Really? Are you serious? There's an economic downturn.
Yes, and a big one at that. Just like there was 10 years ago and 20 years ago and... you get the idea.
Just because there's a downturn doesn't mean we stop investing in the future. Had the U.S. done that in the 30s, we would have lost in the 40s (old aircraft, slow ships, old rifles, broken tanks, no nukes).
“Getting on an airplane shouldn’t amount to forfeiting your security and privacy to anyone, anywhere in the world with an Internet connection,” adds Hubbard
Because they afford to pay for their privacy whereas we must forfeit our security and privacy when we get on the plane just because we can't buy the plane.
That, and this information is being broadcasted unencrypted over the airwaves for anyone to listen to for miles. This same service could be accomplished with a team of 1-4 people per city listening in on the frequencies with off-the-shelf equipment and looking up the numbers (which is probably already happening in LA, NY, and Las Vegas and other places for the paparazzi). No bullying of ISPs or wireless carriers nor decryption required.
I doubt he's expecting more aggressive harassment. He's probably anticipating mostly crude humor that is edgy that might be funny for some but offends others (closer to bar humor rather than physical misconduct).
One office a friend of mine worked at did the swear-jar thing as some women joined the team. Turned out, the women ended up making the most frequent contributions.
Even if there was no security whatsoever on planes beyond a cursory visual inspection of passengers to make sure there weren't any guns or knives on the plane, it would still be safer than travel by car in terms of risk of death per miles travelled. Very few planes fall out of the sky because of bad piloting. A great many cars are as I am typing this right now crashing into other cars, catching fire due to poor maintenance, etc. And let's not forget that all of them are driven by "above average" drivers. -_-
Death by terrorist ranks lower on my list of ways I could die than "slipping and falling in bathtub". Statistically... My odds of dying in a freak accident at home are far higher than death by terrorist. If only my rubber ducky got as much government funding for it's potential to kill me as counter-terrorism does...
The money that is flowing to investors through capital gains and dividends has already been taxed at a much higher rate than the 15%. The corporate tax rate in the US is 35% and then some states have a tax as well.
Officially, yes. Very public counter-example from a year ago: GE got a refund.
(I have no disagreement with anything else in your post; I wish people realized that the only "job creators" paying taxes on their employees are ones hiring nanny's butlers).
That's actually the optimistic perspective. Given skill, experience and good will, you could pick up to two. Frequently, the most you could have is one, or in sadly common cases, zero.
The problem is that the real thing destabilizes society, the workers resent the non workers... and the social mores of the non workers deteriorate.
Much better would be a reduced work week, so everyone can get a job... fat chance though, so destabilization it is.
The issue is not that there is less work to do. The issue is that there is labor freed up (by force?) to do something different or bigger. We don't do low-end manufacturing, but we automate. Manual steps (like piecing together an engine) are done by hand by skilled people but doors are welded by machines (which are maintained by people). More is done by less, but the people need to be more skilled. We've been through this before (Industrial Revolution for example) where farming efficiency allowed for more factory workers.
Ok...so, does anybody really look for some kind of 'green' label before purchasing a computer?
I mean...is there anyone out there that uses 'green' as a deciding factor between models they are considering??
Look for it? No. But (having only read the summary) if the issue is simply glue verses tabs or screws, it seems there might be some middle ground that can be worked out. Admittedly, it would be on Apple's shoulders to figure out a new solution and EPEAT to not be a narrow-minded organization.
But what an awesome 15 seconds that must have been!
Awesome 15 seconds, but 30 minutes of driving, 15 minutes to find a parking spot, 30 minutes of waiting, 1 hour of fighting traffic to leave... (the better viewing places get overwhelmed with people on the 4th). I'm sure some people were bummed even though It would have been awesome to see. I bet there's a few people who were looking the wrong way too.
How Does Your Company Evaluate Your Performance?
Seldom! Reviews are the time that raises are brought up.
Betting most places are like that. Our "yearly" reviews come every 18 months, if at all.
Wanna see someone sidestep like a politician? Ask a suit " when are reviews coming?"
In five and a half years, I have received exactly two performance evaluations. I also received one flat raise aside from that, not tied to performance: everyone in the company got 2.5%.
