Comment Re:Slow news day? (Score 0) 33
TANSTAAFL.
TANSTAAFL.
That's not at all true. If the URL's numbers are even somewhat close to accurate, Netflix stands to lose a huge amount of revenue.
If 20% move to the $16/month plan, that's a net revenue increase of 12% (20% users x 60% increase = 12% revenue increase). However, if 33% quit, that's a complete revenue loss of 33% as well. When you add in those that are modifying plans, what you get is that Netflix stands to lose about 25% of their revenue inflow due to this move.
Can they make it up in reduced bandwidth and shipping costs? Hard to say, but the sheer loss of revenue is hard to mask no matter how you look at it.
This isn't about the use of disposable income. It's about having a huge increase in cost with absolutely nothing in return. Now, if they'd said that they'd finally ripped their DVD collection to streaming, or even somewhere near it, I'd listen. Or perhaps they're finally going to get more recent titles in line with Blockbuster or Redbox. But they're not.
This is a pure, unadulterated money grab. So I'm grabbing mine back before they get the chance. Canceled my service yesterday. And per http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2011/07/new-pricing-poll-what-are-you-going-to-do.html, I'm not the only one. Over 1/3 say they are quitting. Explain that to the shareholders, NetFlix execs.
And if you have candidates with both a college degree and the talent/background you're looking for? According to my college degree, which included courses in mathematical and philosophical logic, such candidates will fail to satisfy the condition above.
Seems to be the only plausible explanation for this. But if not a very late April Fools joke, then the author is a total moron. His entire life's chance at 15 minutes of fame -- gone in one big whoosh of stupidity. Nice work, genius.
Don't ever underestimate the power of being in the right place at the right time. Couple that with am opportunistic business sense and the persistence to keep pushing on in spite of seemingly insurmountable hurdles, and your chance of success is higher than most.
Of course, Gates and MSFT went quite a bit beyond that, with monopolistic practices, vendor intimidation, and outright plagiarism in some cases, but underneath that lies the fundamentals above. We may not like how MSFT got where it is, but you can't deny their basic principles.
Not to mention that here in the Midwest, the Sun hasn't come out since November, and the roof has been snow covered anyway, so solar energy not such a good idea here.
Parent is absolutely right about abiogenesis being ridiculous, as we all know from countless data that we are in fact evolved from pirates, and I'm pretty sure that pirates were living beings. QED.
Furthermore, why bother to explain the creation of flora and fauna with science, when we already know that without their existence, we would not be able to create the perfect bowl of pasta with marinara sauce and meatballs, and thereby express our appreciation of the reflection of His Noodly Goodness.
Ramen, my brothers and sisters.
I'm not certain how Amazon would be able to prevent such activity before it happened, aside from code snooping, which is probably in violation of the terms of their services agreement. Perhaps profiling would be in order before accepting someone as a customer, but how would you protect yourself against shell companies acting on behalf of a known abuser? Rather, I think the question should be "how quickly can Amazon react when this occurs".
ISP's and hosting providers have had to face similar situations for almost a couple decades now, and I would think that they'd be the logical entities for Amazon to consult with re: the mitigation of illegal activities using their cloud as an attack vector.
I think the Sony POS bit on The Onion from a couple years ago just about sums it up. Consumers are lemmings and will buy any stupid piece of crap as long as it's got more bells and whistles than the stupid piece of crap that came before it.
Sounds like Buffalo, minus the corrupt politicians. Oh wait, this is a Russian crew, yes?
Management hasn't changed -- the circumstances have.
The reason techies were tolerated better during the dot-com boom was because the computer revolution was the key to massive profit explosions and/or cost reductions on a scale never seen before. Thus, mgmt tolerated the quirkiness of techies because we were making their bottom line MUCH MUCH greater than anyone had ever seen. And as such, they paid highly for techies because our salary was a mere fraction of the economic improvement we were providing. We were an investment rather than a cost.
Now that most things have been computerized or automated in some fashion, the gains from continued investment in tech R&D have become marginalized. Thus, instead of being the golden goose, IT is now a cost center because management can no longer realize the gains that were once possible, but have to continue to pay for IT, now as a necessary evil. This is also why companies are outsourcing and offshoring everything, because something must give in order to keep the profit machines in motion.
It's why American IT is slowly dying.
The above assumes that you have (a) a high amount of funds to spend on compensation, (b) access to better trained people, and (c) opportunities sufficient to attract such talent.
There are only a handful of entities in the entire world that can satisfy all three criteria. The Yankees, Manchester United, and Google come to mind.
I wish I could reach out and shake both you and the GP's hands. You both are doing fantastic jobs as parents of gifted children. I'm blessed with one as well, and his reading and math skills are at a 4th/5th grade level or higher. But his problem is like your kids -- he gets so bored in class because he's always done with his 2nd grade tasks way before everyone else. So we do the same at home -- raise the difficulty higher and higher, and we marvel at the things he's able to grasp and understand almost intuitively.
However, I think we got lucky this year to have a teacher that understands his dilemma, and also tries to challenge him during class, but there's only so much time he can dedicate to each student. That's where we come in to continue the education at home. I think it also has a lot to do with the school district we're in, as ours is one of the best in our state because we fund our district well, and the better funding certainly means better teachers. That's where the rest of the US is falling down -- you get what you pay for.
"Engineering without management is art." -- Jeff Johnson
