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Sure:
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2011/12/02/kindle-fire-eats-into-ipad-samsung.html

Until everyone involved gets that, android and essentially everything involved with open source (Linux and the variations) are going no further than they have - niche products and the source of nerdgasms.

Wait, Android is a "niche product"?

I hope one of my "niche" products takes over 40% of smart phone market share (to Apple's 28%) and grows faster than all the alternatives.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2011/09/26/nielsen-report-suggests-android-takes.html?s=image_gallery

"but there is no shown proof yet."
Pay attention.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/25/60minutes/main6242498.shtml
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/3319656
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2011/09/26/amsc-spy-pleads-guilty.html

and so on.

>>I hate to go all wikipedia on you, but [citation needed].
>>You have no proof of how the police would act, or that they would treat you any differently to the way they treated Apple other than your baseless ranting.

"Microsoft and Adobe are members of REACTâ(TM)s steering committee, a group of 25 companies that includes Apple Inc., Symantec Corp., KLA-Tencor Inc., Applied Materials Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc., and acts as a liaison between industry and law enforcement."
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2009/05/18/story2.html

"The steering committee shall, at a minimum, meet quarterly to review task force activities, and provide advice, recommendations, strategic input and direction for task force consideration."
http://publicintelligence.net/rapid-enforcement-allied-computer-team-react-task-force/

"The federal Privacy Protection Act prohibits the government from seizing materials from journalists and others who possess material for the purpose of communicating to the public. The government cannot seize material from the journalist even if itâ(TM)s investigating whether the person who possesses the material committed a crime by receiving or possessing the material"

Yet they broke down his front door and "Among the items seized from Chenâ(TM)s house were four computers and two servers, an iPhone, digital cameras, records from a Bank of America checking account and the printout of an e-mail sent to Chen from Gawker Media Managing Editor Gaby Darbyshire earlier that day. The e-mail referred to Californiaâ(TM)s shield law and specifically stated that police cannot use a search warrant against a journalist to identify a confidential source, or obtain notes and other unpublished information from a news story."
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/04/iphone-raid/

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1795

>>Being or not being an Apple fanboy here is not relevant - we're discussing the police and their role in investigating crime and executing warrants.

It's clear you think that Apple can do no wrong, and are not at all bothered they have a paramilitary police force (that is breaking federal law) at their beck-and-call that kicks down journalists doors.

Re-reading the comment I replied to in this context might help with that whooshing sound.

So while we here in Nebraska appreciate the concern, get your ducks in a row and remember who has been stable through the mess the rest of you created. In the meantime, our economy will continue to kick ass despite the best efforts of the coasts.

References:

Blog and newsweek:

http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/blog/andie531/nebraska-bucks-recession

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/18/why-the-midwest-fared-best-in-the-recession.html

Happiness:

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/happiness-index-nebraska-nabs-top-spot

Silicon Valley

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/technology/17iht-valley.4.20255686.html Silicon Valley Foreclosure rate

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2011/02/10/calif-posts-nations-3rd-highest.html

Claim 1 is worthy.

This is an assertion with no evidence to support it. For instance, I could say "Theaetetus a fucking idiot." That's an assertion. Then I could provide a link to this thread, which would make it an unassailable argument. Thankfully, you make more specific arguments later among the normal backwash which typically fills out the fetid and preposterous string of words you think are worth typing out.

I assert that claim numbers 1, 6, 9 and 11, and all of the dependent claims from the Amazon filing are particular methods worthy of a patent because the prior art fails to show or suggest an ordering system, or method of placing an order that utilizes a system, which includes the single action ordering system or component and a shopping cart model or component as recited by the claims.

Claim #1 is a prime piece of shit. After deleting the items that are a requirement of every single e-commerce transaction that has ever occurred, we are left with one statement:

in response to only a single action being performed, sending a request to order the item along with an identifier of a purchaser of the item to a server system

The key phrase being "only a single action performed." So, nothing new, just performing the same action as every other e-commerce transaction in less clicks.

Claim #6 is more oblong and orange hued, but still excrement. After deleting items common to all e-commerce transactions, we are left with nothing. If you disagree, provide an example.

Claim #9 is the server side of this nothingness they would like to patent, and holds nothing uncommon with all other e-commerce transactions. Again, if you disagree, provide an example.

Claim #11 is another restatement of common e-commerce actions with the only change: the phrase "a single action."

In essence, in that bucket of misery you call a head, you believe that if a car company invented a way to navigate to a radio station with one press of a button intead of two, they should be awarded a patent, and allowed to sue other automakers who make the same function available in the same number of button presses. How ordinarily pathetic.

The only assertion you made in your first response was that "The title is not the patent, nor is the colloquial description of it. Go look at the claims - it's a particular method, not just an end result." You quoted it again a few days later.

I have looked at all of the claims.

No, you haven't. You've looked at the title, and at the summary, and at the abstract. Not once have you quoted a claim. They start with a number. It's really easy.

