DeBeers has been able to protect the market for a long time...I could easily see it being another 50 years or more before the diamond "market" collapses. They've survived artificial diamonds this far by pouring money into detection techniques that can certify manmade stones as worthless, and the entire jewelry industry is behind them in this.
The problem is, how do you do the research? The audio/video publications out there have not even come close to adopting a standard set of measurements that would quantify the performance of processors that need to perform complex tasks like scaling, 3:2 pulldown, etc. The results from different chipsets are all over the map (chroma key errors, cheats, lame algorithms), and it's rare to be able to get any information at all on new products. You just have to wait 6 months until someone that actually knows what they are doing throws a review up on the web.
Thank you. I think then that we simply disagree. I consider such decisions "necessary" over the long term, because eventually many of the practices in the third world will result in long-term implications for the developed world as well if current processes go unchecked.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by that? It's clearly not _necessary_ in a business sense to take care of the environment etc, which is why no one does in regimes that don't regulate such things.
>>The environmental laws exist because it was >>determined they were necessary.
>If they are necessary then, by definition, >everyone will follow suit or die.
What a silly idea! There is obviously a cost to exploiting or degrading (pollution) the environment. It may manifest itself in flooding (deforestation), decreased productivity from health problems (pollution), liability from lax controls resulting in damages (see: Bhopal), etc. At the same time, none of these things are going to cause humanity as a species to drop dead tomorrow--but they may collectively limit the future viability of the planet for human survival.
As a result, there is a "tragedy of the commons" scenario--we all share the environment, but the costs of exploiting it are seldom internalized, so companies are not discouraged from taking unfair advantage of it. Even if the processes are unsustainable in the long term, people will tend to take the short term view if it means they personally profit.
There is a huge amount of variability, but staffing contractors generally are taking home somewhere around 50% of the bill rate. That means $22 an hour is more like a $25,000-$30,000 salary.
I have a lowly MI-E1, but I've been very impressed with the quality of the screen. It's definitely great for reading books.
Could you recommend a dictionary reader for the Linux-based Zaurii? I've thought about upgrading some day, but I love ZPDView's ability to read EDICT dictionaries.
Yeah, I don't get it either. It doesn't munge things up at least...if your browser defaults to Shift-JIS you can enter Japanese comments, but to anyone browsing in ISO it's gibberish.
Oh, very nice. Another mistake in the same vein is "irregardless." I once read that a high percentage of people that use this "word" are under the mistaken impression that it is a more formal version of "regardless!"
If you have a relatively simple return, then yes, the calculator works. But in that case the entire argument is moot: it's easy to estimate, and there is no need for a buffer.
If you earn more than an accountant does, you should be paying him to do it for you, as his time is less valuable than yours
I consider this a pervasive myth. It is true only if you are in a profession that would allow you to earn wages for unlimited hours. Most well compensated people earn 40 hours a week worth of salary, and either aren't paid overtime or aren't permitted to work OT and aren't willing to get a 2nd job. If you happen to be an exception to the rule, that's great, but it isn't the norm.
I do agree there is an intangible value to free time--after all, time is a finite quantity and you never know how much is left. But for most people their free time doesn't represent economic value, and their sweat equity does.
I have always thought it a myth that a "real live person" could save me money. I mean, I've read all of the relevant sections of the tax code. There are only so many deductions that the average person filing long form qualifies for. I don't see any non-illegal ways to reduce my tax burden, short of investment planning, and that is a bit hard ex post facto.
While that may be true for some people, it isn't true for everyone. There is always some uncertainty in how much tax will be owed, due to the variability of capital gains, bonuses, incentive pay, options/grants/etc. The only way to avoid this is to periodically calculate estimated returns, and the time required to do this far exceeds the value of the $10-20 interest I lose on my loan to the IRS.
Personally, as someone who keeps a very tight budget, I'd much rather make the IRS a small loan and guarantee that I keep on budget than end up with an unexpected expense. After all, the very mention of a tight budget precludes the ability to absorb such an expense.
You know, you can change your locale in XP Pro. It doesn't change the interface language, but it does make the 99% of Japanese software that is not Unicode actually work. Thank goodness!
But this is a pretty myopic view. How are AdWords any different than a TV commercial that says "Our brand X has a TCO lower than brand Y?" In other words, it is just a way for a smaller (or larger!) brand to fight for market share. What we're really talking about here is restricting freedom of speech to protect companies' profits.
I'm not big on clicking on ads, but occasionally I have been enticed to click on a relevant AdWord ad, and actually found a company that fit my needs better.
