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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/dragon-systems-founders-take-goldman-to-trial-over-advice.html
"In a federal trial that began yesterday in Boston, the Bakers claim that shoddy work by Goldman Sachs on the $580 million all-stock sale of Dragon to a Belgian competitor, Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products NV, cost them their company and their fortune. Within months of the sale's June 2000 close, Lernout & Hauspie collapsed in an accounting scandal and its shares that the Bakers took as payment for their 51 percent stake in Dragon were worthless. Worse, according to Jim Baker, they no longer had access to the speech-recognition technology they had created. The patents underlying Dragon products including their popular dictation program, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, were sold at a bankruptcy auction. "Dragon Systems and the Dragon technology was like our child," Jim Baker said in the interview in May."

That last part, losing access to working on the software, has to have been the worst part for the founders. My advisor at Princeton, George Miller, had mentored them too, and told me a little about the loss right after it happened. It is quite a cautionary tale -- losing both their life's work and all that money.

A recruiter connected to L&H tried to recruit me when I was working with the speech group at IBM Research back around 1999 on IBM's "Personal Speech Assistant" using IBM's embedded speech engine, which consisted of a Palm Pilot sitting in a larger cradling add-on that did the actual speech recognition on another CPU:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/41718/IBM_demos_voice_apps_for_Palms

Glad I passed on working at L&H given the financial disaster that was about to happen. Hard to beat the camaraderie of the IBM Speech group back then, even though it was constantly being poached by Wall Street (and others) for the stochastic algorithm knowledge. But like with many inventions at IBM Research, even with Lou Gerstner asking for a PSA to have in his office, the organization as a whole may have had trouble making the most of that lead as a "failure of the imagination" to see how such products for using handheld speech recognition could grow and blossom (in a way that Apple and now Google have commercialized).

An Apple recruiter contacted me a bit before Siri came out, and I assumed it was because I was on a PSA patent and they were doing embedded speech recognition stuff. But that was back when it was pretty obvious the CA housing market was about to collapse, so moving to CA would have meant losing vast amounts of money if buying a home (even though, no doubt, Apple would have been an interesting place to work). If i had not thought about that, working for Apple could have cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in an underwater mortgage. It's interesting to see Apple now recruiting around Boston, which, while it has high house prices, are still not as crazy as around Silicon Valley (even now).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-25/vivendi-loses-956-million-verdict-to-liberty-media.html

it's not even as much as the fed reserve wastes in a month

The fed is printing $85 billion a month just to keep the federal debt bubble from popping and bankrupting Earth.

the nuclear people piss in their own soup http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-07/fukushima-137-billion-cost-has-tepco-seeking-more-aid.html

The only reason that happened, and most nuclear accidents, is because the anti nuke freaks started wining about it in the '60. A bunch of clueless hippies sitting around smoking weed and carrying on protests about anything that had anything to do with nuclear anything. Because of this all research on nuclear fission was stopped in the '70s.

If the hippie bunch would have help research the problem instead of being apart of the problem we would have safe nuclear reactors using modern technology today. Crap like Fukushima would never have happened.

So thank you very much flower children.

Sorry, but HTC hasn't been able to keep up with demand for the One

Sorry, but that's because they had manufacturing issues with the camera, not because demand is insanely high. In fact, sales were below expectations, causing them to lose a rank or two in the smartphone market, and the One's sales are actually expected to drop off sharply in the next quarter, which would lead to an even greater decline. The One had a lot of promise, but has failed to deliver on it.

The French rail operator SNCF told the California High-Speed Rail Authority that it could cut $30 billion off the projectâ(TM)s $68 billion estimated price tag. San Francisco can barely build underground light rail for the price that Tokyo pays for high-capacity subways. Los Angeles's planned subway to the sea will be a bit cheaper, but is still very expensive considering the area's lack of density.

The budgets for other types of urban public-works projects can be just as shocking. Who can forget Boston's Big Dig, the $24 billion highway boondoggle? But mass-transit networks stand to lose most from out-of-control infrastructure costs.
A huge part of the problem is that agencies can't keep their private contractors in check. Starved of funds and expertise for in-house planning, officials contract out the project management and early design concepts to private companies that have little incentive to keep costs down and quality up. And even when they know better, agencies are often forced by legislation, courts and politicians to make decisions that they know aren't in the public interest.