None of them are a particular method worthy of a patent. I have asked you to provide me with the claim that you believe merits the patent. This is a sound, falsifiable argument: I assert that there are zero claims worthy of a patent. You say at least one claim does, so it's up to you to present it.

Claim 1 is worthy.

Since then, you have failed to provide me with the claim, because you don't have it, and saying so will reveal your stupidity.

Claim 1. Also, all of the dependent claims. I haven't "failed to provide" you with anything. I said look at the claims of the patent, and you haven't ever looked at one.

Continually denying this simple fact makes you an idiot of the Republican variety, whereby denial -- turning into a different argument some days later -- seems to be preferable to admitting that you were full of shit.

As pointed out above, there was no substantive change in my argument. I merely upgraded from directing you to the claims to directing you to the claims, you fucking idiot. Denial? How about your denial of the fact that you haven't quoted a SINGLE CLAIM yet, while simultaneously repeating over and over that you've totally looked at them?

So please, support your original argument, or get back to whatever lighted box is running your life these days. Since I'm such a nice guy, and you're so obviously in need, let me help you further. Complete the following sentence by filling in the blanks:

I assert that claim numbers 1, 6, 9 and 11, and all of the dependent claims from the Amazon filing are particular methods worthy of a patent because the prior art fails to show or suggest an ordering system, or method of placing an order that utilizes a system, which includes the single action ordering system or component and a shopping cart model or component as recited by the claims.

More specifically, the art of record included single-click-to-purchase systems, but did not include a shopping cart model. Other art of record included a shopping cart model for purchasing multiple items, but taught away from single-click-to-purchase.

Feel free to use your notes, and of course, I'll expect more than "because I said so" in that second blank. Good luck!

Now, your turn. Please refer to a CLAIM - not the abstract, not the figures, not the background, not the summary, but a CLAIM starting with a number, a period, and the words "A method... comprising:" - and cite one or more pieces of art that existed prior to September 12, 1997, that teach each and every element of that claim.

And when you say "I don't need to, it's obvious," please state why it's obvious. I'll expect more than "because I said so". Good luck... You're going to need it, as evidenced by all your prior posts that claimed to quote from the patent claims and yet horribly failed each time.

Did you know that SunnyD, that fake orange juice you see white kids get excited about instead of the 'purple stuff' when they open the fridge, contains benzene???

There was a story YEARS ago that a sunnyD plant leaked tons of benzene and killed the local water supply. Here's an article on the suit filed against them to change their formula...

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2007/07/23/story7.html

Just type in "Benzene in drinks" in google and you'll see links for soft drinks out there that contain it.

Thats why I only drink water and liquor

Why do you assume the merger falls apart? As far as I can tell, it has already happened
It affects me, and I am sad about it. Mergers are never done to improve things for the customer.

It doesn't work that way because you are completely and totally unqualified to be CEO of Goldman Sachs. That, not your ruling class diatribe, is why you will not ever be considered for that 8 figure salary, despite your willingness to take a lower salary. It has nothing to do with the ruling class or workers of the world unit or any other such nonsense you espouse.

http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/news/2011/02/01/bank-of-america-ceo-brian-moynihan.html

Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, got a 9 million dollar bonus this year. BoA lost 3.2 billion dollars. I think a trained chimp could at least equal losing 3.2billion dollars and you only have to pay him bananas. Hell, I'd volunteer to run a company into the ground for a third of that.

When CEO pay REMOTELY tracks to CEO performance, you can start claiming that any random person is unqualified to be a CEO. In todays world, CEOs and other upper management positions are just welfare for rich idiots. They rely more on having gone to the right prep school and summered in the right part of Martha's Vineyard than any real skill.

Unemployment is closer to 2% for tech workers. Basically, anyone who's reasonably good and wants to has a job.

2% was 2007, a 7 year low, before the economy started to tank. I'm not finding current numbers for "tech unemployment" but the 10.8% unemployment rate in Silicon Valley is pretty suggestive. http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2011/03/25/silicon-valley-unemployment-rate-falls.html

And, let me guess: You've never found yourself unemployed in a recessionary period. Let me tell you, it doesn't matter how good your are if the company you work for shuts down and lays off everybody. And there is no one hiring because all the companies in your field are laying off. When the hiring starts to slow pick up again, our resumes get filtered out by people like you who think: "Anybody who is any good would have a job: this person must not be any good." And the extra stinker is that years down the line, after you have clawed your way back, you can still be blocked by some bozo who sees an an earlier gap and declares you must not be very good because *he's* never been unemployed.

Arizona resident here. Downtown Phoenix, no less, about eight blocks from the capitol.

I don't know WTF this has to do with news for nerds, but I'll bite.

Looks like we are becoming the new Floriduh here. Some of the bad attention is well deserved. Some of it not.

Maybe if they had not given that huge tax break to University of Phoenix, they would not have to do stuff like this;

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2011/04/04/Arizona-Legislature-OKs-tax-break.html

Also, I would be negligent if I didn't point out that republicans here went and made their own FUD true: Death panels!