Three raises in over five years: doing the math, I see that my salary, adjusting for inflation, is only slightly greater than it was when I was hired.
One former employer of mine was going to do annual performance reviews without any merit (or fixed) raises. That night I went home to polish my resume, which has lead me to my current (and much better) employment situation.
Some employers can't afford to give raises because the financials aren't looking so great. Remember that a raise today means they will pay X extra per year for each employee until they leave since formal pay cuts are not generally part of our culture. This is one reason why bonuses can be an attractive alternative for companies (less commitment). Maybe the stock options have potential down the road. Other employers are just stingy (penny-wise, pound foolish when it comes to what kind of workers they will retain).
This is about taxes. "General welfare" or "regulation of interstate commerce" (which was rejected) don't apply. If congress wants to tax people who don't enter into a business agreement with a third party, they can (and, did).
This specific part is about fixing the pre-existing loophole that someone who decides not to pay for insurance but piggy backs on the healthcare system by using the ER (which is more expensive than regular visits and pushes the burden on the rest of us through higher medical and insurance costs). As costs got higher, more and more people made this decision (or it was made for them). This isn't the primary reason for health care costs going up, but it's contributing to it.
At some point in time, this gap was going to need to be filled in some way (otherwise you and I will continue to pay for their insurance). I would have preferred a carrot rather than a stick (or a stick disguised as a carrot), but I personally can't think of a better solution. Can you?
As much grumbling as there is in the tech sector over the HB1 folks (legal status), the average Joe out on the streets is far more resentful of the uneducated migrant workers picking strawberries than they are the post docs with PhDs filling up the universities. The former ones are lowering the wages at the bottom end of the scale for everyone by providing cheap, illegal labor. The smart, educated ones are a minority - and probably speak English pretty well, too.
They are grumbling about that, but often when Joe gets put in a field to pick those strawberries he quits after a day because being unemployed is better (you can Google some of the high-profile stories about this). Joe is happy to leave these jobs to the immigrants and appreciates the lower cost of food.
On the other hand, Joe doesn't want to work in a fast food restaurant or at the grocery store for $8-10 an hour but might do it for $18-20 an hour (a lower but livable wage). This is where things get messy. Introduce people to a workforce who considers our definition of poverty to be luxury and they'll work for a fraction of what an American expecting a 4 bedroom house and 2 car garage will work for. But then, why do we get this when they don't simply because we were born on the right side of an arbitrary line. At the end of the day, this shift in the workplace market allows for corporations to pay lower wages and reap higher profits at the expense of their employees.
- Lower quality primary and secondary school systems (less funding, less parent engagement, teachers being treated as communist enemies, etc)
- Universities that get more prestige and money for having foreign undergrad and grad students (who tend to be cream-of-the-crop and harder working, something that cutting-edge researchers want)
This isn't a bash on immigrants; it's a bash on ourselves.
Sysadmins benefit from tools that offer significant speed improvements while not sacrificing reliability or ease of recovery. There's some serious questions about the data loss from a system crash (which is more common these days due to cloud stuff) if a transaction is not committed to disk. It comes down to how valuable is that data lost when a crash occurs.
Getting a speed boost but setting a time bomb to being screwed isn't really a smart decision.
I won't be counting out the USA with such a broad brush
Remember, when they sent out the astronauts to the moon, the computing power of the entire space module is less than a 386 chip
Today, even a not-so-smart phone has computing power much more than the 386
In other words, if USA wants to go to moon today, it no longer has to do it from scratch
Correct, but modern engineering is plagued by over-engineering, design by committee, and (when the government is involved) pork. For example, Congressional funding for NASA and the military specify which districts the components are made in. We also demand better safety and testing (which takes time) where sometimes the gadgets broke. Safety isn't a bad thing. But in 1969 we were willing to risk 3 men's lives with a reasonable probability they would 1) crash 2) get stranded or 3) overshoot the moon and keep going (all of which results in them dying).
There was a time when the right mix of brains, creativity, and guts came together. Since then, we've gotten smarter but (with respect to NASA) less creative and more risk-adverse.
