Slashdot Mirror

http://bit.ly/3DTg7a

Glad I could help.

In the recent PNAS paper http://bit.ly/uI1nxG one can read that prevailing economic models of credit risk assume that price fluctuations form a bell-shaped curve, with very large fluctuations essentially never occurring. But during financial crises, wild fluctuations occur more frequently than these models predict. Authors developed a method to incorporate these fluctuations in their analysis of financial data from 488 publicly traded manufacturing firms for each quarter from 2000–2009. The researchers used multiple types of known calculations to analyze financial data such as the ratio of working capital to total assets, and sales divided by total assets. These data were plugged into multiple ratio calculations to estimate credit risk for the companies. Particular attention was paid to the years 2007–2009, a time of overall financial crisis. According to the authors, the results suggest that even during stock market crashes, the basic dynamics that underlie less volatile periods still govern credit risk. The study revealed that credit risk follows slowly decaying functional form, implying that dangerous credit positions are more likely than is commonly believed. According to the authors, the credit rating approach may help improve the estimation of credit risk, particularly in the event that financial services companies respond slowly to changes in corporate credit quality.

Jobs wasn't around for the Look and Feel lawsuit, though, even if you were:

- Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple in 1985 by the Apple Board of Directors and John Sculley.
- Apple sued Microsoft in 1988, when Windows 2.0 was introduced and it finally had resizable and overlapping windows.
- Apple lost its final appeal in 1994, mostly because Sculley had licensed designs for 179 of 189 GUI elements they were claiming infringement on back in 1985, after Steve was gone. Microsoft had previously licensed some of the same ideas from Xerox, and Apple had licensed them from Xerox for $100M in stock. This figured into the dismissal of the other 10 claims, since copyright only covers an original expression of an idea.
- Apple bought NeXT in 1996.
- Steve became iCEO of Apple in 1997.

Good reading: http://bit.ly/me36I (note that Steve was not involved).

The license certainly contributed to Microsoft's victory in court. Digital Research, which had no such license (and a much better implementation) lost a similar suit by Apple in 1985 over GEM, which nearly duplicated the Mac GUI, and was forced to change the look of some features and remove others; due to issues of infringing "trade dress." This is sort of like Kodak suing other film manufacturers for boxing their film in packages using the same orange-and-black color scheme. I think there is some merit in protecting a "look" from being exploited by commercial competitors, and GEM was certainly intended to look like the Mac as much as was possible. A shame, really, since it had a lot more going for it, and was in development by a former Xerox PARC employee before the release of the Mac. A few extra hours invested to make it look unique as opposed to identical would have benefited everyone. Interesting reading here: http://www.computernostalgia.net/articles/GEM.htm .

I have used all of these GUIs (and many others) at one time or another. I still have a GEM box sitting on a shelf in my office here at home, just for nostalgia, along with my Ventura Publisher manuals, etc. That was the most productive GUI I ever used on a PC prior to OpenStep.

Been there, done that. Between 2002 and 2009 I sold about 30,000 sub-$25 PCs to Egyptian geeks, who resold them in "Technology Malls". Our last 3 containerloads were seized by Egyptian customs and declared "e-waste" because they were "used." Our buyer was upset, but predicted that Mubarak was just "trying to put the genie back in the bottle", and it was too late. See German Language 3Sat.de coverage on how these used PCs played a role in the Arab Spring. http://bit.ly/soIn3G

Seriously, why do wealthy nations spend $25 to shred 3 year old PCs and then try to find ways to make "new" ones with less RAM and Mhz than the shredded ones for $25?

UK Team Misses Balloon Altitude Record, But Beats a Few Others: An anonymous reader writes with this report from... http://bit.ly/o0pDeh

See?

Samsung and Google postpone launch event out of respect for Steve Jobs Samsung and Google have canceled their October 11 event in San Diego where the Nexus Prime phone and Android 4.0 operating system http://bit.ly/o0pDeh

Are you kidding and what are you fucking say.u can be here find ur answer and know more the details http://bit.ly/qFwROP

man i don't think so u can be here to see my articles http://bit.ly/qFwROP

i don't think it is going to work out and you guys can be here to know the details http://bit.ly/olWmkt

First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they port you on their platform.
Then you win.