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/12/09/20101209Montini1209.html

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2011/02/25/20110225montini0225.html

BAE Systems completes purchase of Fairchild Imaging.

Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Sen. Michael Bennet, Colorado Democrats who pressed Obama to salvage the Orion project, said they were confident the spacecraft will fly

In an unrelated story, Lockheed Martin announces a $35 million training center for Orion in Colorado.

As one of the nation's largest union employers, this bodes well for those who support unions.

This also bodes well for those in the seciton of the Venn diagram who both hate unions and think that AT&T sucks. They have a brand new outlet to scream about how lazy union workers are responsible for AT&T's sucky network and poor customer service and are going to ruin the T Mobile experience.

A company wanted to build a wind farm off the Massachusetts coast, too, but local residents whined about their pretty ocean views being spoiled. Just recently the company abandoned the plan after a years-long battle, but didn't admit the local opposition forced them to give up.

NIMBY will kill us all.

Sony Ericsson was illegally excluding the unemployed from being hired.

Amazon has been in Irving, Tx since 2005. What date do you think the State of Texas is trying to collect from?

    Unfortunately, the article doesn't state that, and it appears that the listed income for Amazon is in total reported sales, not sales to Texas consumers. I did find this article, dated June 2005, which should give some insight into the situation.

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2005/06/27/daily41.html

Amazon.com to locate massive distribution center in Irving
Dallas Business Journal
Date: Thursday, June 30, 2005, 3:00pm CDT

Amazon.com will open a massive distribution center in Irving in what is Dallas-Fort Worth's largest industrial lease this year, the Irving Chamber of Commerce said Thursday.

Seattle-based Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) will locate in the DFW Freeport area at 2700 Regent Blvd. near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.The center is expected to open by September.

The deal has been one of the most closely guarded deals in the Dallas-Fort Worth market this year.

The Irving City Council cleared the way for the distribution center on May 26, by approving an economic development incentive agreement. The agreement provides tax rebates to the company for six years, with options to extend the agreement up to 10 years.

The Irving fulfillment center will house larger, non-conveyable items from the company's home and garden, electronics and kitchen stores.

"Most solar panels decreases in efficiency warmer they are"

Most solar panels are still Si based. Some thin-film chemistries actually increase in efficiency when they get hotter, however.

Stanford's looking at something roughly similar.

TV outputs are rediculously common on modern PCs

That's not what I saw when I last looked at PCs in a Best Buy store. Virtually all had VGA; many also had DVI or HDMI. An HDTV can take all of those, but SDTVs can take only composite and S-Video. Most people who aren't geeks don't know a $40 cable to convert PC VGA video to SDTV exists.

DVI is just a standard TV output without the sound or DRM.

DVI is not a standard-definition TV output. It is a high-definition TV output, and a Consumer Electronics Association report states that one-third of U.S. households still have SDTV in the living room.

Ordinary viewers do not have a computer hooked up the TV

From 1987 (VGA introduction) to 2006 (when HDTVs became affordable), PCs didn't have television output as a standard feature. SDTVs needed an obscure adapter to turn the EDTV output from a PC's VGA port into a 480i signal that they can handle. But by fall of 2010, two-thirds of U.S. households have an HDTV, and HDTVs accept the VGA and DVI signals from common PCs. Why hasn't a PC in the living room taken off, and what can geeks to help make them more common among non-geeks?

And most people still don't have HDTVs.

It was two-thirds by May. A home user can't even buy a new SDTV anymore. In your area, when an SDTV breaks, do people replace it with an HDTV, or do they hit the thrift store for a second-hand SDTV?

And most HDTVs have input for HDMI, which the default PC doesn't put out audio over, requiring a separate cable

What on this page about setting up an HTPC is confusing?

I'll translate: "I've made my bed with Apple. I've looked at an Andriod phone, once on the internet and whilst I pay some random tribute to make me seem like I'm not a fanboy but I'll praise Apple immediately after because my ego will never permit me to conceive that anything could ever be better".

I think the shoe is in the other foot. Both my brothers happen to have android phones (because neither can tolerate ATT, younger one almost cried when he had to give up his iPhone.) Truth is that Android feels more like a Windows Mobile killer than an iPhone competitor.

See my above statement. Apple is a non-competitor to Sony, MS and Nintendo. So much of a non competitor it's not even worth mentioning.

Really, I think you definitively are very biased... http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2010/08/09/daily32.html

Mobile gaming is nothing in the west. It's something in Asia (Japan and China specifically)

That's funny. I guess then that the fact that the combined software sales of DS and PSP software sales in America outselling Japan's by 62.5% is just an optical illusion or result of some one's random number generators... http://www.vgchartz.com/hardware_totals.php?type=Software&sort=Total

The iGaming fad will be over in a year or so.

I said that 2 years ago (who on earth would play with just on-screen controls, I said.) I lost a lot of money [due to not pursuing opportunity] for thinking that way.