The fact that Obama hasn't been impeached yet is the most damning indictment of our political system I could imagine. He has utterly failed in his oath to uphold the Constitution.
Pass the tea, please.
Seriously, people said this through 12 years of Bush, 8 years of Clinton, and 8 years of Reagan. The side not in power always whines that the President is not upholding the constitution while doing everything in Congress possible to prevent work from getting done. The reality is that most of the HSA, TSA and health care actions taken by this administration (by it's own choice) have origins in either the Bush administration or conservative thinkers. Suddenly it's against the Constitution because it's a Democrat wanting to do it.
which brings an interesting question... can astronauts really spend long times in space (months or maybe over a year) without any sexual thinking at all? i mean... at some point, if you do.. you have to unload... uhm.. are they allowed to?
Maybe that's why she's there?
(before the mods slay me, you have to admit it's the elephant in the room)
The sweet spot for selling diesels should be efficiency close to a hybrid with the power of a sports compact (I'm specifically thinking of the VW/Audi TDI drive train). A Prius can be quick off the line but it is still a lower-powered vehicle.
I support Ron Paul. I do realize he is a little extreme on some policies but in the end he doesn't align perfectly with either party and he is only one man. If he became president, some of his more extreme policies would become more mellowed by the other politicians. The end result would be smaller government and more freedom. Most of the other politicians seem to want the opposite.
Agreed. He has some interesting ideas that he wouldn't necessarily be able to enact as he might want, but it's a pull in a direction the government could use.
Put another way, I'd like to see what 4 years of him as president would do (but I'm not sure I'd want him for 8).
This in turn would help business down the road. Doing things like this gains loyalty and sells your products for years. Those guys come back, get nicer and nicer jobs and remember the industry that helped them. They buy movies, and visit theaters, and defend their honor when people talk bad about the MPAA on/..
The problem is this is no longer how business functions in the US from either side. The people simply buy what is cheapest with little to no brand loyalty and the brands simply buy each other, abuse their customers or resell their competitors products as their own (or a combination thereof).
In fairness to the people, I think the latter caused the former.
Brand loyalty doesn't apply so much for movies or music (other than liking an actor or singer); it's more about loyalty to the mainstream industry (going to theaters, buying movies, etc) vs not (pirating). In this case, it's another pile of straw on the proverbial camel's back. One day they will place the single straw that breaks it and will wish they hadn't.
Bishop recently introduced a bill that would make companies that outsource call centers ineligible for government contracts.
So they're saying that they're no longer going to purchase HP, Dell, or Acer PCs? Somehow I suspect that bill is just posturing, and will not amount to anything.
Or it will force them to open call centers in the US to serve US customers. I would presume that the requirement would be serving US customers onshore but doesn't bar them from serving offshore customers with offshore centers.
No matter who was responsible, they pushed the world closer to war with that virus.
I'm not convinced by what we've seen so far, what little evidence there is, that Iran is producing nuclear weapons or wants to. Even if you could prove that to me, it wouldn't change my position that we shouldn't be involved in their affairs and have no right to punish or sanction a nation for doing the same thing we do. It's the US after all with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the only nation to have ever used them (we get sort of a pass since they were unprecedented at the time).
Iran is a sovereign nation and if they wish to produce nuclear weapons because they feel threatened by their neighbors (Israel, a nuclear power) or as a deterrent then that is their prerogative. Israel claims to feel threatened and vulnerable, that they're being menaced by Iran, yet they're the ones murdering scientists and sabotaging industries of other nations.
Right now there is something of a balance between the powers that have nuclear weapons today. Iran's unpredictable nature and history of supporting terrorists poses a risk to the balance.
Speaking of WWII, 1) Germany would have used it if they attained it (their research didn't get that far) and 2) less Japanese died due to the bomb. A land invasion of Japan would have made Iwo Jima and Okinawa look like a cake walk for both the Allies and the Japanese as the Japanese population would have fought on until very few remained. Also, as horrifying as the bomb was fire bombing Tokyo and Dresden killed just as many.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? Are you serious? There's an economic downturn.
Yes, and a big one at that. Just like there was 10 years ago and 20 years ago and ... you get the idea.