Original: http://bit.ly/o3V3cA [Google Books]

"Even you have to admit the fact that marketing is far more important than cold hard facts and results"

And there is a reason for this, human reasoning/our minds don't work according to how the enlightenment thought they did... most of us are raised with 'enlightenment thinking' which is incorrect... see below:

http://bit.ly/dYaWUc

Everyone should watch the following about human reason, and why facts 'don't support themselves' according to our minds.

http://bit.ly/dYaWUc

What? Read the paper. They used the real skeletons (5 of them), not birds or crocodiles, as models.
The researchers' website:
http://bit.ly/qlfC2i

And the paper: (free to all! open access yay!)
http://bit.ly/ruvel3

What? Read the paper. They used the real skeletons (5 of them), not birds or crocodiles, as models.
The researchers' website:
http://bit.ly/qlfC2i

And the paper: (free to all! open access yay!)
http://bit.ly/ruvel3

no it is not you can be here to see the details http://bit.ly/pJCGth

Property rights are useful when organizing economic activity because people respond to incentives. Efficiency is much more important than "freedom" or "openness". It is like computational efficiency: if you don't know what it exactly means (basically it means everyone gets more of what they want), then just listen to the experts. When Donald Knuth talks about algorithms, I shut up. The same thing with economic efficiency.

I've watched "gaming go downhill" and it has nothing to do with DRM. There're plenty of good games out there that are completely free. It has do with the fact the games are sold to a lot of people, and most people are there for quick fun and not something that took time and practice to be able to perform (like sports). Is this progression? Well its not necessarily fun for the hardcore gamers as they won't find any interesting games to play on (like me), but because of this more people can enjoy gaming. Same happened with music as art (classical) music's golden age ended, and pop / folk music became popular. Much of the commercial pop music does not (arguably) have the "depth" compared to art music but you cannot force people to listen to music they don't want or understand. Take Starcraft:BW for example, its arguably the deepest game out there, at least in RTS market. Maybe in 10-20 years it will be gone and replace by some simple game, and SC1:BW will be left as a practice of only handful of people. Would this be progression? I don't know, but the answer isn't simple. There'll be lots of gamers (with RL priorities) who don't want to spend a week just to play an enjoyable game, and I don't think we have should force them either.

The good thing about closed applications is that usually the market for applications is better, and integration is better and it gets usually the "work done" better. On the downside customizing can be difficult if not impossible. The good thing about open applications is that they are much more customizable, are generally cheaper, and work for all kinds of users, but can be expensive to maintain and get compatible. Its exactly like the question of how much there should be standards in *nix. Probably most agree POSIX was a step forward, but I think we could go further (lots of distributions do same things differently without achieving anything). Anyone who has tried to make inter-distributional applications for Linux knows that its a mess. I probably don't need to post the legendary ALSA jungle here. Generally speaking there's not a silver bullet here, different paradigms work for different people and organizations. You should be wary of people who claim otherwise. I posted a bunch of random ramblings for ideas to improve Linux here if anyone cares: http://bit.ly/oIxhBj

People who are not programmers or power users see software as as a tool, and what matters is how the tool works not the technical details. Nobody cares how their screwdrivers are done, but how it performs the tasks it is supposed to do. Maybe the screwdriver engineers wet their pants over different details of implementation, but at the end of the day we want a tools that work, not excuses.

This OSS ideology, which I think is rampant within OSS communities, is as bad as any other. It clouds the person's judgement with easy answers and prevent objective scientific (in this case; economic) analysis of the issue at hand. I've had it when I was younger, the sooner one gets rid of it, the better. Nobody likes DIY climate science either (ok some do, but I've nothing to say to them). To make sure you don't misunderstand me, I think open-source per se is great, just trying to force open-source everywhere is something that is not a question of personal opinion, but a question of how do we solve the coordination problems involved; to make sure everyone wins in the end. These are complicated questions, and for that we turn into experts, who usually need knowledge of different branches of science (mathematics, computer science, economics). The same go

"It has never and will never be that easy, Steve. Your optimism is appreciated though."

You should all watch the following:

http://bit.ly/dYaWUc

> Kaspersky labs and Symantec must wake up with a hardon every morning knowing MS is still out there doing its usual thing.

