Yeah, we had a big problem when we went over to the states and started getting crap service in a bar as we weren't tipping. It took a kind waitress' to explain that tips aren't optional as the waitress wouldn't get paid properly otherwise. What a crock of shit, if your working you get paid. We all felt that the bar owners are shafting both the customer AND the employee! If the price of the drink is $2 it should be $2, not $2.20 because the owner can't be assed to pay their staff properly.
It may be sad, but it's really straightforward: Microsoft is a typical profit maximizer. That's their aim. Every activity they do, be it product development, marketing, or plain PR is aligned with that central business goal. Why is this sad? I'm no MS sympathiser, but at the end of the day they are a business whose only duty is to maximise their return to their investors. Why do people act surprised that this is the case? If they can spend less on R+D and good software engineering and still sell the same volume of product, they will as it will improve their sales margins. All companies, ultimately, work in this way. You don't invest unless you expect a return on that investment.
Good enough to sell, is good enough.
Rich
I invite you to try this in the UK... if you like a firm frisking. Here in the UK the gate detectors are pinging on your watch strap... let alone golf tools.
And just like the US, our border officials leave their sense of humour at home.
Rich
CERA employ geologists, talk to the oil companies at all levels and are owned by IHS, whose Energy subdivision has one of the largest, if not the largest, databases on oil exploration, production and reserves data in the world and has been continually developed over the last 20-30years. A pretty good dataset in order to theorise about the development of the oil industry.
People seem to miss the point that a reserve until its economical to develop. With the increase in oil price more marginal and frontier areas are becoming more economical to develop, as a minor example Ireland is starting to become more interesting for exploration despite the high risk and technical challenges of deep water >2000m water depth. (For you guys in the US, Ireland is the little island to the west of the UK).
Production techniques are improving, recovery rates in some cases have been boosted above 50%, in the 70's this struggled to hit 20%. This is allied to the improvements in reservoir modelling and imaging - 3D and now 4D seismic are common over field developments.
New plays are being developed on old fields - i.e. greater understanding of the geology leads to discovery of previously undiscovered reserves in current fields.
Current major provinces have actually seen very limited exploration when compared to e.g. The north sea. If the same level of exploration intensity using modern techniques was applied to e.g. Saudi then I would expect there to be lots more oil discovered in increasingly small fields.
The above is my reasoning that the world is not running out of oil, but that it may have run out of very cheap oil - which is a problem if your cars only do 12mpg. Most industry professionals expect the oil price to stabilise at $45-55 bbl which opens a far greater range of potential discoveries for development than $10 oil.
Coke and Pepsi in the US and WEST won't contain the pesticides. The issue was the use of pesticide contaminated water in the LOCAL manufacturing plants... hence the ban.
Rich
Sounds like for once the UK is ahead of you guys. Government regulation has led to Local Loop Unbundling and forced the incumbant operator BT (ex Gov't monopoly) to allow shared access at its exchanges. Result: A vibrant and competative market in ISP's all competing for your cash.
The EU (for once) is even helping promote it, and forces incumant operators to allow LLU arrangements.
Allowing telecoms companies to bludgen the market by repealling LLU is very bad news for the consumer. Work on your politicians to free up the market, I thought good Americans believed in a free market economy?
The biggest problem that M$ has is their size. Sure they have tons of cash and an army of coders, but I bet the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. There must be so much red tape there as to basically paralyze them.
You think thats unique to MS ? All companies/gov'ts/organisations once they grow past a critical size suffer this problem. Dilbert highlights this all the time:)
Rich
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps he should try reading this book... http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R2GHTSB9P55XPQ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
:-)
Yeah, we had a big problem when we went over to the states and started getting crap service in a bar as we weren't tipping. It took a kind waitress' to explain that tips aren't optional as the waitress wouldn't get paid properly otherwise. What a crock of shit, if your working you get paid. We all felt that the bar owners are shafting both the customer AND the employee! If the price of the drink is $2 it should be $2, not $2.20 because the owner can't be assed to pay their staff properly.
These are the same border agents who recently got confused by the MacBook air - right. So obviously they will be tech experts. Sorted. Rich
I invite you to try this in the UK... if you like a firm frisking. Here in the UK the gate detectors are pinging on your watch strap... let alone golf tools. And just like the US, our border officials leave their sense of humour at home. Rich
It's because she was drinking coors and not the university approved beverage of choice...
CERA employ geologists, talk to the oil companies at all levels and are owned by IHS, whose Energy subdivision has one of the largest, if not the largest, databases on oil exploration, production and reserves data in the world and has been continually developed over the last 20-30years. A pretty good dataset in order to theorise about the development of the oil industry.
People seem to miss the point that a reserve until its economical to develop. With the increase in oil price more marginal and frontier areas are becoming more economical to develop, as a minor example Ireland is starting to become more interesting for exploration despite the high risk and technical challenges of deep water >2000m water depth. (For you guys in the US, Ireland is the little island to the west of the UK).
Production techniques are improving, recovery rates in some cases have been boosted above 50%, in the 70's this struggled to hit 20%. This is allied to the improvements in reservoir modelling and imaging - 3D and now 4D seismic are common over field developments.
New plays are being developed on old fields - i.e. greater understanding of the geology leads to discovery of previously undiscovered reserves in current fields.
Current major provinces have actually seen very limited exploration when compared to e.g. The north sea. If the same level of exploration intensity using modern techniques was applied to e.g. Saudi then I would expect there to be lots more oil discovered in increasingly small fields.
The above is my reasoning that the world is not running out of oil, but that it may have run out of very cheap oil - which is a problem if your cars only do 12mpg. Most industry professionals expect the oil price to stabilise at $45-55 bbl which opens a far greater range of potential discoveries for development than $10 oil.
Rich
4. They tried that once, it was called the Gold Standard and indirectly led to the great depression and mass unemployment.
In the UK a while back employees have been fired by Text, or should that be txt. UR Fired Rich
Coke and Pepsi in the US and WEST won't contain the pesticides. The issue was the use of pesticide contaminated water in the LOCAL manufacturing plants... hence the ban. Rich
Or "How I learned to stop worrying, and love google"
Sounds like for once the UK is ahead of you guys. Government regulation has led to Local Loop Unbundling and forced the incumbant operator BT (ex Gov't monopoly) to allow shared access at its exchanges. Result: A vibrant and competative market in ISP's all competing for your cash. The EU (for once) is even helping promote it, and forces incumant operators to allow LLU arrangements. Allowing telecoms companies to bludgen the market by repealling LLU is very bad news for the consumer. Work on your politicians to free up the market, I thought good Americans believed in a free market economy?