Just because there's a downturn doesn't mean we stop investing in the future. Had the U.S. done that in the 30s, we would have lost in the 40s (old aircraft, slow ships, old rifles, broken tanks, no nukes).
“Getting on an airplane shouldn’t amount to forfeiting your security and privacy to anyone, anywhere in the world with an Internet connection,” adds Hubbard Because they afford to pay for their privacy whereas we must forfeit our security and privacy when we get on the plane just because we can't buy the plane.
That, and this information is being broadcasted unencrypted over the airwaves for anyone to listen to for miles. This same service could be accomplished with a team of 1-4 people per city listening in on the frequencies with off-the-shelf equipment and looking up the numbers (which is probably already happening in LA, NY, and Las Vegas and other places for the paparazzi). No bullying of ISPs or wireless carriers nor decryption required.
I doubt he's expecting more aggressive harassment. He's probably anticipating mostly crude humor that is edgy that might be funny for some but offends others (closer to bar humor rather than physical misconduct).
One office a friend of mine worked at did the swear-jar thing as some women joined the team. Turned out, the women ended up making the most frequent contributions.
+1
High Schooler != High School Graduate
Even if there was no security whatsoever on planes beyond a cursory visual inspection of passengers to make sure there weren't any guns or knives on the plane, it would still be safer than travel by car in terms of risk of death per miles travelled. Very few planes fall out of the sky because of bad piloting. A great many cars are as I am typing this right now crashing into other cars, catching fire due to poor maintenance, etc. And let's not forget that all of them are driven by "above average" drivers. -_-
Death by terrorist ranks lower on my list of ways I could die than "slipping and falling in bathtub". Statistically... My odds of dying in a freak accident at home are far higher than death by terrorist. If only my rubber ducky got as much government funding for it's potential to kill me as counter-terrorism does...
Scariness:
Sharks > Terrorism > Car Crash
Likelyhood:
Car Crash > Terrorism > Sharks
The money that is flowing to investors through capital gains and dividends has already been taxed at a much higher rate than the 15%. The corporate tax rate in the US is 35% and then some states have a tax as well.
Officially, yes. Very public counter-example from a year ago: GE got a refund.
(I have no disagreement with anything else in your post; I wish people realized that the only "job creators" paying taxes on their employees are ones hiring nanny's butlers).
That's actually the optimistic perspective. Given skill, experience and good will, you could pick up to two. Frequently, the most you could have is one, or in sadly common cases, zero.
I was going to say the same thing.
The problem is that the real thing destabilizes society, the workers resent the non workers ... and the social mores of the non workers deteriorate.
Much better would be a reduced work week, so everyone can get a job ... fat chance though, so destabilization it is.
The issue is not that there is less work to do. The issue is that there is labor freed up (by force?) to do something different or bigger. We don't do low-end manufacturing, but we automate. Manual steps (like piecing together an engine) are done by hand by skilled people but doors are welded by machines (which are maintained by people). More is done by less, but the people need to be more skilled. We've been through this before (Industrial Revolution for example) where farming efficiency allowed for more factory workers.
Yep, at least the person who cuts you off on purpose is actually watching the road and aware of their surroundings.
You ignore the ones who expect you to brake to avoid them from hitting you as they enter your lane.
Ok...so, does anybody really look for some kind of 'green' label before purchasing a computer?
I mean...is there anyone out there that uses 'green' as a deciding factor between models they are considering??
Look for it? No. But (having only read the summary) if the issue is simply glue verses tabs or screws, it seems there might be some middle ground that can be worked out. Admittedly, it would be on Apple's shoulders to figure out a new solution and EPEAT to not be a narrow-minded organization.
But what an awesome 15 seconds that must have been!
Awesome 15 seconds, but 30 minutes of driving, 15 minutes to find a parking spot, 30 minutes of waiting, 1 hour of fighting traffic to leave... (the better viewing places get overwhelmed with people on the 4th). I'm sure some people were bummed even though It would have been awesome to see. I bet there's a few people who were looking the wrong way too.
In five and a half years, I have received exactly two performance evaluations. I also received one flat raise aside from that, not tied to performance: everyone in the company got 2.5%.