Oh really? http://bit.ly/oACAsu

Your point is valid, but I think you have at least one historical misconception there.

I have no historical misconception. Here is the extract from an essay from Bertrand Russell, no less: http://bit.ly/r3O0Ym (Check the last lines in that page)

http://bit.ly/r2bovO here is the whole story

If it weren't for those meddling kids at the FBI! NSFW

I don't even really know what it's about. I heard "protesting corporate greed in America", but I mean that's a tough thing to protest.. you're basically protesting capitalism.. http://bit.ly/nsg2pY

"Adam Smith was talking about small communities doing deals one-on-one."

Smith in many ways was a moron who never really grasped the implications of his theory. Giving men the ability to set prices allows them to amass significant amounts of power when they "win" in the market and many encumbants end up staying their permanently North america has a permanent plutocracy where less then 1% of the people have more wealth then the bottom 90% combined. That's how adam smiths theory plays out in the real world. There's no easy price and property disputation mechanism for people to have legal way take back price-setting power and abuses of society from business people. Since business people are so nannied by the state with all the laws they create in their favor (just see copyright, DMCA).

Not only that Smith was a believer in the enlightenment theory of human behavior, markets only work if people are rational and reasonably intelligent but modern science shows human beings are as dumb as rocks. So entire "industries" or "markets" exist just out of stupidity and inertia, not based on any kind of rationality. Their are entire industries based in barbarism and ineptitude of human beings. The fact that people celebrate this as a triumph of the market is pretty disgusting in and of itself.

See:Enlightenment was wrong about human reasoning
http://bit.ly/dYaWUc

Adam smith was also wrong about human morality - if modern society shows us anything it's that large scale societies don't have the collective intelligence and values in common to form any kind check against corporate power.

The value that the Blockbuster Movie Pass adds to the service of DISH Network subscribers is insurmountable. The pass accesses 100,000 DVD movies, TV shows and games available by mail, streaming of more than 3,000 movies to the TV or PC, and 20 premium entertainment movie channels from studios like MGM, Epix, Sony Movie Channel, PixL and more. Since I work for DISH I know that they're offering this as a bundled service to new customers and an add-on service for existing customers beginning this October 1st. Check here for the details. http://bit.ly/nUnGx1

u guys can be here to get the details http://bit.ly/px6KsY

Or you can get rid of the DRM using this nifty python script. http://bit.ly/9zGL5W Once the DRM is gone, then its a vanilla epub file which works anywhere including ipad/iphone/itouch

"I remember hearing about this from a friend, but couldn't find any news articles, didn't see it covered by the TV media, didn't hear about it on the radio, and now it's turning out that ytou can't email about it either..."
Really then you suck at looking for news.
Here let me Google that for you
http://bit.ly/rodGXK
And no rick roll or Goat anything.
Not much coverage because
a. Protests happen all the time on wall street.
b. Just not that many people are involved. If is was the thousands that some claim it would be on the front page of some of the foreign news sites like http://english.aljazeera.net/ .
Just some people that think they are important and figure that the reason they are not getting coverage is a grand conspiracy vs just not that many people care.

http://bit.ly/px6KsY

I hate to see whatever credibility we have spent on things like this.u can be here to see the details http://bit.ly/oZvFCE

Parent is SPAM, do not click.

you're half the GP's UID, and you're just now catching on that you don't click links in the posts?
I'd normally go with "you must be new here" ... but that's not the case now, is it?

On-topic ... if these metal cell membranes work out, does that mean we can walk around like Colossus?

I hate to see whatever credibility we have spent on things like this.u can be here to see the details http://bit.ly/oZvFCE

Parent is SPAM, do not click.

I hate to see whatever credibility we have spent on things like this.u can be here to see the details http://bit.ly/oZvFCE

"People who are really intelligent know to evaluate based on content, not form."

The real issue is that people don't take the real world into account. Most people who complain about style/spelling/missing words/grammar don't have any background in neurology and the mind. Once you learn about the mind and how much we are not aware of you learn to take a step back when being quick to judge others.