Companies with strong brands often charge the consumer a "brand premium" that has more to do with name recognition than quality. Corollary: there is probably a cheaper company out there with an equally good product.
I think this is more about bludgeoning competitors with your brand name than protecting consumers; after all, if the competitor is just selling knock-offs there are already legal remedies. We don't need to restrict speech to prevent this.
I've had great customer service with Discover, much better than the typical provider if you have a chargeback problem or anything else. They were also one of the first to introduce online payment and other innovations like one-use card numbers.
They might not be the best pick if you carry a balance, but if you pay off your bills they frequently offer as much as 5% back in cash or more in gift certificates. A pretty good deal really.
That's a pretty insightful post. Bush really hasn't delivered much in the way of concrete wins to religious conservatives, but he manages to convey the impression to both his conservative base and the liberal opposition that he is making great strides.
Perhaps it wouldn't be too incorrect to say that he has calculated that his religious supporters can be misled but Wall Street is in the business of running the numbers.
Look again, your processor is one heck of a lot smaller than 4 square inches! All that space is mostly fan out to the connectors plus a few resistors/capacitors.
You are wrong. In western Pennsylvania, only the more expensive grocery stores (i.e. Giant Eagle) have self-checkout. And I use it every time, because the lines are shorter and I can avoid having my produce smashed to a pulp.
1. There was no existing work, due to this being a new discovery 2. Bush prevented work from being funded for embryonic cells (with usual caveats)
Whether or not this is "halting work" is purely a matter of sematics.
The ideas were NOT around much prior to the Bush Administration: it was not until 1998 that embryonic cloning was possible and 1999/2000 that the first breakthroughs in differentiation were made. Please see the link, which has an obvious slashcode-inserted space.
Regardless, it is more than no funding at all (like how it was before Bush)
This comes up a lot, and I think it is a very disingenuous argument. There was no funding before Bush because stem cell research as we contemplate it today is essentially an entirely new field of research; there wasn't significant work being done on human embryoes before Bush, hence no funding.
Reference below. It was not until 1999/2000 that scientists proved that these cells could be forced to differentiate into things like nerve cells that were previously thought to be impossible to regenerate. http://www.laskerfoundation.org/news/ stemcell/hist ory.html
Slashdot Mirror
DeBeers has been able to protect the market for a long time...I could easily see it being another 50 years or more before the diamond "market" collapses. They've survived artificial diamonds this far by pouring money into detection techniques that can certify manmade stones as worthless, and the entire jewelry industry is behind them in this.
Ever read the warnings on the can? Petroleum distillates generally aren't very good for you. ;)
The problem is, how do you do the research? The audio/video publications out there have not even come close to adopting a standard set of measurements that would quantify the performance of processors that need to perform complex tasks like scaling, 3:2 pulldown, etc. The results from different chipsets are all over the map (chroma key errors, cheats, lame algorithms), and it's rare to be able to get any information at all on new products. You just have to wait 6 months until someone that actually knows what they are doing throws a review up on the web.
Thank you. I think then that we simply disagree. I consider such decisions "necessary" over the long term, because eventually many of the practices in the third world will result in long-term implications for the developed world as well if current processes go unchecked.
In terms of a few generations, I agree with you.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by that? It's clearly not _necessary_ in a business sense to take care of the environment etc, which is why no one does in regimes that don't regulate such things.
>>The environmental laws exist because it was
>>determined they were necessary.
>If they are necessary then, by definition,
>everyone will follow suit or die.
What a silly idea! There is obviously a cost to exploiting or degrading (pollution) the environment. It may manifest itself in flooding (deforestation), decreased productivity from health problems (pollution), liability from lax controls resulting in damages (see: Bhopal), etc. At the same time, none of these things are going to cause humanity as a species to drop dead tomorrow--but they may collectively limit the future viability of the planet for human survival.
As a result, there is a "tragedy of the commons" scenario--we all share the environment, but the costs of exploiting it are seldom internalized, so companies are not discouraged from taking unfair advantage of it. Even if the processes are unsustainable in the long term, people will tend to take the short term view if it means they personally profit.
There is a huge amount of variability, but staffing contractors generally are taking home somewhere around 50% of the bill rate. That means $22 an hour is more like a $25,000-$30,000 salary.
I have a lowly MI-E1, but I've been very impressed with the quality of the screen. It's definitely great for reading books.
Could you recommend a dictionary reader for the Linux-based Zaurii? I've thought about upgrading some day, but I love ZPDView's ability to read EDICT dictionaries.