US Taxpayers Are Gouged on Mass Transit Costs

It's the same reason we pay 1 trillion per year for our military. The same millionaires who infest congress also infest massive corporations, and their goal is to make cash and get re-elected to keep the ponzi scheme going. The latest fad answer is privatization -- despite all the evidence to the contrary -- and privately held corporations love to continue furthering that myth because it's in their own interest. There's no reason for corporate owned media to report the truth either.

The actual answer is a few millennia old:

"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."

-Plato

But, per the norm, America prefers solutions that are cheap, easy, and completely inefficient if you consider anything beyond the next financial quarter. We are democratically lazy, and we pay dearly for our societal incompetence, in treasure as well as blood.

Right. What we have here is another crap materials science article. Somebody did something vaguely interesting at lab scale, and then issued a bullshit press release.

Trying to get the last remnants of recoverable energy out of a heat engine is an old game, going back to the reciprocating engine era. Basic steam engines had one cylinder running off boiler pressure. Double-expansion steam engines had a second cylinder running off the output of the first. The second cylinder is bigger and runs at lower pressure. Triple expansion steam engines had a third, even bigger cylinder. Some quadruple expansion engines were built, but this is a diminishing-returns thing, and triple expansion is about as far as it's worth going economically. Marine engines were often triple-expansion.

Large steam turbines do the same thing, with a succession of rotors of increasing size. Three to twelve stages have been used. Again, this is a diminishing returns thing. At some point the steam condenses to water, which you don't want to happen inside the turbine. Existing turbines get close to that limit. Some turbine plants have a partial vacuum going into the condenser to keep the steam as a gas below 100C. 90C exit temperatures are not uncommon. Almost all of the usable energy has been extracted with an exit temperature like that.

If this new thermoelectric thing is a better way to convert heat to electricity than a steam turbine, it should replace steam turbines, not just be used on the cold end of the system. An efficient solid-state way of converting heat to electrical energy would be valuable. All the existing thermoelectric devices have low efficiency compared to heat engines. Back around 2011, there were several startups getting Federal grants for R&D into "heat harvesting". Commercial products were supposed to appear in 2012. Didn't happen.

... because Ballmer has a stiffie for the iPhone yet doesn't have a damned clue about what makes an iPhone an iPhone! News Flash, Jobs spent more than 3 decades slowly but surely building up Apple to be a high end boutique brand, refused to cut prices even in the 90s when they were on the ropes, because for his entire strategy to work it NEEDED to be expensive!

A perfect analogy would be slapping a new coat of paint on a Pinto and expecting to get Porsche money for it, because MSFT slaughtered the competition precisely because they were NOT expensive, they were the Walmart to Apple's Macy's and there is NO WAY IN HELL they are gonna suddenly flip that and get people to pay more than for an Apple to buy WinPhones and Wintabs, its NEVER gonna happen, it will NEVER work, the MSFT stores are ghost towns, all the little shops like mine have "Yes we have Win 7!" signs in the window, he is burning the damned company to the ground trying to force a strategy that has less of a chance of succeeding than Heaven's Gate II has a chance of being made!

...

And Apple execs too can destroy a company trying to make it the "next Apple".

Former Apple retail chief Ron Johnson, confident in his extreme brilliance that had made Apple incredibly profitable (of course, why share credit with Steve Jobs or anyone else?), extended the benefits of his genius to J.C. Penney's, attempting to run it like an Apple store: dumping value priced merchandise for boutique items; no discounts, not ever; simply throwing away unread a huge consumer study just completed declaring that "just like at Apple, customers don’t always know what they want”.

Chief’s Silicon Valley Stardom Quickly Clashed at J.C. Penney.

Former Apple retail chief presides over JC Penney's lowest sales in 20 Years.

Apple exec fired after 17 months.

From a Bloomberg article: 'U.S. Customs and Border Protection, after having secret meetings with Google, continued to let the Motorola Mobility mobile phones enter the country even though Google has done nothing to remove the feature at the heart of the ITC case, Microsoft said in the complaint. The case illustrates what Lexmark International Inc. (LXK) and Lutron Electronics Co. in May called an “increasingly ineffective and unpredictable enforcement” of import bans imposed by the trade agency.'

Employing bureaucratic shortcuts is apparently alive and well. Does this point to corruption, or is it simply a matter of poor information flow?

Well, if you look at the article's source, you get this gem:

Chromebooks still remain a small portion of the total U.S. market for laptops and netbooks. The devices had about 4 percent to 5 percent share in the first quarter, though that was up from 1 percent to 2 percent in 2012, according to Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner Inc.