As soon as enough Andorid, Symbian and Meego phones support Flash 10 a copy of a flash game will no longer sell for US$5.99.

You would be shocked what people pay money for. And it's not only iPhone owners, people buy games for Android, XBox Live Arcade, PSN, WiiWare and DSWare that make Facebook games look like next gen killers.

Oh and not sure why you say 5.99, the average iPhone game is between $0.99 to $2.99, only big studios like EA or SquareEnix seem to try to sell titles for higher amounts (and their games are FAR from "flash games".)

You don't like the iPhone? Well, there are alternatives out there for you (provided you are in an actual position to afford any) but I hope you are not the economical advisory for any kind of software company. You may loose your job soon if anyone realizes how much money you made your company loose by convincing them iOS is a fad (either that or they will send you to sell refrigerators to Eskimos.)

Whether you like it or not, the iOS devices are a huge phenomena, and most of the reason behind it is precisely the "restrictive" app store that happens to do most of it's movement in the games and entertainment categories. If you ignore them as a developer, you are a fool.

PS: pardon my English, not my first language.

It's basically been done before. A local indoor karting track had radio controlled cars out in the parking lot, and the controllers were in arcade cabinets inside the building. It looked interesting, but I thought it was priced too high, compared to the real karts you could drive at the same location.

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2004/06/28/story7.html

I get the feeling they're no longer in business. Here's the defunct looking website.

http://www.minifastcar.com/

It's good that we agree on something. It should be noted, however, that there has been a flat line in global temperature for the last 10 or so years. While this is insignificant as an indicator of anything, it should be noted that the models that are used for all projections failed to predict this.

Careful... that line worked in 2008, but not in 2010. 1998 is a useful year for selection bias.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5951409.cms Following the release of global temperature data which revealed April of 2010 was the hottest April ever and that this year so far has been warmest on record, Nasa has said global temperatures have been steadily rising since the late 1970s with no significant let-up in the trend.

Interesting. Looking at the Nasa GISS temperature graphs, they seem to disagree with themselves, see here. Your point about selection bias is correct, but I was not claiming that global warming has stopped, I was claiming that the models used for all kinds of funky predictions about the future temperatures failed to predict the 10-year flatline(what happens next is anyone's guess). I should probably also point out that choosing the year 1880 can also be seen as selection bias, since the Little Ice Age ended right about then, so increasing temperatures is only natural after an extended cooling like that. Without context, graphs beginning at 1880 also provide a nice upward slope all the way to the present, save for the "small" dive at around 1950.

I also think it's curious that you choose to use an article in the Times of India as proof, instead of pointing to the data that they draw their conclusions from. Climate science is so politicized that everything on the Internet having to do with it should be taken with a truckload of salt, whether it agrees with your position or not.

I'm sorry, what? I'd like to know how you link a few years of poor oyster harvesting to global warming, so please quote some kind of source.

Using google is really not that difficult. (Further down the article downplays the link, but that's business press for you.)

http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2010/06/28/story1.html Young oysters seem to be dying in their swimming larval stage because the slightly acidic seawater is dissolving their shells from the outside faster than they can grow, Kaufman said. The breeding cycle has failed for each of the past four years, he said.

Using google runs into the problem I outlined above. Using google to find a business journal article that suggests ocean acidification as a reason for poor harvest of oysters, even if "some scientists" think so, is anecdotal and not evidence of anything. As the guy later on in that article says, the problem is not unprecedented and is likely caused by entirely natural factors.

Same goes for the coral statement. Ocean acidification is a scary-sounding theory, but whether it will have any major ill-effects is pretty much an open question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification Research has already found that corals, coccolithophore algae, coralline algae, foraminifera, shellfish and pteropods experience reduced calcification or enhanced dissolution when exposed to elevated CO2.

Uh-huh. I also experience increased perspiration when subjected to higher temperatures. I should also point out that using wikipedia as a source in any highly political issue is pretty futile, since one side will always highjack any articles having to do with it, even if attempts are made to avoid it. The wikipedia article

It's good that we agree on something. It should be noted, however, that there has been a flat line in global temperature for the last 10 or so years. While this is insignificant as an indicator of anything, it should be noted that the models that are used for all projections failed to predict this.

Careful... that line worked in 2008, but not in 2010. 1998 is a useful year for selection bias.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5951409.cms
Following the release of global temperature data which revealed April of 2010 was the hottest April ever and that this year so far has been warmest on record, Nasa has said global temperatures have been steadily rising since the late 1970s with no significant let-up in the trend.

I'm sorry, what? I'd like to know how you link a few years of poor oyster harvesting to global warming, so please quote some kind of source.

Using google is really not that difficult. (Further down the article downplays the link, but that's business press for you.)

http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2010/06/28/story1.html
Young oysters seem to be dying in their swimming larval stage because the slightly acidic seawater is dissolving their shells from the outside faster than they can grow, Kaufman said. The breeding cycle has failed for each of the past four years, he said.