Three raises in over five years: doing the math, I see that my salary, adjusting for inflation, is only slightly greater than it was when I was hired.
One former employer of mine was going to do annual performance reviews without any merit (or fixed) raises. That night I went home to polish my resume, which has lead me to my current (and much better) employment situation.
Some employers can't afford to give raises because the financials aren't looking so great. Remember that a raise today means they will pay X extra per year for each employee until they leave since formal pay cuts are not generally part of our culture. This is one reason why bonuses can be an attractive alternative for companies (less commitment). Maybe the stock options have potential down the road. Other employers are just stingy (penny-wise, pound foolish when it comes to what kind of workers they will retain).
This is about taxes. "General welfare" or "regulation of interstate commerce" (which was rejected) don't apply. If congress wants to tax people who don't enter into a business agreement with a third party, they can (and, did).
This specific part is about fixing the pre-existing loophole that someone who decides not to pay for insurance but piggy backs on the healthcare system by using the ER (which is more expensive than regular visits and pushes the burden on the rest of us through higher medical and insurance costs). As costs got higher, more and more people made this decision (or it was made for them). This isn't the primary reason for health care costs going up, but it's contributing to it.
At some point in time, this gap was going to need to be filled in some way (otherwise you and I will continue to pay for their insurance). I would have preferred a carrot rather than a stick (or a stick disguised as a carrot), but I personally can't think of a better solution. Can you?
As much grumbling as there is in the tech sector over the HB1 folks (legal status), the average Joe out on the streets is far more resentful of the uneducated migrant workers picking strawberries than they are the post docs with PhDs filling up the universities. The former ones are lowering the wages at the bottom end of the scale for everyone by providing cheap, illegal labor. The smart, educated ones are a minority - and probably speak English pretty well, too.
They are grumbling about that, but often when Joe gets put in a field to pick those strawberries he quits after a day because being unemployed is better (you can Google some of the high-profile stories about this). Joe is happy to leave these jobs to the immigrants and appreciates the lower cost of food.
On the other hand, Joe doesn't want to work in a fast food restaurant or at the grocery store for $8-10 an hour but might do it for $18-20 an hour (a lower but livable wage). This is where things get messy. Introduce people to a workforce who considers our definition of poverty to be luxury and they'll work for a fraction of what an American expecting a 4 bedroom house and 2 car garage will work for. But then, why do we get this when they don't simply because we were born on the right side of an arbitrary line. At the end of the day, this shift in the workplace market allows for corporations to pay lower wages and reap higher profits at the expense of their employees.
This and a few things:
- Lower quality primary and secondary school systems (less funding, less parent engagement, teachers being treated as communist enemies, etc)
- Universities that get more prestige and money for having foreign undergrad and grad students (who tend to be cream-of-the-crop and harder working, something that cutting-edge researchers want)
This isn't a bash on immigrants; it's a bash on ourselves.
Sysadmins benefit from tools that offer significant speed improvements while not sacrificing reliability or ease of recovery. There's some serious questions about the data loss from a system crash (which is more common these days due to cloud stuff) if a transaction is not committed to disk. It comes down to how valuable is that data lost when a crash occurs.
Getting a speed boost but setting a time bomb to being screwed isn't really a smart decision.
I won't be counting out the USA with such a broad brush
Remember, when they sent out the astronauts to the moon, the computing power of the entire space module is less than a 386 chip
Today, even a not-so-smart phone has computing power much more than the 386
In other words, if USA wants to go to moon today, it no longer has to do it from scratch
Correct, but modern engineering is plagued by over-engineering, design by committee, and (when the government is involved) pork. For example, Congressional funding for NASA and the military specify which districts the components are made in. We also demand better safety and testing (which takes time) where sometimes the gadgets broke. Safety isn't a bad thing. But in 1969 we were willing to risk 3 men's lives with a reasonable probability they would 1) crash 2) get stranded or 3) overshoot the moon and keep going (all of which results in them dying).
There was a time when the right mix of brains, creativity, and guts came together. Since then, we've gotten smarter but (with respect to NASA) less creative and more risk-adverse.