So, if the laptop market was ~33m units in Q1, that puts Chromebooks at ~1.5m for the quarter, which is the first thing approaching an actual number I've seen on Chromebook sales. Not sure how that spreads out between Samsung, Acer, and HP.

. If the shipping company wasn't insured, well... they end up going out of business.

Wonder the corporate structure of those companies.

Could they run each ship as an independant-but-almost-wholy-owned company and send just that not-quite-subsidary through bankrupcy, pushing the losses to other people? (kinda like the games it seems Cerberus did with GMAC & Chrysler Financial )

Boeing has had other recent problems in quality and reliability, with some recent Boeing-managed programs being cancelled, because they were going so badly.

In 2005, FIA (run by Boeing) was canceled. The New York Times called it "perhaps the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects. ... A torrent of defective parts, like gyroscopes and electric cables, repeatedly stalled work. Even an elementary rule of spacecraft construction — never use tin because it deforms in space and can short-circuit electronic components — was violated by parts suppliers. By the time the project, known by its initials, F.I.A., was killed in September 2005 — a year after the first satellite was originally to have been delivered — cost estimates ran as high as $18 billion."

From space.com, "But Boeing quickly ran into troubles on the highly ambitious and complex FIA program, which fell years behind schedule and overran its budget by billions of dollars. In 2005, having concluded that Boeing’s problems were intractable, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence directed the NRO to terminate the optical portion of the contract."

In 2011, the Boeing-run SBI Net program was canceled, because it was going so badly. From stltoday.com, "It was originally envisioned to stretch the 1,969-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico but initial phases of the $1 billion project took longer than anticipated to complete and covered just a small portion, 53 miles, since the project began."

In 2011, the "Joint Tactical Radio System’s Ground Mobile Radios (GMR)" project, run by Boeing, was canceled. From a Bloomberg article: "Based on growth in the unit procurement costs, I am terminating the program," Frank Kendall wrote in a letter to Congress. "... The GMR program last year was estimated to cost $19.5 billion."

And a USA Today article tells about other recent problems with Boeing. For example, "V-22 Osprey. The tilt-rotor aircraft, made in partnership with Bell Helicopter, is under congressional scrutiny because of concerns about its high cost of operation, reliability and safety". And "Joint Tactical Radio System Cluster 1. Boeing's management of the project for the military was so bad it received a stop-work order from the Defense Department. Eventually, the program was restructured rather than canceled but with Boeing in a diminished role."

Apple's bankrolling Solar Farms, too. In fact, they say their data centres run on 100% renewable energy at this point.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-21/apple-says-data-centers-now-use-100-renewable-energy.html

So I don't know about Apple being less evil, per se, but I don't think you've got any room to look down your nose at them here.

For 33 years the government has been trying to replace the 60 year old air traffic control systems. Three different systems have been tried. The first was a complete write off, meant to be an IBM designed Unix based system, it went overdue by years and billions and was killed off in 1994. http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Processes/The-Ugly-History-of-Tool-Development-at-the-FAA/ The Second named CARTS began in 1996, meant to be a replacement for the aging radar systems the program did replace the older systems in some airports, but again the program was killed for cost overruns and stalled production. http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/tracon-air-traffic-control-modernization-faces-prospect-more-schedule-cost/2013-06-02 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-31/air-traffic-upgrade-over-budget-facing-delays-report.html In 2003 they revived the project with compartmentalized implementations of an integrated system in order to see short term improvements. The first system, a replacement for CARTS renamed STARS) went in in 2012 and it is costing 60% more than expected, with the remaining systems set to be developed and implemented over the next 13 years. The next system to be implemented, ERAM, is already overdue by 4 years, over budget, and according to FAA reports, subject to critical failures and instability. http://www.airtrafficmanagement.net/2013/06/nextgen-over-budget-delays-certain-report/http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/eram-continues-undergo-critical-failures/2012-10-02 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Air_Transportation_System

Bingo. Picking on Card GUARANTEES a repeat of the "Chik-Fil-A" effect. For most Chik-Fil-A restaurants, they achieved record sales during the boycott, and elevated sales afterwards. . .

I plan on seeing the movie. During the Chick-Fil-A boycott, I ate more chicken sandwiches than at any point in my life!

It's not that I'm anti-gay. I think gay people are awesome. It's because I'm pro-Constitution. The Constitution says you have the right to free speech. Nowhere does it say you have the right to marry, straight, gay or otherwise.