Same goes for the coral statement. Ocean acidification is a scary-sounding theory, but whether it will have any major ill-effects is pretty much an open question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
Research has already found that corals, coccolithophore algae, coralline algae, foraminifera, shellfish and pteropods experience reduced calcification or enhanced dissolution when exposed to elevated CO2.

Heat waves are weather and are caused by natural variability. Same goes for blizzards, neither is proof of anything.

When the variability starts marching away from known records, then the climate is changing beyond it's known natural cycles. El Nino weather patterns and other variables of course come into play, but hey, you got to pretend you were thinking for a second.

As far as your claim about the Arctic, I believe the scariest guess so far has been ice-free by 2015. All of those "predictions"(guesses) are based on models that ignore significant aspects of the inner workings of Earth's climate, most notably changes in cloud cover.

The Northwest Passage has been navigable for the first time in history for two years in a row. The US military is already reorganizing itself to defend it as a new attack vector. Russia, Canada, and the US are already squabbling over the resources under the ice.

I'd also like to point out that any kind of catastrophic global warming that CO2 might cause requires some kind of significant positive feedback mechanism, but none have been identified as of yet. It has simply been assumed that there must be one without any speculation as to what that might be. Cloud cover for example is likely a significant negative feedback when temperatures get higher.

In this case, you're entirely full of shit.

http://www.pnas.org/content/97/4/1331.full
Ice-core records show that climate changes in the past have been large, rapid, and synchronous over broad areas extending into low latitudes, with less variability over historical times. These ice-core records come from high mountain glaciers and the polar regions, including small ice caps and the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.

As the world slid into and out of t

...because they have a track record of smacking down patent trolls, like today. Maybe some of those companies can toughen up and follow the example.

Well as soon as DOE can convince FAA and the Air Force to stop blocking projects perhaps we can make some progress.

Its a little frightening that a non-emitting source could so easily fool radar and the best solution either agency has is to block wind farms.

Then there is the BLM and their restrictive access polices, not to mention the Kennedy clan.

There are some obvious problems with wind (hot calm days), but tied to an efficient national grid much of these should be manageable.

If the shoes are really selling for that much extra money, then why has no one cut in with a competitor and where are the profits going?

Either someone is getting filthy rich off of nike shoes, or a long chain of people are making decent income.

Some older articles say that Nike executives don't make a ton of money (could have changed recently)
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2002/05/06/focus7.html

"Yet even when these frills are tacked onto the annual compensation of Knight himself, the paycheck hovers around $2.6 million."

Hmmm. This is no "Home Depot" guy taking home tens of millions in bonuses.

So why is Knight so wealthy?
Nike Stock.

How has Nike Stock done lately?

Not bad-- it's gone up 40% in the last 3 years despite the recession.

It has a low dividend but still has one.

Perhaps all that extra money is going into the stock-- but if they are truly making this enormous profit, it has to be going somewhere.
Perhaps they are saving it in cash (which I have a hard time reading for).

Looks like most of us could buy 100 shares (6900 bucks as of today).

Not once do they acknowledge that (a) this is an unprecidented engineering failure,

Is that what you call removing mud from the pipe before cementing it? All the engineers seem to agree that the exothermic reaction of concrete may have been responsible for the explosion which is why they normally stuff the pipe with mud before capping it. Halliburton says removing the mud isn't that unusual, but also makes sure to say it was BP who told them to do it. Is it an "unprecedented engineering failure" when you do the opposite of what engineers think is best? And what do you call ignoring warning signs of increased pressure shortly before the accident?

This is like calling the Challenger disaster an "unprecedented engineering failure". Oh sure, engineering faults were involved, but it was ultimately management ignoring the engineers warning them of the faults that was responsible.

(b) there were multiple safeguards

Yeah, and one of the final safeguards, a shear ram that's supposed to cut through and seal off the pipe if there is a blowout, was repurposed as a tester for the blowout prevent. So there goes the failsafe for the blowout preventer.

Oh, and the rig had failed pressure tests shortly before the accident, and the blowout preventer itself had several problems like leaking hydraulics.

So the first failsafe was known to be malfunctioning, and the second failsafe for when the first one failed was deliberately disabled.

Oh but you're so right, there were "multiple safeguards" which proves it's nobody's fault but Murphy's!

(c) it's an economic necessity that we drill for oil,

To the extent that this is true, then it's also a necessity that we hold those drilling to the highest standards possible.

BP is doing everything possible to fix the problem,

No shit! They're entire future and an incredible amount of mega-bucks are riding on their response to this spill. Obviously they want it stopped as quickly as possible, lest people get it into their heads that drilling in mile-deep ocean is too dangerous to allow it to continue. I see no reason to give them an ounce of credit for doing nothing more than what is in their own financial interest.

Oh but what's also in their own interest is downplaying the severity of the spill and any of their own mistakes that may have led to it. So when they claim to be siphoning off 5,000 bbl a day, which is also how much they say the spill is, but their own video shows that the siphon is not even capable of stopping the major breach, then gee, maybe they've been worried about PR as much as the spill itself?

