Random stupid things on your mind. Post them.

[onan]

It is a crazy amount. Honestly, good ideas aren't that costly. I realize that a company needs to keep moving and reinventing itself in today's market. But has it occurred to Microsoft that there is such a thing as diminishing results for increasing investments. And I have to also suggest that 10 billion may be a very heavily "padded" number... even so, a 7 billion investment would still be staggering.


I thought the stuff you posted about Loon was fascinating. And it may well open up new markets in the 5 billion people not on the net, but those 5 billion live on less than a dollar a day. Grooming that market seems very well intentioned and probably a necessity as the world moves forward. But there is little ROI from that market. It may strengthen current markets. Then again, I am not a market genius.

[PB the Deplorable]

Can you believe Microsoft spends about 10 billion dollars annually on research and development? I was absolutely astonished when I read that.

Nearly all of that is salaries, benefits, payroll taxes, office supplies and equipment (computers and software) of employees working on new product, fixing bugs, porting the software to different platforms, etc.  There may even be some office space and utilities and other things like travel thrown in there.  They have a lot more than just Windows, Word and Excel now.

As much as possible is designated 'research' under the definition in the US Tax Code in order to maximize the Research & Development Tax Credit.

$10 billion is a lot to you or me, but not to a company with $75 billion or whatever it is in annual revenue.  Payroll is easily the largest expense of most companies, much of this is just a portion of MS payroll.

[Marc.Knight]

This is why I love living in Florida.[attachimg=1]

[Sardondi]

This is why I love living in Florida.

*sigh* I too live in a fairly snow-free area, but I miss it. We have snowfall >1" only 1-2 times a year perhaps. I don't know how many of you East Coasters remember The Blizzard of '93 in which a freak March storm (on Friday the 13th no less) dumped from 1-2 feet of snow in a 150-mile-wide Nike-swoosh of a path from Arkansas to Maine. Something like what NYC had this last year. In '93 the four of us, including a 2 yo and a 7 yo, were snowbound for three days, and had no power for over 48 hours. We cooked many of our meals over the fireplace (thank God I insisted on a true wood-burning masonry fp).

We had about 6 hours notice the blizzard was coming, so I was able to leave work early and get home with about 2 hours of daylight left. I hurriedly tried to bulk up my fairly good supply of oak firewood, cutting down a couple of dead trees on our 2-acre wooded lot. The trees were pine, but I was desperate - you shouldn't burn pine as a regular practice because of the flammable reside buildup in the chimney; and you can't use pine to cook meat or anything open because the pine oil smell is pretty strong. But dead pine - including Nature's Own Flamethrower, the oil-rich stump and roots, sometimes called "fatwood" - will burn hot and fast. So I was glad to have it, and was desperately cutting, chopping and splitting for the fireplace even as snow flurries caused a near whiteout. The front brought a near 0°F temp, and the snow wouldn't melt when it landed on me. I'd never seen it that cold before. Luckily I had time to I got plenty of wood stacked up on the back deck just a few feet from my fireplace.

It snowed for hours, like I've never experienced before or since. Some of the poor folks who worked for numbskulls who wouldn't let them go early enough got in real trouble. (At the courthouse where I worked one judge had a jury out, and because he didn't want to have to declare a mistrial and try the case again - primarily for his personal convenience you understand - he made those poor jurors and the court personnel involved in the case stay until after no one else was left there. He finally bowed to nature and let them go, but it was too late, and several had a devil of a time getting home after the storm had already dumped several inches of frozen snow on the streets.) The highways were littered with vehicles which had been abandoned because of massive traffic snarls. There were local radio horror stories of people who didn't leave work until after 5:00 pm, and who had to trek home, in business attire, often traveling "as the crow flies", in a straight line, over ridges to reach their homes. Some just couldn't reach home, and had to hole-up in friendly-looking homes of complete but generous strangers until daylight.

We were safely in though, and plenty warm as we layered up in enough turtlenecks and sweaters to be on the cover of a Lands End catalog. We had to shut down most of the house, and put big blankets up in hallways to keep our kitchen/den/bedroom living area walled off to trap as much warmth as we could. We lighted our little area by a dozen candles posted near mirrors to double the light. We read, told stories, played board games and listened to the radio. (This storm sold me on having a wind-up powered radio and flashlight.)