I always used to hear liberals say "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to death for your right to say it." It's amazing how fast that goes out the window when someone says something they view as "intolerant". I figure, if they're willing to claim to fight to the death for opposing views, the least I can do is enjoy a chicken sandwich with some waffle fries and see a movie I was interested in already.

Bingo. Picking on Card GUARANTEES a repeat of the "Chik-Fil-A" effect. For most Chik-Fil-A restaurants, they achieved record sales during the boycott, and elevated sales afterwards. . .

I've given this a lot of thought, and compiled a solid rant on the subject.

My thesis about privacy in 2013 - 2020:

Lets start with some facts:
1. The Spy agencies in NZ, UK, USA, Australia and Canada spy on everyone, even their own citizens. 2. The UK copies literally everything that traverses the Internet and keeps it for 3 days for analysis (EVERYTHING!) 3. The USA shares this information (including commercial secrets) with its private enterprises to help them win international business. 4. So many people work for these agencies that from time to time this information is made public. 5. Nobody really cares. 6. The chances of any of these organisations giving up such a valuable source of power are about the same as global nuclear disarmament 7. It’s only a matter of time until the local police have access to all this information. 8 . In 2001, as sysadmin of BSSC I could read the email of every teacher and every student at that school, without leaving a trace of evidence, nor with any fear of punishment for wrongdoing.

So, I assert: You have no privacy online. You never really did. It was only by unspoken rule of sysadmins that we let you have the illusion of privacy. Ed Snowden betrayed sysadmins.

Strangely, Google poise to release the most important advancement toward our goal of total access to information - a video camera strapped to every second person’s head (Google Glass), and people are up in arms (9) and so are the governments best poised to take advantage! (10).
I think we’ve got it all wrong. Let’s stop bitching about this rampant surveillance and embrace it.

Let’s get our spy agencies to make everything they’ve got available to everyone! Let’s mandate that every Google glass camera must be on all the time, every phone must have its microphone on all the time, every GPS recording its location and all this content uploading to the cloud!

Information WANTS to be free! EVERYONE should have access to EVERYTHING!

Then it will hardly be accessed, because if Facebook status updates have proven anything it’s that it’s no fun spying on all your friends if all they do all day is play Farmville.

Finally, these civil libertarians realise that nobody really cares about them, or their “right to privacy”, and we will be able to make the most out of google glass (11).

Sources:
1. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-whistleblower-edward-snowden-on-global-spying-a-910006.html
2. http://mashable.com/2013/06/21/gchq-spy-agency-taps-global-internet/
3. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms.html
4. Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden
5. http://www.news.com.au/
6. http://io9.com/5969204/could-nuclear-disarmament-actually-increase-our-chance-of-an-apocalypse
7. “if the information is there, it’s already collected, why not use it to prosecute the crime? Why are you protecting the guilty? If you’re innocent you will want us to use this information to exonerate you.”
8. I read your email. Get over it.
9. http://www.policymic.com/articles/29585/3-new-ways-google-glass-invades-your-privacy
10. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57591975-93/google-glass-privacy-concerns-persist-in-congress/
11.

Ok I will switch to the format of my other reply on the other thread which seems to finally have gotten into your head since you haven't even replied to it yet.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3929159&cid=44180905

I said this

No employment contract in the US can force anyone to show up to the office and do work. Slavery is not legal anymore.

An "employment contract" that forces people to show up at work and actually do work against their wishes(under threat of arrest, criminal charges or physical punishment) is what slavery is. Q1 Agreed?

The thread came out like this.

I effectively said "Employment is at the will of the employee. MS cannot force him to work if he does not want to."

You came out with: "First, at-will employment only applies when there is no contract:"

Second, you do understand that top level executives often sign contracts which companies can dictate terms like term of employment. Often the exec and the employer agree on when they can leave; however, it can get contentious if there is no agreement. In this case, it points more that the exit was unexpected but MS let him go.

Did MS even have an option to not let him go? You bring up non-compete, but they're not enforceable in many states. Look at Steven Sinofsky's agreement where they had to pay him a ton to keep him out of competitors' hands. http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/3/4491560/steven-sinofsky-microsoft-retirement-agreement-deal-shares-nda

Why would they waste so much money if noncompete agreements were workable? Microsoft's lawyers known way more than you about this stuff. Q2 Agree?

I effectively said "No contract can force people to work against their will since slavery is no longer legal. The only way out is monetary punishment which Zynga likely bought out."

