Re: "Red Hat recommends Windows for consumers"
On Tue, Nov 11, 2003 at 08:33:02PM +0000, Pigeon wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 08:24:14PM -0800, Tom wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 10, 2003 at 11:11:04PM -0500, Vikki Roemer wrote:
> > > > Paying the occasional "sysadmin bill" might well come out to less than
> > > > what these people spend on the software itself now.
> >
> > People cost a ton -- $100g + 30% for benefits. I use round numbers: in
> > my 9 years since college, the "average joe" has gone from expecting
> > roughly $45K, then to $60K, now kids out of school expect $75K.
>
> Request for context: approximately how much would the kids out of
> school expect to pay out in (a) tax (b) rent etc (c) running costs for
> the sort of vehicle that gets you from A to B legally but no more (d)
> a week's food?
Touché. In mathematics this is known as "normalizing units": if you add
up the total amount of wealth on the planet, and divide the cost or
value of anything by that, is the only way to get an accurate number.
For instance, in normalized units, J.P. Morgan and Vanderbuilt both had
a much larger percentage of the world's wealth than Bill Gates.
I have a feeling that in normalized units the relative costs and
salaries of things is (on a global scale) identical now and in Roman
Times. Sure there are local perturbations....
The system is kind of organic, however: on the course we were on in the
late 90's, eventually the average joe would get $1 million/year and a
can of coke would cost $10. Things like wars follow events like that.
Flame on :-)
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