Even with the terrible weather and no lights or heat, that Saturday night was wonderful. If we ever felt like an Ice Age survival meal was in order, it was then. Our usual Saturday dinner in those days was to grill steaks and have a typical suburban menu accompanying them. So it felt right to do it that night. Luckily we had already stocked up for the weekend when the blizzard came, so our Saturday night was almost a regular one, except that we cooked our steaks over the open fire and baked spuds in the coals. I had been drinking martinis since about 4:00 (with anchovy-stuffed olives - so tangy!!!), and I was fairly mellow. I wasn't much of a red wine drinker in those days, but we broke out a long-ignored Burgundy for the huge Angus ribeyes and our potatoes, as well as the asparagus for myself and Mrs. S. (This was when we discovered that both our kids loved chilled asparagus tips. Why couldn't they like baked potatoes like every other little kids in America? Nope, gotta be asparagus at about a quarter a stalk.) Well, we even managed a big salad too, which featured whole black olives and big avocado chunks to go with the greenery and facsimile tomatoes. What a massive, protein-and-fat-drenched meal. I even put Ranch dressing on my potato. It was a dinner for mammoth killers. Or maybe a dinner that would kill a mammoth. I even had port after dinner, and broke out a pipe I hadn't used since college to give just the right finishing atmosphere.

As luck would have it Garrison Keillor and his radio show crew was already in town to play his regular Saturday Prairie Home Companion show. I'm sure he thought he had left blizzards behind in Minnesota. He put a show somehow, even though some guests were missing. He changed the script on the fly like it was no big deal. He even had the benefit of a great showbiz story. Emmy Lou Harris had been scheduled to play, but was stuck a couple of hundred miles away because of the blizzard. But with wonderful Mickey Rooney the-show-must-go-on attitude, Emmy Lou and her band traveled painfully slowly for something like 12 hours on their tour bus to make it into the auditorium in the last minutes of the show. She ran onstage with just enough time to sing one song literally as the show was ending. And we listened to that great seat-of-the-pants show while we were cooking and eating. Ah, back in the days before every other remark out of Keillor's mouth was a taxpayer-supported gig at conservatives. 

But it was a great night. Outside we had below-0 temps, 3-foot snowdrifts and absolute silence but for the wind in the trees. Inside we were surrounded by golden candlelight, curled up in piles of blankets watching our children drop peacefully off to a perfectly secure sleep deep in blankets, wearing those footie pajamas of theirs that I loved so much. Of course time plays tricks, and I don't remember the inconveniences and plain hard work; but I do remember that night and that weekend as one of the most wonderful times in my adult life.

So I love snow.   

[West of the Rockies]

I enjoyed your reminiscence, Sardondi...  I know this is practically blasphemous in some circles, but I've been wondering if maybe it isn't time for Garrison to hang it up.  The show has become a comfortable old shoe; it brings great pleasure to a lot of people.  I just think it's more than a little stale now.  Personally, I TRULY wish Keillor would stop singing.  He's got great singing guests on, and I don't think his crooning style has been especially in vogue since, oh, 1925?  Why, oh, why, must he turn every other song into a duet?

I also think his monoloque has gotten dreadfully threadbare... Don't they all sound a bit like this now? 

"Benny Tofler was in church... he was in church, and he was noticing that he was alone, that he had no lady to accompany him.  And he thought it might be time... it might be time... it might be time to perhaps seek a bride.  Someone who would help him with the farm and maybe bake, maybe bake some apple pie.  But he was alone.  And he knew it was time... it was time...." 

I'm perhaps exaggerating a teeny tiny bit the amount of repetitive phrasing in his monologue, but I think he's sort of phoning it in now.

There... I've said it.

[Tinfoil Hat]

That was a great read, Sardoni. Thank you for sharing your memories.

During that blizzard, I was living paycheck to paycheck and I was down to nothing but broken old taco shells and powdered cheese sauce from macaroni & cheese. I found some old Taco Bell hot sauce packets and bravely attempted nachos. They were horrible.

Fortunately, the classic "Things to Come" was on TV and the lights stayed on. It took me over two hours to get to work downtown the following Monday on what was usually a half-hour bus ride. Fun times.

[b_dubb]

sardondi ... i hate to be the one to tell you ... but npr and garrison keillor are supported by pledges from listeners and not by government subsidies

[stevesh]

sardondi ... i hate to be the one to tell you ... but npr and garrison keillor are supported by pledges from listeners and not by government subsidies

According to the NPR website, 4.6% of their funding comes from governments, 11.4% from the CPB, which is 100% funded by the federal government, and 8% from colleges and universities, which receive a lot of their funding from government. Individuals only contribute 39%.