And guess what? I was right.

http://microsoft-news.com/don-mattrick-to-make-over-50-million-at-zynga/

Also what does non-compete agreements have to do with anything in this topic at all? It's another irrelevant topic that you brought up.

No, you bought this up by saying this upthread:

Or better yet, have Mattrick stay until the re-org is announced in a few days.

I brought up contracts etc. to counter that point
And now you argue against yourself and agree with me and don't even remember that you started this line of argument. Nice 360.
Q3 agree?
Also, another quote from you:

What the hell? You are the only that keeps insisting that this was all a part of the re-org yet "plans change". That makes absolutely no sense.

From a news report the next day http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/microsoft-ceo-said-to-give-bates-mergers-role-in-revamp.html

The restructuring isn’t finalized and Ballmer may still shuffle roles around up until it’s officially announced, the people said. Xbox head Don Mattrick had been a contender for the hardware post before left the company to become CEO of Zynga Inc. (ZNGA), a move announced July 1.

See how it makes sense? Q4 Agree?

Look, I understand you're not a MS watcher and you probably follow a lot of iNews, and that's good for you and I don't think that's a bad thing in itself at all. People have different interests and they should. But you come off trying to argue from a position of ignorance trying to show MS in bad light with flimsy and broken logic while lacking real information that is out there if you really wanted to grab it instead of

But the prices on Lyft seem to be on the order of $15-20 for a short ride within SF, which is more like taxi prices. At that cost you're hiring a paid driver, not pitching in for gas in a rideshare.

Yeah, absolutely. Lyft, Sidecar, Uber - they're all really taxi companies in disguise, trying to pretend being carpooling services.
An example of a real carpooling service is Avego, which connects drivers and riders with each other. The big difference to e.g. Lyft is that the prices are much lower, so the drivers only offset part of their cost rather than making a profit. That way, the service is really for regular commuters rather than for taxis. Drivers save a bit of money (and get to drive in the faster HOV lanes), riders get cheap and easy transportation, congestion levels are reduced, and there are less pollution from cars. Boomberg did an interview with them recently where they explained (among other things) the difference to e.g. Lyft at http://www.bloomberg.com/video/beat-the-bart-strike-with-avego-s-ridesharing-app-sxMdKCAbTbWzaiWyJwBP6w.html .

If you don't think the Israeli model would cost more, then you don't understand the Israeli model.

A number of articles have examined the issue:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aFyfihM1e3G4&refer=politics
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/07/would_you_pay_25_for_71_seconds_of_scrutiny_in_an_airport
http://forward.com/articles/122781/israel-s-airport-security-object-of-envy-is-hard/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/11/20/counterproductive_airport_security_does_tsa_cause_more_deaths_than_it_prevents.html
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/aviation-security-and-the-israeli-model/#more-27215

This book looks at the entire cost-benefit equation:
http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0199795762

Re-read your own posts, they're full of arm-chair original speculation from you, coming from your mindset of "MS sux, Ballmer sux, Apple rules, Jobs rules" philosophy.

Mine in speculation based on news and analysis, especially what's known to Microsoft watchers in the press from insiders. For example, please read the two news articles that came out only a few hours ago:

http://www.zdnet.com/whats-behind-microsofts-pending-reorg-7000017629/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/microsoft-ceo-said-to-give-bates-mergers-role-in-revamp.html

Now go back and read this entire thread.

The problem here is that you probably follow Apple more and thus know more than me about the latest Apple inside news, but I read Microsoft centric bloggers and watch their podcasts, thus I will in general tend to know more about this stuff than you do.

Coloring all "speculation" the same as if some unsourced Microsoft hater comments on Slashdot are equivalent to Bloomberg's or Mary Jo Foley's sources(who has a ~100% track record on MS news leaks btw, see below) is just plain foolishness.

http://tracour.net/author/Mary%20Jo%20Foley

Getting most of your MS news from misleading Slashdot summaries and headlines makes you ignorant.

Why do you assume that this is MAPP?

Because it fits the description and was confirmed by Microsofts Shaw as such (one of two programs) in the original Bloomberg article.

The question is this: Why would *you* think otherwise?

It's highly likely that NSA gets this information way before any one from the MAPP program does

Why? Citation needed.

it's also feasible to speculate that NSA could tell Microsoft to hold certain patches for a specific time period.

Do you make this up as you go? Is that tin foil hat uncomfortable? Pure FUD.