Many errors in grammar/spelling can't be helped because they happen on an unconscious level. You should all watch the following: http://bit.ly/dYaWUc

See (for instance):
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/hall_tour/spectrum/non_flash_index.html

This isn't about an imposed classification, it is about a family tree. Crocodiles are more closely related to birds than either are to snakes. Snakes are more closely related to birds than either are to turtles.

That is, these guys:
http://www.wolaver.org/animals/crocodile-plover.jpg

share a *much* more recent common ancestor than these two:
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/02/images/salamander-pgoebeil.jpg
and:
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090630160120/uncyclopedia/images/2/2f/Geico-gecko.jpg

You are more closely related to a goldfish than the goldfish is to a shark:
http://rlv.zcache.com/goldfish_bowl_tshirt-p23514656184174989535jn_400.jpg

http://bit.ly/nknQ00

wait, are you making claims, or are you mocking the claims made by others?
1) maybe true
2) utterly and completely false
Check out the comparison data in a handy dandy spreadsheet. An actual volcano erupting didn't pump out as much CO2 as the European aviation industry. That's just one industry, one little chunk out of a huge amount of global CO2.. In case you were actually trying to make claim #2 there.

The US taxes companies' dividends but not interest paid on debt, stock buybacks, or executive compensation. As a result, most companies don't pay dividends and borrow too much.

I can think of a handful of companies that got into trouble from borrowing too much: AIG, Lehman Brothers. (Chrysler and GM's troubles, I think, stemmed more from not getting their money's worth out of the inflated union wages they were paying.) There are far more companies in the opposite situation: they're sitting on large piles of cash, and would like to hire more workers, but not in the current climate. Read what Steve Wynn has to say about that, for example: http://bit.ly/nL3rIQ

Government's borrowing addiction is a much more serious problem than corporate borrowing. National debt is $14.3 trillion, and on track to rise to $22.2 trillion under the recent "deficit reduction compromise" (see http://paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=280 ).

We have no clue how to run a post-oil world with 6 billion people

Somebody has a clue. For a Big Idea about a new source of energy, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Criswell

Here you go

I'm 48 and taught myself Objective C/Cocoa in order to implement a friend's game as an iPad app (Numbers League). I think I would have learned it a bit quicker in my twenties, but I don't believe I would have enjoyed it as much. Dive in!

Your monthly plan options: $50/mo just to turn on your connection; then: Plan A: $1 per kWh; Plan B: $100 for 900 kWh, $100 for each additional 900kWh (if you go over by even 1 kWh); Plan C: $200 for 10,000 kWh, $75 for each additional 5,000kWh. But it's an extra $50/mo if you want to use a furnace, air conditioner or refrigerator. And you can never be sure just how much you've used, because their tracking system is always a day behind; so if it's the end of December, and you're worried you're getting close because you've been using the heat AND you just cooked a Christmas ham for 4 hours -- you better just eat cold ham until the new year, or you might get charged an extra $100. (for reference the average US household used 920 kWh in 2008, at average cost of $0.12 per kWh http://bit.ly/rklWCn). It's not perfect, but this is basically what the wireless providers are getting away with. The biggest difference is, using electricity costs the provider a certain amount per kWh to produce; data streams don't, or at least the cost is insignificant; so it's even more outrageous that the wireless providers are getting away with it. When plans were really unlimited, they might have been able to get away with limiting the devices we could use to pull down that data; but now that we're paying for a set allocation of data, there is no reason they should be able to limit the devices we're allowed to use, charging more for specific devices.

Sebastian Thrun had deliberately trapped and retaliated on me for sake of a criminal suspect named Gabriele Scheler [http://tysurl.com/mssgYn attention to the photo evidence in the context] in Stanford. People behind Thrun had systematically intruded my privacy which had molested many years of my life without an end. Google's Eric Schmidt had threatened my life with a real murder case of Stanford student May Zhou ( http://www.mayzhou.com) for sake of Sebastian Thrun during their fight with Stanford.

Investigation from authorities after my tip confirms that it is people on Eric Schmidt and Sebastian Thrun (Gabriele Scheler as well)'s side who's behind May Zhou's murder case in order to threaten me and to terrorize Stanford. And the power on their side did try to plot a murder on me while I was in California. Before the case could be publicly clarified, neither Thrun nor Schmidt's name is clear in such plotted murder. And so far, they dare not deny such accusations but pretend not seeing while publicly losing their faces.

