the moment as opposed to actually analyzing the issues at hand.
My assessment is derived from numerous specific examples throughout my career. And certainly it goes both ways. I've worked with men who are truly awful managers and set the bar for bad management. But my experience tells me that frequency of bad management has been higher in women. But then in general I think there are too many managers out there not equipped for the job. I think this is a universal problem with American companies, promoting based having a business degree and not real ability.
I will add that one of the best managers I've ever worked with was a woman. I think what made her so good was that she was always closely involved in what we were doing but never micromanaged, giving us the freedom to execute successful work.
There are situations where viewer input could be fun, within very specific niches and informed audiences. Unfortunately, I think what we'll end up seeing is exemplified quite well with The Office. It's dragged on far too long; the storyline meandering, the writers grasping at straws and it long having since missed the original point of the series. The love interests have become far too dominant and the sharp edges have all been filed down making the whole thing a bit too easy-going. Whatever content made the series relatable to actual office workers has long since disappeared. Although that last point I tend to attribute more to writers too intrenched in Hollywood, not really having a grasp on how the rest of the world actually works.
Ironically, the consuming masses will almost certainly produce a more homogenized product than the most focus group obsessed producer in Hollywood could ever dream up. A big part of the problem is that the masses have been educated by Hollywood for a long time. So their decisions will inevitably lead them to the same place a Hollywood writer would go.
It's a bit pathetic that the case for this "Amiga" is essentially a bad Apple Mini knockoff with some Commodore and Amiga logo photoshopped on.
Couldn't they have invested effort in getting a custom case designed that evokes the original? The Amiga 1000 had a cool looking case which could look awesome as a modernized, compact unit. I wish the Apple aesthetic would just die. Not that it's a bad design, but most companies, outside of Japan anyway, seem too uncreative to come up with their own designs.
And they have the gall to charge $2500 for this generic crap?