Yes, it is likely that the NSA have made requests like that. It is *highly* likely that Microsoft have *rejected* such requests, given that 1) they are not required under any law to grant such requests and 2) granting such requests could seriously damage trust in their products.

So, as you said, the traditional protectionist malaise as everywhere (reminds me of the stupid solar industry in Europe which actually managed to convince the EU Commission to introduce tariffs on Chinese solar panels... up to 67% ... now the Chinese are striking back with tariffs on European products *sigh* - will this never end?)

May 18, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-17/u-s-solar-tariffs-on-chinese-cells-may-boost-prices.html

The U.S. Commerce Department ruled that Chinese manufacturers sold cells in the U.S. at prices below the cost of production and announced preliminary antidumping duties ranging from 31 percent to 250 percent, depending on the manufacturer.

October 10, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/business/global/us-sets-tariffs-on-chinese-solar-panels.html

The Commerce Department issued its final ruling Wednesday in a long-simmering trade dispute with China, imposing tariffs ranging from about 24 to nearly 36 percent on most solar panels imported from the country.

ImdatS, did it occur to you that maybe this is happening because China was subsidizing solar cell mfgs so that they could sell their products below cost?

LOL, man Foxconn sounds like the US Auto Makers in the 1970s. It's because as others have pointed out. Bolted Down robotic workers don't complain and don't jump out of the nearest window. They depreciate, require routine maintenance but day after day they do what they're instructed within extremely precise tolerances. That means a better quality product for their customers without all of those "soft problems" that complicates business.

With China pushing people out of rural areas and into ever larger cities, it will be very interesting over the next few years to see how all of those people will earn a living. While the jobs at Foxconn are drudgery by any modern standard, they do allow people to earn money and contribute to the economy. Turning them ultimately into those nice wage slaves that all companies love that buy products and need services. Workers in China are already pushing for higher wages and better working conditions, something that the beneficent Foxconn would be very reluctant to go along with given their recent labor relations gaffs and breakup with Apple. Unfortunately the stories about labor shortages in China seem a bit disingenuous and reminds me of how there's a presumed "tech shortage" in this country. It seems even in China getting labor for the absolute cheapest price may be pushing this 12 year urbanization plan. These are all problems for China which are magnitudes of order more complex when you're talking about the scale in terms of a population of over one billion. I don't think China can make enough of anything, electronics, knock-off watches, handbags et al to keep up with the population demanding a better quality of life, which means better wages, better working conditions and all those consumer goodies the rest of us take so much for granted.

As a father with three kids in college and another one one just about there already, I wonder where they're going to make their niche in this world economy where your education and your experience can all be cooped out to some fraud ridden outsourcing firm who brings in a person or outsources your position elsewhere. I've told all of my kids not to follow me into Software and Engineering fields because people employed in those fields are now considered a commodity and subject to too much educational push from an ever increasing wave of immigrants from diploma mills overseas. What people don't really realize is that we've shifted out way of thinking from "value and quality" to "good enough at a low price" because the products and services we use have varying degrees based on those expectations. Entire markets the world over have been shifting in that direction and it's eroding the economic and social landscape of countries everywhere with companies seeking the lowest cost labor they can find that has just enough technical competency to get what they need done.

LOL, man Foxconn sounds like the US Auto Makers in the 1970s. It's because as others have pointed out. Bolted Down robotic workers don't complain and don't jump out of the nearest window. They depreciate, require routine maintenance but day after day they do what they're instructed within extremely precise tolerances. That means a better quality product for their customers without all of those "soft problems" that complicates business.

With China pushing people out of rural areas and into ever larger cities, it will be very interesting over the next few years to see how all of those people will earn a living. While the jobs at Foxconn are drudgery by any modern standard, they do allow people to earn money and contribute to the economy. Turning them ultimately into those nice wage slaves that all companies love that buy products and need services. Workers in China are already pushing for higher wages and better working conditions, something that the beneficent Foxconn would be very reluctant to go along with given their recent labor relations gaffs and breakup with Apple. Unfortunately the stories about labor shortages in China seem a bit disingenuous and reminds me of how there's a presumed "tech shortage" in this country. It seems even in China getting labor for the absolute cheapest price may be pushing this 12 year urbanization plan. These are all problems for China which are magnitudes of order more complex when you're talking about the scale in terms of a population of over one billion. I don't think China can make enough of anything, electronics, knock-off watches, handbags et al to keep up with the population demanding a better quality of life, which means better wages, better working conditions and all those consumer goodies the rest of us take so much for granted.