[b_dubb]

Only 39%? I'm such an a-hole

[Sardondi]

Only 39%? I'm such an a-hole

I'm sitting here laughing, because I can't figure out if that's a genuine, humble over-reaction to a mistake we all make, or that it's a sarcastic response because, you're a, well, you know....asshole. I swear I'm laughing as I type this.

[ItsOver]

I enjoyed your reminiscence, Sardondi...  I know this is practically blasphemous in some circles, but I've been wondering if maybe it isn't time for Garrison to hang it up... 

"Prairie Home Companion"... I remember listening to that, then I got to thinking further that it was sometime in the '80's.  Didn't Garrison hang it up once already, for a Norwegian bride or something, then come back?  Sorry, I'm too lazy to do a "Garrison Wiki study" today. 

[West of the Rockies]

I don't think he "pulled an Art" and retired upon marrying a younger hottie...  I don't recall Keillor ever even really hinting at retirement.  Honestly, I listen to parts of PHC probably every week and have for decades now.  Back when I worked for an NPR station in northern California (mid-late 80's), one of my tasks was to trap the satellite feed of that program.  The program reminds me a bit of something like The Saturday Evening Post:  you know exactly what you're gonna get.  It's comfortable but doesn't "push the envelope" much.  As a liberal, I CAN see how a conservative listener would be annoyed by Keillor's frequent political jabs.

I don't know if Keillor is still "hosting" The Writer's Almanac on NPR.  That three-minute daily "program" opens with some rather dreery, dated piano music.  Keillor's deep voice (I don't know if I am ever as aware of a human being respirating as much as I am Keillor) works well enough... but the feature hits that same maudlin note as does much of PHC.

Then again, that's just my opinion... I may be wrong. (To quote Dennis Miller.)

[MV/Liberace!]

As a liberal, I CAN see how a conservative listener would be annoyed by Keillor's frequent political jabs.

oh god.  i don't know anything about keillor, i've never listened to phc... but i'll bet his political views are soooooo predictable.  an absolute snoozefest.

[Sardondi]

"Prairie Home Companion"... I remember listening to that, then I got to thinking further that it was sometime in the '80's.  Didn't Garrison hang it up once already, for a Norwegian bride or something, then come back?  Sorry, I'm too lazy to do a "Garrison Wiki study" today. 

Danish. It was a clüsterfück as he might have said in Danish during that period. Anyway, he was back on the air during the Clinton years. And it was the impeachment mess which seemed to turn Keillor bitter sand strident. His political jokes got more and more one-sided, and took on a much greater edge. Now this was hard on me, since I had listened to Keillor since 1981. I had an emotional investment in him. But as an experiment I would stop listening to the show that week at the point he made what I thought was the first one-sided or unfair "joke" about conservatives. It was a way to bring home to myself whether he was getting worse, and it was a way to signal my displeasure at the essential dishonesty of a taxpayer-supported show being clearly biased. It started out that I could enjoy maybe half a show. Then I'd get only 30 minutes. When I couldn't even listen past the monologue I stopped bothering. Seems like that was around 2002 when I simply had to give up on the man. As the saying goes: he left me, not the other way around. I haven't listened to Keillor since then.

[Juan]

Yeah, he hung it up in the late 80s, IIRC, and moved to one of the Scandinavian countries.  He came back to do road shows at times, then began PHC again after a few years.  I've never seen him live, but I was dragged to see the movie.  It was interesting to see how he works on stage.

[West of the Rockies]

I thought he was the least compelling figure in the PHC movie....

[ItsOver]

Danish. It was a clüsterfück as he might have said in Danish during that period.

There you go.  I didn't think I'd gone "completely Noory."  I got motivated:

"The show went off the air in 1987, and Keillor married and spent some time abroad during the following two years. For a brief time, the show was replacedâ€"both on the air and in the World Theaterâ€"by Good Evening, a live variety show designed by ex-Prairie Home and All Things Considered staffers to retain the audience Keillor cultivated over the years. Many stations opted instead to continue APHC repeats in its traditional Saturday time slot.