In the past, Thrun's bosses had tried to get me work with Sebastian Thrun as a settlement of crimes from Thrun's side, but I never compromised a bit, because as I told the investigators, that it is unfair to that innocently murdered girl May Zhou.

It's unfair to myself as well, as Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler's side did try to murder me while I was in California; Who wants to work with a professor who's misbehaviors had caused the murder of an innocent student of his own school anyway.

Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler need to pay for their crimes.

For reference please read Comments Part in
http://read.bi/thrunscase
http://bit.ly/schmidttt
http://read.bi/schmitie

Sebastian Thrun had deliberately trapped and retaliated on me for sake of a criminal suspect named Gabriele Scheler in Stanford. People behind Thrun had systematically intruded my privacy which had molested many years of my life without an end. Google's Eric Schmidt had threatened my life with a real murder case of Stanford student May Zhou ( http://www.mayzhou.com) for sake of Sebastian Thrun during their fight with Stanford.

Investigation from authorities after my tip confirms that it is people on Eric Schmidt and Sebastian Thrun (Gabriele Scheler as well)'s side who's behind May Zhou's murder case in order to threaten me and to terrorize Stanford. And the power on their side did try to plot a murder on me while I was in California. Before the case could be publicly clarified, neither Thrun nor Schmidt's name is clear in such plotted murder. And so far, they dare not deny such accusations but pretend not seeing while publicly losing their faces.

In the past, Thrun's bosses had tried to get me work with Sebastian Thrun as a settlement of crimes from Thrun's side, but I never compromised a bit, because as I told the investigators, that it is unfair to that innocently murdered girl May Zhou. It's unfair to myself as well, as Eric Schmidt, Sebastian Thrun and Gabriele Scheler's side did try to murder me while I was in California; Who wants to work with a professor who's misbehaviors had caused the murder of an innocent student of his own school anyway.

In name of lord, they need to pay for their crimes.

For reference please read Comments Part in
http://read.bi/thrunscase
http://bit.ly/schmidttt
http://read.bi/schmitie
About Gabriele Scheler's crime: http://tysurl.com/mssgYn attention to the photo evidence in the context

I agree with you in general, with the exception that a wise person does not consider "consensus".

Argument by consensus invokes a minimum of two logical fallacies, which I don't care to get into right now but an intelligent person should already know that. The idea that the majority opinion about scientific issues is right, has been shot down by single individuals so many times throughout history that anybody who considers "consensus" to be valid evidence ought to have their head examined.

THIS for your "consensus".

Yeah, it doesn't matter who is the dragger on the updates, it hurts the platform, the platform's appearance and more importantly the user experience. "Oh, Android? That's the phone I got instead and I remember not being able to update."

http://bit.ly/ftRUxv
GOOG vs AAPL
Don't even think of adding in a company who actually relies on shipping Android hardware into this comparison, it would be more crushing.

Disclosure: very happy long AAPL holder.

So, I shortened it. See:
http://bit.ly/i8zRxz

well I predicted spammers would shift to using stolen thesis credentials way back in 2005 E.S.UK

Google Blocks co.cc From Search Results this is bad news for many people,this will effect so much http://bit.ly/pF8cVx

simple.!!! (o.0) with the help of this thesis http://bit.ly/9XE7PZ

Related: http://bit.ly/ozvTTr

"Germany is already far ahead of most of the world"
Costa Rica Nears Carbon-Neutral Goal http://internationalliving.com/2010/07/26-costa-rica-nears-carbon-neutral-goal/

"It already produces 90% of its electricity from renewable sources" (Yes, I now: small country, but other small countries are far worse renewable-wise).

Spanish power grid report 2010 http://bit.ly/oj6jfE "Renewable energy covered 35.4% of demand in 2010, seven points ahead of 2009."

If I remember correctly, Spain will also quit nuclear power in the next 2 decades, unless there's a change in policy. They're not building more nuclear plants, and plants that reach EOL will be kept on only for a minimal time, then decommissioned.

Also, until 2008-9, Spain was a net importer of electricity. Now it's a net exporter.

so what UTF8 is fail u can get it now http://bit.ly/m2IHF4 .!!!