Yeah, I don't get it either. It doesn't munge things up at least...if your browser defaults to Shift-JIS you can enter Japanese comments, but to anyone browsing in ISO it's gibberish.
Oh, very nice. Another mistake in the same vein is "irregardless." I once read that a high percentage of people that use this "word" are under the mistaken impression that it is a more formal version of "regardless!"
If you have a relatively simple return, then yes, the calculator works. But in that case the entire argument is moot: it's easy to estimate, and there is no need for a buffer.
You're joking, right? The calculator is off by several thousand dollars for my joint return.
I consider this a pervasive myth. It is true only if you are in a profession that would allow you to earn wages for unlimited hours. Most well compensated people earn 40 hours a week worth of salary, and either aren't paid overtime or aren't permitted to work OT and aren't willing to get a 2nd job. If you happen to be an exception to the rule, that's great, but it isn't the norm.
I do agree there is an intangible value to free time--after all, time is a finite quantity and you never know how much is left. But for most people their free time doesn't represent economic value, and their sweat equity does.
I have always thought it a myth that a "real live person" could save me money. I mean, I've read all of the relevant sections of the tax code. There are only so many deductions that the average person filing long form qualifies for. I don't see any non-illegal ways to reduce my tax burden, short of investment planning, and that is a bit hard ex post facto.
While that may be true for some people, it isn't true for everyone. There is always some uncertainty in how much tax will be owed, due to the variability of capital gains, bonuses, incentive pay, options/grants/etc. The only way to avoid this is to periodically calculate estimated returns, and the time required to do this far exceeds the value of the $10-20 interest I lose on my loan to the IRS.
Personally, as someone who keeps a very tight budget, I'd much rather make the IRS a small loan and guarantee that I keep on budget than end up with an unexpected expense. After all, the very mention of a tight budget precludes the ability to absorb such an expense.
You know, you can change your locale in XP Pro. It doesn't change the interface language, but it does make the 99% of Japanese software that is not Unicode actually work. Thank goodness!
But this is a pretty myopic view. How are AdWords any different than a TV commercial that says "Our brand X has a TCO lower than brand Y?" In other words, it is just a way for a smaller (or larger!) brand to fight for market share. What we're really talking about here is restricting freedom of speech to protect companies' profits.
I'm not big on clicking on ads, but occasionally I have been enticed to click on a relevant AdWord ad, and actually found a company that fit my needs better.
Companies with strong brands often charge the consumer a "brand premium" that has more to do with name recognition than quality. Corollary: there is probably a cheaper company out there with an equally good product.
I think this is more about bludgeoning competitors with your brand name than protecting consumers; after all, if the competitor is just selling knock-offs there are already legal remedies. We don't need to restrict speech to prevent this.
I've had great customer service with Discover, much better than the typical provider if you have a chargeback problem or anything else. They were also one of the first to introduce online payment and other innovations like one-use card numbers.
They might not be the best pick if you carry a balance, but if you pay off your bills they frequently offer as much as 5% back in cash or more in gift certificates. A pretty good deal really.
That's a pretty insightful post. Bush really hasn't delivered much in the way of concrete wins to religious conservatives, but he manages to convey the impression to both his conservative base and the liberal opposition that he is making great strides.
Perhaps it wouldn't be too incorrect to say that he has calculated that his religious supporters can be misled but Wall Street is in the business of running the numbers.
Signal propagation time is already 0.67c in most substrates. So light-speed is really only 50% faster.
signal propagation time
Look again, your processor is one heck of a lot smaller than 4 square inches! All that space is mostly fan out to the connectors plus a few resistors/capacitors.
No, they have been selling Wonka bars for years and years
You are wrong. In western Pennsylvania, only the more expensive grocery stores (i.e. Giant Eagle) have self-checkout. And I use it every time, because the lines are shorter and I can avoid having my produce smashed to a pulp.
1. There was no existing work, due to this being a new discovery
2. Bush prevented work from being funded for embryonic cells (with usual caveats)
Whether or not this is "halting work" is purely a matter of sematics.
The ideas were NOT around much prior to the Bush Administration: it was not until 1998 that embryonic cloning was possible and 1999/2000 that the first breakthroughs in differentiation were made. Please see the link, which has an obvious slashcode-inserted space.
Reference below. It was not until 1999/2000 that scientists proved that these cells could be forced to differentiate into things like nerve cells that were previously thought to be impossible to regenerate.
http://www.laskerfoundation.org/news