In 1989, Keillor returned to radio with The American Radio Company of the Air (renamed Garrison Keillor's American Radio Company in its second season), broadcast originally from the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The new program was a slightly revised format, with sketches and musical guests reflecting a more New York sensibility, rather than the country and folk music predominant in APHC. Also, while Keillor still sang and delivered a regular monologue on American Radio Company, Lake Wobegon was initially downplayed, as he felt it was "cruel" to talk to a Brooklyn audience about life in a small town. During this period, Keillor revived the full APHC format only for "annual farewell performances". In the fall of 1992, Keillor returned to the World Theater with ARC for the majority of the season, and the next year, the program officially reverted to the A Prairie Home Companion name and format."


"...Lake Wobegon was initially downplayed, as he felt it was "cruel" to talk to a Brooklyn audience about life in a small town." Geesh... yes, you wouldn't want to have to bore the Brooklyn "elites" with talk about the all the rubes that dominate the rest of the country. 

[Tinfoil Hat]

I tuned Garrison out years ago because of politics. Look, I don't care what a radio hosts politics are, but I sure as heck don't want to hear about them when I expect to listen to a variety show with a cute story at the end. I hate when politics is injected into shows where it doesn't belong.

[Flaxen Hegemony]

Deterring software piracy must be a priority for this unnamed company (specialized software, not an OS), because they are requiring an e-mail from me and two levels of approval to have a software key reset when installed on a new machine.  Well, I should say "machine", as I work with virtual machines, so re-install things a zillion times (but on the same machine ID, which most software recognizes as not being multiple usage.)

Thirty seconds on a torrent site and the problem is solved.  I don't advocate piracy, as I own a license for the product, but come on, TWO levels of approval for a 10 digit alphanumeric string??  I'm not exactly working at Bletchley Park here.

[MV/Liberace!]

Deterring software piracy must be a priority for this unnamed company (specialized software, not an OS), because they are requiring an e-mail from me and two levels of approval to have a software key reset when installed on a new machine.  Well, I should say "machine", as I work with virtual machines, so re-install things a zillion times (but on the same machine ID, which most software recognizes as not being multiple usage.)

Thirty seconds on a torrent site and the problem is solved.  I don't advocate piracy, as I own a license for the product, but come on, TWO levels of approval for a 10 digit alphanumeric string??  I'm not exactly working at Bletchley Park here.

this is an absolutely perfect illustration of the flawed logic behind copy protection.  it only punishes those who want to follow the rules.

[b_dubb]

i was being sarcastic.  the bulk of npr's financing comes from listeners.

i'll try and remember to use my <sarcasm></sarcasm> tags in the future.  my bad

I'm sitting here laughing, because I can't figure out if that's a genuine, humble over-reaction to a mistake we all make, or that it's a sarcastic response because, you're a, well, you know....asshole. I swear I'm laughing as I type this.

[Marc.Knight]

The real Vlad.


[attachimg=1]

[Mind Flayer Monk]

i was being sarcastic.  the bulk of npr's financing comes from listeners.

I think charitable foundations are a big part of it too.

[stevesh]

Bulk would be correct, I guess:

[Agent : Orange]

So I love snow.

Thanks for sharing that.

[Eddie Coyle]

 
             Here's a ringing endorsement:

               I'm sitting on a park bench, behind little girls...(just kidding, Tull reference not Polanski) but I was sitting there and I see a squirrel approach what was apparently a discarded bag of Sun Chips or something. The squirrel gleefully(forgive my anthropomorphic assumptions) grabs a chip...and after a few nibbles, drops it and leaves.

               About two minutes later, a different squirrel descends from a tree, runs to the Sun Chip bag and basically had the same repulsed response that squirrel one had.

              The competition should start a campaign.  "Sun Chips...even squirrels won't touch those fuckin' things"

[stevesh]

Possible witness in the Whitey Bulger trial found dead:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/bulger-witness-found-dead/story?id=19698132

Comforting, somehow, to know some things never change.

[Eddie Coyle]

Possible witness in the Whitey Bulger trial found dead:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/bulger-witness-found-dead/story?id=19698132

Comforting, somehow, to know some things never change.

I know Stippo(my mother grew up with him)...just saw him Thursday. This is certainly "odd". It's a "cide", whether sui- or homi- I'm not sure.

       *Rakes was no angel, and his victim status in the trial is somewhat amusing.

          ** Stippo's brother, Joe. He's the kid with the American flag trying to impale a black guy in 1976. 

[Cynnie]

I dont like summer , everyone always says stupid stuff , like " at least its not snowing "

Yeah,  i prefer snow .

[stevesh]

Might have to be a little bit of a geek to get it, but:

http://foaas.com/