The fact that Obama hasn't been impeached yet is the most damning indictment of our political system I could imagine. He has utterly failed in his oath to uphold the Constitution.
Pass the tea, please.
Seriously, people said this through 12 years of Bush, 8 years of Clinton, and 8 years of Reagan. The side not in power always whines that the President is not upholding the constitution while doing everything in Congress possible to prevent work from getting done. The reality is that most of the HSA, TSA and health care actions taken by this administration (by it's own choice) have origins in either the Bush administration or conservative thinkers. Suddenly it's against the Constitution because it's a Democrat wanting to do it.
which brings an interesting question... can astronauts really spend long times in space (months or maybe over a year) without any sexual thinking at all? i mean... at some point, if you do.. you have to unload... uhm.. are they allowed to?
Maybe that's why she's there?
(before the mods slay me, you have to admit it's the elephant in the room)
The sweet spot for selling diesels should be efficiency close to a hybrid with the power of a sports compact (I'm specifically thinking of the VW/Audi TDI drive train). A Prius can be quick off the line but it is still a lower-powered vehicle.
Thanks for raising all our insurance rates. Nothing like unnecessary testing.
Sounds like the test was the most valuable part of the visit (while possibly the cheapest).
I support Ron Paul. I do realize he is a little extreme on some policies but in the end he doesn't align perfectly with either party and he is only one man. If he became president, some of his more extreme policies would become more mellowed by the other politicians. The end result would be smaller government and more freedom. Most of the other politicians seem to want the opposite.
Agreed. He has some interesting ideas that he wouldn't necessarily be able to enact as he might want, but it's a pull in a direction the government could use.
Put another way, I'd like to see what 4 years of him as president would do (but I'm not sure I'd want him for 8).
This in turn would help business down the road. Doing things like this gains loyalty and sells your products for years. Those guys come back, get nicer and nicer jobs and remember the industry that helped them. They buy movies, and visit theaters, and defend their honor when people talk bad about the MPAA on /..
The problem is this is no longer how business functions in the US from either side. The people simply buy what is cheapest with little to no brand loyalty and the brands simply buy each other, abuse their customers or resell their competitors products as their own (or a combination thereof). In fairness to the people, I think the latter caused the former.
Brand loyalty doesn't apply so much for movies or music (other than liking an actor or singer); it's more about loyalty to the mainstream industry (going to theaters, buying movies, etc) vs not (pirating). In this case, it's another pile of straw on the proverbial camel's back. One day they will place the single straw that breaks it and will wish they hadn't.
Bishop recently introduced a bill that would make companies that outsource call centers ineligible for government contracts.
So they're saying that they're no longer going to purchase HP, Dell, or Acer PCs? Somehow I suspect that bill is just posturing, and will not amount to anything.
Or it will force them to open call centers in the US to serve US customers. I would presume that the requirement would be serving US customers onshore but doesn't bar them from serving offshore customers with offshore centers.
No matter who was responsible, they pushed the world closer to war with that virus.
I'm not convinced by what we've seen so far, what little evidence there is, that Iran is producing nuclear weapons or wants to. Even if you could prove that to me, it wouldn't change my position that we shouldn't be involved in their affairs and have no right to punish or sanction a nation for doing the same thing we do. It's the US after all with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the only nation to have ever used them (we get sort of a pass since they were unprecedented at the time).
Iran is a sovereign nation and if they wish to produce nuclear weapons because they feel threatened by their neighbors (Israel, a nuclear power) or as a deterrent then that is their prerogative. Israel claims to feel threatened and vulnerable, that they're being menaced by Iran, yet they're the ones murdering scientists and sabotaging industries of other nations.
Right now there is something of a balance between the powers that have nuclear weapons today. Iran's unpredictable nature and history of supporting terrorists poses a risk to the balance.
Speaking of WWII, 1) Germany would have used it if they attained it (their research didn't get that far) and 2) less Japanese died due to the bomb. A land invasion of Japan would have made Iwo Jima and Okinawa look like a cake walk for both the Allies and the Japanese as the Japanese population would have fought on until very few remained. Also, as horrifying as the bomb was fire bombing Tokyo and Dresden killed just as many.