If you fail to diversify your assets it's nobody's fault but your own.

If you take the stuff from the Silmarillion, you probably have enough for a couple hundred movies.

With Oracle, that changed a lot in the late 90s, early 2000s. Larry learned his lesson when the company almost went under due to unprofitable contracts.

Since then, Oracle's pricing has been pretty consistent.

Keep in mind that Oracle needs to be very sensitive to potential claims of predatory pricing, as well as the fact that they need to give the US government "most-favored-pricing" terms... meaning that if they steeply discount for one customer, they'll need to offer the same pricing to the US government.

Meh. Google opened at $85, a PE of about 80. Yet at close on the day of their IPO, GOOG was trading just over $100, for a PE in the high 90s.

Anyone who bought GOOG at $100/share seems to be sitting pretty happy right now...

Not that Google's IPO is a good model for the Facebook IPO, but just so you're aware that there is at least one IPO with a ridiculous PE ratio that could be considered superficially similar.

your post is a field day for the average slashdotian because there is too much room for interpretation

Look, I'm no true oldtimer, but *everyone* knows the term is "slashdotter".

Unless you're a Scandinavian daughter of the lead guitarist from Guns-N-Roses, in which case you're a Slashdottir, but that's kind of beside the point.

If you were willing to pay $X for speed Y, you are willing to pay the same $X for Y*Z.

* For values of Z > 1.

By the way, do you happen to know any farmers in the Midwest? Feel free to ask them if nothing bad is happening right now. In 6 months you can ask around the world. US food exports are going to take a major dive, which is going to spike up prices. Standby for a shitload of unrest.

What's unnerving about this is that the world is *already* consuming more foodstuffs than it produces. World food reserves are basically gone... and this has just happened over the past 10 years or so. So on top of the additional price volatility experienced because of dwindling food reserves, now we have a weather event that's going to tip prices higher.

If food reserves were in a healthy state, this drought would be a minor uncomfortable period in terms of food prices, just as the droughts of the 80s were. Instead we're going to have a food price spike far, far higher than general inflation.

Although I did not mention self-education, that doesn't mean my views don't incorporate it.

Meanwhile, your post implied that self-education is the be-all and end-all of education (if this were so, the current education setup would be quite different)... I'm not sure it's clear who made the common mistake here.

Five Slashdot logons, three coffees at Tim Horton's, and twenty seven visits to cockgobblers.com

I know you're being facetious, but technically male turkeys (gobblers) are called toms, not cocks (that would be the correct term for chickens, peafowl, some other birds too). So it's probably tomgobblers.com he'd be visiting, not cockgobblers.com.

Just thought I'd clear that up as we get closer to the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US.

There is a difference between information delivery systems and education. Verbal instruction, demonstration, lectures, manuscripts, and books are all information delivery systems, and are subject to "commoditization" to some degree. Education is an individualized process.

For something to be a commodity, it must be fungible, and education, an individualized process, is inherently not fungible. One recorded lecture may work for some people, a different one for other people. For some people, a recorded lecture will not be enough for education. You can't simply swap recorded lectures and have them be equally effective... these are not widgets.

I think it's important to recognize this distinction between information presentation and education. I think it's important for traditional educators (and administrators) to recognize this distinction, and understand that their role must change. Educators need more than ever to be motivators -- this is the differentiation they need to be successful. Educational systems need to proportionately reward good motivators, rather than seniority.

As for your specific examples (book-learning, printing), these are all examples of an increase in people having access to information. I'm behind that 100%. But I don't think the economic impact is going to be tremendous. Access to information is but a piece of the educational process.

What is to stop them 3 years later from creating a paid class system?

Why would we want to prevent that?

Seriously... as long as there is no discrimination based on source (i.e., everyone gets the same pricing), what is the problem with tiered services?

To me, that's the crux of net neutrality, to have it similar to common-carrier status. Anyone can pay for different service levels, and the volume discount is formulaic, not negotiated.

But it does cover at least 80% of the reasons why having a girlfriend/wife increases your quality of life, with almost none of the drawbacks.

It covers the same percentage of reasons that I can cover with one hand (two if I'm feeling frisky).

But I think you mistake the utility of the girlfriend and wife modules. Sexual satisfaction is pretty damn low (but still important) on the list of positives that come with a good relationship, IMO.

No stretching of anything is required for those endowed like me.

YMMV.

2. Both sides of the relationship focused more on "what can I do for my partner" or "what can I contribute to the family unit" rather than "what can my partner do for me".

I agree that your first two alternatives are better than the third alternative. But I know quite a few unhappy people who have completely subsumed themselves in their relationship.

A good relationship with someone else starts with a good relationship with yourself. It's trite, but true.

and

4. Having a good income coming in. Serious money problems are one of the leading causes of marital arguments and divorce.

IMO, the money problems typically precipitate other, deeper, issues with the relationship. A good relationship overcomes problems, like money supply issues. But a relationship already struggling with communication issues, resentment, etc will often break under the added stress of financial problems.

Seems like your org need to reassess how it does user training... why aren't the trainees separated according to (1) their needs and (2) their competencies and then trained appropriately?

And why in the world is training being conducted in front of a room full of people? Might as well record a demo and distribute it. Training on software use should be done in small groups if you want it to be effective.

I don't think your experience is indicative of problems with MS Office (though those problems DO exist), but more with how businesses handle training.