I don't think that's really fair -- if we get into a car accident, we're quick to shrug it off as just that: an accident. Nobody's fault. We pick up the pieces and move on.

What?! If somebody can be shown to be at fault, particularly if they were violating relevant laws and regulations, then they get hit with fines and in some cases, depending on the accident, criminal charges! And the bigger the accident, the more closely it would be scrutinized as only makes rational sense. I guarantee you that if you caused a car accident that killed 11 people, nobody would just be blowing it off and not worrying about whether you were at fault.

I don't really get where you're coming from. "Oh, it's so unfair that we are more concerned about huge disasters than tiny ones. Why can't we treat eleven deaths and millions of barrels of spilled oil like we would when someone steps on your toes on the dance floor and just let it slide?"

Really?

Really?

Not once do they acknowledge that (a) this is an unprecidented engineering failure,

Is that what you call removing mud from the pipe before cementing it? All the engineers seem to agree that the exothermic reaction of concrete may have been responsible for the explosion which is why they normally stuff the pipe with mud before capping it. Halliburton says removing the mud isn't that unusual, but also makes sure to say it was BP who told them to do it. Is it an "unprecedented engineering failure" when you do the opposite of what engineers think is best? And what do you call ignoring warning signs of increased pressure shortly before the accident?

This is like calling the Challenger disaster an "unprecedented engineering failure". Oh sure, engineering faults were involved, but it was ultimately management ignoring the engineers warning them of the faults that was responsible.

(b) there were multiple safeguards

Yeah, and one of the final safeguards, a shear ram that's supposed to cut through and seal off the pipe if there is a blowout, was repurposed as a tester for the blowout prevent. So there goes the failsafe for the blowout preventer.

Oh, and the rig had failed pressure tests shortly before the accident, and the blowout preventer itself had several problems like leaking hydraulics.

So the first failsafe was known to be malfunctioning, and the second failsafe for when the first one failed was deliberately disabled.

Oh but you're so right, there were "multiple safeguards" which proves it's nobody's fault but Murphy's!

(c) it's an economic necessity that we drill for oil,

To the extent that this is true, then it's also a necessity that we hold those drilling to the highest standards possible.

BP is doing everything possible to fix the problem,

No shit! They're entire future and an incredible amount of mega-bucks are riding on their response to this spill. Obviously they want it stopped as quickly as possible, lest people get it into their heads that drilling in mile-deep ocean is too dangerous to allow it to continue. I see no reason to give them an ounce of credit for doing nothing more than what is in their own financial interest.

Oh but what's also in their own interest is downplaying the severity of the spill and any of their own mistakes that may have led to it. So when they claim to be siphoning off 5,000 bbl a day, which is also how much they say the spill is, but their own video shows that the siphon is not even capable of stopping the major breach, then gee, maybe they've been worried about PR as much as the spill itself?

I don't think that's really fair -- if we get into a car accident, we're quick to shrug it off as just that: an accident. Nobody's fault. We pick up the pieces and move on.

What?! If somebody can be shown to be at fault, particularly if they were violating relevant laws and regulations, then they get hit with fines and in some cases, depending on the accident, criminal charges! And the bigger the accident, the more closely it would be scrutinized as only makes rational sense. I guarantee you that if you caused a car accident that killed 11 people, nobody would just be blowing it off and not worrying about whether you were at fault.

I don't really get where you're coming from. "Oh, it's so unfair that we are more concerned about huge disasters than tiny ones. Why can't we treat eleven deaths and millions of barrels of spilled oil like we would when someone steps on your toes on the dance floor and just let it slide?"

Really?

Really?

The first cover-up was that the explosion occured 20 april but we got news reporting only 21 april. In the case of a terror incident 20 april is a very significant date to muslim haters.

http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2010/04/19/daily25.html

it presents this situation as a failure of the luxury sites, not of the iPad.

Precisely. Coincidentally, a report today from Yahoo offered some stats on iPad users visiting Yahoo's sites:

The first Yahoo iPad users were 94 percent more likely to be affluent consumers with solid wealth and strong incomes than typical U.S. Yahoo users.

In other words, the very demographic these luxury brands depend on for their survival. What are the odds that they'll refuse to update their sites to attract them?

Regardless of people's opinions of Apple or their products, they are a major driving force behind the rapid adoption of HTML 5, and the deprecation of Flash. Hell, most people never even heard of Flash before Apple announced that the iDevices will not support it, but consumers voted with their dollars anyway, billions of them, and businesses follow the money. They see a platform with tens of millions of affluent potential customers that they simply can't reach because their sites are in a format that doesn't exist on that platform. They'll be falling over themselves to remedy that situation post haste.

Yeah, I'm just not buying this.

Comcast, for one, added 599,000 video, high-speed internet, and voice subscribers in the first quarter of 2010 AND beat all of the analyst's predictions on profit. If this study were true, that wouldn't be the case.