As a father with three kids in college and another one one just about there already, I wonder where they're going to make their niche in this world economy where your education and your experience can all be cooped out to some fraud ridden outsourcing firm who brings in a person or outsources your position elsewhere. I've told all of my kids not to follow me into Software and Engineering fields because people employed in those fields are now considered a commodity and subject to too much educational push from an ever increasing wave of immigrants from diploma mills overseas. What people don't really realize is that we've shifted out way of thinking from "value and quality" to "good enough at a low price" because the products and services we use have varying degrees based on those expectations. Entire markets the world over have been shifting in that direction and it's eroding the economic and social landscape of countries everywhere with companies seeking the lowest cost labor they can find that has just enough technical competency to get what they need done.

If XL is not built, there is nothing stopping the oil from coming in on rail and it's not clear how punishing that would be to the industry.

Um, depends on the industry.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-23/buffett-s-burlington-northern-among-winners-in-obama-rejection-of-pipeline.html

Buffett's made more money from his buddy turning down this pipeline than you'll make in several lifetimes.

Give it a rest. The Soviet Union asked the US if they (the Soviet Union) could attack China with nuclear weapons in the 1960s to take away China's nuclear weapons and prevent them from getting more. Guess what the US said?

If you think the Japanese were ready to simply surrender, you have been getting bad history.

Let me know when China stops trying to take territory from Japan, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, and other neighbors, and then it will be easier to discuss security arrangements.

What do you call it when "tourists" travel to another nation explicitly to steal technology and import said technology when its against the law?

Let me think....

Chinese Espionage: The Risks Within U.S. Companies
Chinese Espionage Campaign Targets U.S. Space Technology
China’s Spies Are Catching Up

Hey, you didn't expect billionaire Planetary Ventures investors like Larry Page (net worth $23 B), Eric Schmidt ($8.2 B), Ross Perot Jr. ($1.4 B), K. Ram Shriram ($1.65 B), and Charles Simonyi ($1 B) to foot the bill, did you?

This is the real damage the NSA has done in spying on the American people. Now every other country feels like they need it, because the US does.

Ah, cultural chauvinism.... how on earth could those other people find the way if they didn't have an example to follow? I'll break it to you gently: Neither the terrorism by al Qaida nor the alleged surveillance by the Indian government has much of anything to do with the US. They each have their own independent values, ideals, goals, and work to achieve them. Spying by government and terrorism existed long before the United States, and it wasn't psychic powers anticipating the United States that induced people to engage in those practices then any more than it does today.

Al Qida wants to restore what they believe to be the lost glory of Islamic civilization of a 1,000 years ago, recreate the Islamic Caliphate that was dissolved in 1923 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, conquer the world for Islam, and convert the world's peoples to Islam. They want to overthrow pretty much all of the existing governments in Muslim nations for not following their strict interpretation of Islam. You may think it is unrealistic, but that is their goal, even if it takes 1,000 years. The existence of nonexistence of the United States has little to do with it. If you want to blame anyone, blame Europe for repelling the Muslim invasion at the gates of Vienna in 1683.

And when it comes to India, the largest democracy in the world, as a rapidly modernizing country that is supplier of IT talent to the world, why should they be left out of the surveillance sweepstakes? They might have a reasonable concern or two at home, given they have an active Maoist communist insurgency, which conducted 351 attacks in 2011, and a bit of a terrorism problem arising from both their neighbor Pakistan and a small fraction of the native 100,000,000 Indian citizens that are Muslim. Maybe you've heard of the Mumbai attack? As it happened: Mumbai attacks 29 Nov - 195 people dead and hundreds more injured.

The Indian people and government will have to find their own way, and strike their own balance to match their own conditions, traditions, and laws.

Only authorized? How about Bank of America, Wachovia, Standard Chartered and the other banks?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-31/money-laundering-banks-still-get-a-pass-from-u-s-.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-09/fbi-says-cartel-used-bank-of-america-to-launder-money.html

Only authorized? How about Bank of America, Wachovia, Standard Chartered and the other banks?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-31/money-laundering-banks-still-get-a-pass-from-u-s-.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-09/fbi-says-cartel-used-bank-of-america-to-launder-money.html

...and github has received a $100M investment
http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-deals/2012-07-09-github-takes-100m-in-largest-investment-by-andreessen-horowitz/

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/why-phone-cable-internet-bills-cost-much-130914030.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-27/u-s-internet-users-pay-more-for-slower-service.html

The link you gave provided little insight into its cause. Do you have any more information about it?

