There are certain things officers aren't shielded from. An example is a 401k program, an individual at the corporation is liable if that money isn't contributed like the company said it was. Unfortunately that doesn't stop them from pushing a plan that's all company stock, then bankrupting the company. Though if that happens through fraud the individuals can be sued, witness the individuals from Enron etc.

Do you need to run the TV 24/7?

Well, duh. Final days of Rome over here!

No I get that part. The original poster claimed that Whole Foods was more expensive because you "get what you pay for" and "our stupid government" is the reason Whole Foods is so expensive. My followup said that Whole Foods margins are much higher than the rest of the sector. You took exception to that as the explanation for the higher prices.

Meanwhile, I can go to Trader Joe's and get Organic bananas for $.29 each. I can get quality 96/4 hamburger for $3.99 a pound, no hormones etc. Those products are twice that at Whole Foods, and that's just off the top of my head. There are a lot of good non-HCFS etc choices just at Trader Joe's for a whole lot less than the equivalents at Whole Foods, and that has zero to do with the governments shitty agriculture subsidy policies (hello Texas Lettuce Association! and your federal money etc etc etc etc), which should all be banished to the depths of hell, but no one seems to like a free market, because they think hey look health care is a free market and look how bad that sucks even though it's nothing like a free market.

Do I get extra points for bringing in all this extra crap?

My point was... what does this have to do with "our stupid government."

Also the Trader Joes down the street form me has great meat at reasonable prices. It also took over the old Whole Foods when they moved into the giant space they're in now next to the Target and Best Buy. Millburn/Union NJ.

Whole Foods margins are on the high end of the Retail (Grocery) sector. Their EPS growth is currently higher than any other supermarket style grocery store within that sector. I'm not sure if you need a login for this:

https://www.etrade.wallst.com/v1/tradingideas/screener/stock_screener_results.asp?sortBy=IBES.EPSGrowthCFY&sortOrder=D

There's more to it than "our stupid government."

Sugar is both subsidized, AND there is a tariff on imports. In fact, apparently the sugar industry here in the US is so powerful, CAFTA contains a single exclusion, and that is for a tariff on imported sugar. Or so I hear.

I know I'll get modded down for this, but... organic ketchup tastes like _ass_.

How's your crazy corn subsidy + sugar tariff working out, America?

You started out saying that France runs TV 24/7. Then you explained that it was too expensive for France to produce TV to fill all of that time, and that they "need" to fill their screen with cheaper things.

Then you say that the cheaper things are American TV shows promoting American way of life, and so I guess that's what French TV is purchasing to run on their channels 24/7.

But then, oops, you summarize by saying YES, the US is "pushing" our culture onto France. How the fuck do you figure?

Piracy.

I also get 4-5 hours or so doing various things, Dell M1330 with LED screen and 9 cell battery, 256G SSD. So it's definitely possible. Not sure how the ULV processors compare.

My gateway LT3103 sucks though.

Indeed, garbage collection is a wonderful thing.

like you're stating, sometimes it truly is the best solution to have multiple technologies in place, as long as they're smartly used. If not, you end up with a maintenance nightmare.

Amazon.com is a great success story and an example of using different technologies well, and it came about because they got their architecture correct. It started as a single C++ app talking to a backend, and that wasn't really going to scale well. I've heard that a single page on Amazong.com might talk to 100+ different services. In some places they use java servlets, in others they use Perl/Mason.

I've seen smaller companies with hybrid systems due to evolution or the top-down "we need to recode this but don't have a full budget." They tend to have real problems and the technology drags down the rest of the business. In a team of 5 people, it's hard to hire when you have 2-3 different technologies. When you're larger that's less of an issue, as you can have people devoted to an area of your software pile that is in the language or set of technologies they are good at.

Are you talking about C or C++?

This isn't directed at you, it's just a peeve of mine and I know I'm going off, but hey it's a faceless forum with people using aliases so it's all crap anyway.

When someone says "should" and talks about how things are "wrong" it usually leads to things sucking and ultimately being either more scarce or more expensive.

In the 70s the people of America via the US government said "gas SHOULD be cheap" and lo and behold it was so. And of course we ran out and had to ration.

In the 70s the people of America via the US government (sort of, it was really a private insurer with friends in high places) said "health care SHOULD be cheaper for people" and lo and behold the HMO act was created thus forcing employers to carry HMO options along side their other plans. And of course everyone thinks healthcare sucks here now (and it's more expensive than ever, but that's largely because the American people via Federal and State government say "these tests and these procedures SHOULD be covered for everyone no matter what, but that's a different story).

In the 90s and early 2000s the American people via the US government said "everyone SHOULD be able to have a house, that the mothertruckin' American Dream and we want people to stop dreaming about it and have it already" and wow holy crap look what happened there. House prices went up like crazy because of all the artificial/subsidized demand, we ran out of houses so we built shitloads of them so people could buy 2 and 3 and speculate, and pop goes the bubble and it's major suckage.

Everyone that thinks they know everything: please just stop saying SHOULD already and live in the world. Or just say it LESS.

Also, I don't think it's time to slow innovation in laptop batteries with standards yet. Cos like in 4 weeks someone might come out with a battery that uses different substances and requires (or can have) a different formfactor that could change the game, and it might have completely different voltage, charging, etc requirements and then what?