Sources:

Comcast’s 1Q beats last year and analysts’ estimates
Highlights From CMCSA's Q1 Conference Call

I apologize for the harsh answer, my original post was a bit confusing as you explained. The first part of my post was talking about castle doctrine and why I like it and don't want the yahoo I was responding to moving to Arizona and donating to politicians who would try and increase gun control. I ended the first paragraph with a sentence backing up why I hold the position I do.

My second paragraph just went into more details as to why I like having access to firearms due to the dangers where I live, I have seen video on the news caught on security cameras of home invasions where multiple mexican's are storming a house with AR-15's, I wouldn't want to be stuck with calling the police as my only option in that situation, I would want a firearm in hand. I did not intend to try and prove the crime rate is lower in AZ due to having less gun restrictions but if we enacted restrictions similar to Chicago (or IL in general, you are required to have a firearm owner ID card to buy 22 bullets and other BS in that corrupt state) or Washington DC I wouldn't be suprised to see crime increase even more.

I don't know why your criminal rates are lower in France, but I highly doubt they are lower due to stricter gun control. Of course gun crimes may be lower due to stricter gun control but I would definitely love to see some proof that stricter gun control has lowered all crime across the board. I am basing that stance on the stats I have seen in the US for locations that have increased gun control, the crime rate seems to always go up, I have even seen this be the case with locations outside the US. Also, to me it just makes sense that if a criminal knows the person he wants to commit a crime against has the chance of being armed with a firearm they would less likely choose to commit the crime compared to if they know nearly 100% that the person does not have a firearm, just the chance of having a firearm would be a deterant to me personally. Whatever floats your boat though, I like my gun rights and you seem to like your gun restrictions, to each their own.

One more thing and that is I think a large part of the crime in AZ is due to illegal immigrants, it is a fact drug cartels recruit them for crimes such as the kidnappings and human/drug smuggling and suprisingly after the US started enforcing some stricter illegal immigrant rules and also jobs were less available the illegal immigrant populations fell by nearly a third in Arizona and crime rates fell drastically AND quickly too. In fact, in the first few months after the illegal immigrant populations fell crime was down 25% in Phoenix and 19% in Mesa which I found very interesting and also why I am for more policies to lower the illegal immigrant population. I have no problem with immigrants, in fact I welcome anyone to the USA who wants to come here peacefully, just do it legally of course. Here is a link to an article in the Phoenix Business Journal talking about the crime decreases:

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/07/27/daily89.html

Or, Ubisoft can stop ruining games. Do you know why Blizzard or Valve doesn't get.as much shit despite the Steam/BNET DRM they have going on (and will have in the future)? Because the quality of their games makes it an acceptable compromise. Ubisoft fails at this miserably.

Take Beyond Good & Evil, for instance. One of the greatest games I've ever played. Beautiful graphics for a PS2-era game, awesome musical score, fun gameplay, and they go and mess it up in a number of ways:

• They released it alongside two of their own games: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell. There were also many other strong commercial competitors released at that time. To Ubisoft's credit, Laurent Detoc (Executive Director, North America, Ubisoft) basically admitted that he massively fucked that up.
• Takng almost 7 years to put out a proper sequel.
• Completely fucking up the PC port (and, assuming that they themselves did not do the port, allowing the company who ported it to fuck it up) to the point that most keys can not be remapped and game pads won't work at all unless you use an external program like XPadder.

When you can make games on the same level of quality as Blizzard and Valve, then you'll earn my sympathies (and my sales). The "we release when we're finished" business model works for them. When you have anything in a game that seems like an afterthought or seems poorly thought out, that says to me that you were rushed to deadline and just went with whatever you could do best in the time you had.

Can you make an Assassin's Creed game that's not repetitive?

How about a game where you can skip cutscenes (granted, a blazing innovation in technology that has only been around for 10 years).

How about a Splinter Cell: Totally Doesn't Feel Like An Expansion Pack to the Last Game?

Ubisoft doesn't rush games out as badly as some companies do, but IMO they've failed to innovate in favor of putting out a sequel with largely the same gameplay so they can meet their Q3 deadline. Beyond Good & Evil 2 will be your saving grace. Don't fuck that up and you'll earn back some of the respect of your customers.

• http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=1799
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/19/gps-close-to-breakdown
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1184550/GPS-satellite-close-breakdown-fail-2010--leading-motorists-straight-trouble.html
• http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/05/18/daily24.html
• http://www.digitaltrends.com/international/gps-satellites-to-start-failing-next-year/

Considering most of these articles were on slashdot before, you don't have much of an excuse.

For the sake of accuracy:
Hostgator moved from to Houston over 3 years ago..

I dunno who Robert McMillan is.. but he needs to do a tiny bit updating his fact-checking database.

There's plenty of advertising for antibiotics in the U.S., of the normal 30-second-TV-ad variety. You've never seen an ad for things like Zithromax? Oversight does seem to be tightening to some extent, though.

