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Comment: Re:don't. forget microcenter (Score 1) 491

by ninjagin (#38996861) Attached to: The Gradual Death of the Brick and Mortar Tech Store
Sometimes you get a bad salesperson, but the folks at microcenter are the best-informed and knowledgeable people about computer parts and tech stuff out of any brick & mortar store. Yes, they will try to sell you, but you're not forced to buy anything, and I've never really been pressured on anything I've been shopping for. They also know the store very well, and can save you time hunting around for stuff. You can use salespeople to your advantage, you know. What do you care if they sticker your stuff, anyway? It doesn't raise the price, and they get credit for being helpful. On the flip side, salespeople who want to get credit for a sale they had no part in are being unethical and it's okay to report that to management.

Comment: some tips (Score 1) 229

by ninjagin (#38425740) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Transitioning From Developer To Executive?
A few of these have already been said ...
  1. - Delegate and get used to it. Get your team used to doing what you tell them to do.
  2. - If you're managing people you used to work with as a peer, realize that the relationship has changed. You are not their friend. You are their boss. This doesn't mean that you can't be nice or understanding, but it does mean that you can't let anyone on your team get away with poor performance or bad behavior because they're "a friend".
  3. - Resist the temptation to jump in and help out with things. If you assign work to someone, do not jump in and try to help with it. You need to demonstrate that you trust the people that work for you to do the job you give them.
  4. - You will be having a lot of confidential conversations. Get used to that. There will be many things that you will know and cannot share: either with your team or with your peers. Management can be very much like poker. You can win big by just keeping your mouth shut.
  5. - One of the most powerful skills you can develop as a manager is not delegation or being a spreadsheet whiz or learning six sigma or anything like that. Relationship management is the skill, and it can be learned. Frequent, regular and frank contact with any peer that you rely on as a provider or customer will help you develop it.
  6. - Be a shield for your people. Help cut through the BS for them and defend them (as appropriate) when they're getting picked on by other groups or their dopey managers.

Comment: Re:At the risk of my nerd card... (Score 1) 655

by ninjagin (#35612432) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How/Where To Start Watching Dr. Who?
I went to my first Whovian Festival (a DWFCA event) in 1980. I liked Tom Baker a lot (gave me the inspiration to learn how to knit, too!). After awhile, my local PBS station started airing a bunch of Pertwee episodes, and I held on through Peter Davison's run, but the station aired a lot of Troughton's run, eventually, too. Basically, I was a dedicated viewer for 10 years, with all those re-broadcasts.
I like all of them. I have not tried watching the 2005 reboot, as I don't want to spoil my remembrances of those old shows, but perhaps I'll give in at some point.
For me, the background stories about Galllifrey (and the politics of the timelords), the origins of the Daleks and Cybermen, and the development of The Master were the sources of the most interest.

Comment: Re:Of course... (Score 1) 542

by ninjagin (#34298406) Attached to: Google Warns Irish Government Against Tax Increase

I'm not going to quote your post, but you asked how one would explain the rise in wealth over the 1800s. Consider that market dynamics were almost totally local, as imports were extremely expensive. As such, the economy was working with the local supply and demand. At this time, the US was largely untapped from a resource standpoint and most of the country (even before the louisiana purchase) was rural. Land was for the taking, at almost no cost apart from the effort required to claim it. Leaving resources aside for a moment, consider the cost of labor. During this period, slavery, child labor and indentured servitude kept labor costs low --- as low as they could possibly be, from an economic standpoint. Let's leave resources aside, now, for a moment. Consider the cost of finished goods. Finished goods were almost all imported at the start of the 19th century, and they were very costly. As real manufacturing took hold in the middle of the 19th century, the margin for US-based manufacturers selling domestically could be really large. Growing in size (and growing profits) could be easily done by simply scaling up. Pricing for these items stayed relatively high, not because production volume was restricted, but because distribution volume was constrained and distribution was slow and costly. This is not analogous in any way to how the US economy operates today.

As for your assertion that the creation of the fed was responsible for inflating the money supply, you appear to be conflating present-day economic relationships (vis a vis the fed) with conditions of a much simpler time. (Things got a lot more complex in the 80s.) The actual fact is that US currency was on a precious metals standard until the Nixon administration. What this means is that every dollar was backed by a given amount of silver or gold in the reserve. In these conditions, there can be no greater inflation of the money supply than there is an increase in the amount of metals in reserve, or a corresponding increase in the market price in those metals. Economically, this is very constraining, and makes the domestic money supply vulnerable to many factors outside its control. The fed's job in the early 20th century was to help set interest rates and manage the reserve as much as possible to keep the value of currency relatively stable. That was a much simpler job, in the early 1900s.

What you're asking for, in terms of price deflation, is exactly the goal of an ideal communist economy. Read up on the deflationary spiral, or "stagflation", and you'll understand it a little better.

Comment: gosh (Score 1) 391

by ninjagin (#34191322) Attached to: Real-Life Gadgets For Real-Life Superheroes
Gosh, when I saw all those photos and those "superhero" people, I was filled with a brief desire to get a baseball bat, hunt them down, and club them all into unconsciousness... especially "lightbulb guy with a cane". Let's face it, if you don't have superpowers, you're just a guy in some stupid costume who can be easily beaten into unconsciousness by anyone with a baseball bat.

Many people are secretly interested in life.

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