Yet another attempt by MSFT to influence Linux users. By charging them triple for the same product.

I can see this going over like a lead filled ballon. While costs for goods may rise and drive up prices, prices themselves have a way of going down with volume. Of course in a market (software) that doesn't produce physical products pricing is artificial anyways.

And look at the picture ! It s NAZI Salute!

There you go, it's all part of Gates' plan to take over the World and crush Linux! I can tell!

Is that all?

http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2009/04/13/daily10.html

CEO of Exxon as much in a year...

But it has to look pretty, or the folks with access to the bank account will never buy it! It also needs animated sliding panels, customizable positions for all controls, and must fit the graphical style of Windows, so the office staff don't get confused. When the programmers are done with those important goals, then they can work on the petty stuff like speed and usability.

Oh, don't worry about that part, the system Smith and Feied are talking about is their own product, that they sold to Microsoft.

I'm somehow sceptic about the whole hype around the swine flu based on the fact that the U.S. Government alone paid nearly a billion $ for the vaccine http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/07/13/daily26.html, much more globally. I mean, the swine flu is even less hazardous than the normal flu, and with some good care for the immune system it does not cause much problems, so is it really necessary to spread a big panic and spend that amount of money? I mean, that's a lot of money. Really.

Did they tell you that your near vision was definitely going to be shot? (There's no "possibly" about it short of changing the laws or refraction of light). If not, sue the SOBs.

And this claim ...

After having LASIK laser eye surgery, most patients no longer need corrective eyewear

... is misleading at best, and at worst a lie. Most patients will eventually need glasses or contacts as their eyes age, though if you were originally near-sighted and DON'T get lasik, you could end up not needing glasses as your eyes change.

9% report no change or worsening of vision afterwards Not worth it. Glasses are safer, and they make you look smart - and this study proves it's more likelyt to be true if you're nearsighted.

Previously, Rensin operated a collection agency at the same address. He was sued for that one as well. And lost.

"Vista sucking has a lot more to do with sociology than technology. The problem was that marketdroids .. outright lied about the user experience at some levels of hardware capability", QuoteMstr

"More internal Microsoft e-mails were unsealed today in the Windows Vista Capable lawsuit, detailing the wrangling that took place inside the company and across the industry before and after the operating system's January 2007 launch. The plaintiffs are using the messages to support their contention that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was involved enough in decisions to warrant a deposition"

'The "Vista sucks" meme, however, spread virally because 1) we all love to hate Microsoft, and 2) most users really can't tell the difference between good technology and bad', QuoteMstr

The "Vista sucks" meme spread becasue Vista did really suck, really :)

"From: Stevan Sinofsky
Sent: Sunday, February 18, 2007 12:08 PM
To: Steve Ballmer Cc: Bill Veghte; Jon Devaan
Subject: Re: Vista

A lot of changes led many Windows XP drivers not really working at all - this across the board for printers, scanners, wan, accessories (fingerprint readers, smartcards, tv tuners), and so on"

You do know that the New York Times is bleeding red ink on a scale similar to GM and Chrysler, right?

Well, they can just print in black ink!

Seriously, how is New York Times bleeding red ink like GM and Chrysler? I'm looking at their 2008 financial statements. The only reason it's showing net loss is because of impairment charges of goodwill.

Here's their 2009 2nd quarter result.

Also, a lot of technological advances, as always, are war- and government-centered and shrouded in secrecy. Although predicted in 1948, more than the stipulated 50 years ago, Big Brother has become a reality in the NSA office of the San Francisco AT&T building. GPS, Tomahawks, and Predators make destruction of arbitrarily-specified buildings and infrastructure available at the touch of a button. The cat ia out of the bag now regarding the Google sub-campus of the NASA Ames campus, which is known for its Artificial Intelligence research -- they have now named it the Singularity University -- who knows how much progress they've made thus far and whether intermediate results are helping in the Big Brother effort. It's not common knowledge yet, but the five-century tradition of subjugating the world through a surface navy has ended. Surface ships, including and especially aircraft carriers, are obsolete, being vulnerable to hypersonic surface-skimming missiles. The stipulated 50 years ago, battleships were still a hot thing.

This IEEE Spectrum piece is so bad that it not only doesn't recognize these recent and often secret game-changing innovations, it failed to mention the past innovation with the greatest societal impact: the S-Bend toilet drainpipe, which allowed indoor toilets without constantly emanating odors.

Incidentally, I switched my Internet service to Clear WiMax. It's slightly more expensive than Comcast in the short term because I had to buy the equipment, but they've got a 3Mbps/$30 tier while Comcast's minimum was 6Mbps/$42.95, so I'll save money in the long run. And more importantly, it lets me avoid supporting the fascists at either Comcast or AT&T (the only DSL provider here)! Totally worth it...

Erm, you know that Comcast is part owner of Clear, right?

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/stories/2008/05/05/daily24.html

Damned clever, those fascists ;)