The way I see it it's about the structure of the trades. From their text above the plots:

The price dropped from $796 to $775 in about 3/4 of a second, then rebounded to $793 a second later. The drop invovled 307 trades and 57,255 shares from 10 exchanges + dark pools. During the drop, there were 5 orders placed for every trade executed (meaning 4 orders placed/canceled for every trade).

Having about 1.5k quotes posted in 0.75s (with 80% being canceled) surely shows that HFT algos were active and yet did not absorb 57k shares of GOOG (that's about 2.5% of the daily volume at the time). Which is not a thinly traded stock by any measure. It's not a conclusive proof of HFT causing a drop of 2.5% in less than a second though, but I don't think you can easily get such a proof without knowing who traded what. There is only so much one can glean from trade data at this level after all.

Due to some time constraints I'll beg to be excused if, in lieu of the rest of the comment I was going to post, I'll give you this example (originally from here but the harvard link seems unavailable) of a HFT technique that, shall we say, 'plays' liquidity to increase volatility. The problem, as I see it, is how to discourage people who have the means to use them in such a fashion. Bear in mind that HFT requires quite an investment in infrastructure and software, so voluntarily refraining from taking advantage of that infrastructure in ways that exploit its advantage at the expense of slower traders is not a believable option. However, I'll also freely state that I have little faith in simple-sounding solutions to complex problems, which is what most pro- and anti-HFT rhetoric brings. Fortunately, it is not my job to find the proper solutions :-)

So we have two utterly known principles being applied to biodiesel generation from algae, and somehow this makes news as a breakthrough.

Especially considering that others are already far ahead when it comes to algae-based fuel.

Helium? I think we are wasting so much.

The market is already fixing this. Helium prices are rising. The primary reason for this is shale gas. Helium is a byproduct of natural gas production. Some gas wells in Texas contain as much as 4% helium. Gas wells outside the USA contain very little helium, making America the dominant producer. But America is switching to shale gas, which contains very little helium, and the helium producing wells are being shut down because they can't operate profitably with historically low gas prices. So helium prices are climbing, and frivolous uses are being curtailed. Disneyland Tokyo has already stopped selling helium balloons of cartoon characters.

Excellent story, thanks. Also from the comments there (I haven't read this yet):

U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes.

Holy. Crap.

While it is known that MS has given vulnerabilities to the NSA before patching them

Citations?

Bloomberg

In one of the links of above there is a nice hint:

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes.

That seem to mean that they are actively holding the fix of 0day bugs, waiting for the "government" (or the people that have access to that information) make a successful exploit and use it, before releasing a patch.

That does explain why the feds get so pissy every time some independent security researcher finds a 0day and publicly discloses it...

"Dammit, we were using that exploit!"

In one of the links of above there is a nice hint:

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), the world’s largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes.

That seem to mean that they are actively holding the fix of 0day bugs, waiting for the "government" (or the people that have access to that information) make a successful exploit and use it, before releasing a patch.

The problem is not the backup, but who have access to it. And is not just the NSA.

If even that isn't possible, then the AG would need to explain specifically why the opinion needs to be kept secret.

That's just pathetic. Give them the opportunity to hide their wrongdoings and that's exactly what they will do. The "national security" excuses need to stop.

So do you think there is no reason to be concerned about protecting critical intelligence sources and methods, or the identities of informants? Once those are compromised they may lose some or even all of their value. No reason to be concerned about helping foreign powers and terrorist groups identify gaps in security and opportunities to exploit? Do you think America's adversaries should know exactly what American intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies will and won't do? Why provide the enemy shortcuts in planning an attack?

Since 9/11 there have been a number of attacks and attempted attacks, and hundreds of arrests and convictions for terrorism related offenses, including both planned and attempted vehicle bombings intended to inflict mass casualties.

Communist China also has more than 3,000 front companies in the US for gathering intelligence. Should they get to read all the inner details about American surveillance operations to better avoid detection and steal even more American secrets?

What value do you put on the lives of ordinary Americans?

I don't think you have this right. National security isn't just an "excuse." It helps keep Americans from being killed by the hundreds and thousands.

because they were involved in VICTIMLESS "crime" as defined by the U.S. (totally legal in their origin jurisdiction):

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/news/story?id=6362238

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aj..NNwfvacU

There are a couple more but most of them related to online poker.

Edward Snowden have chosen to defect to China. He basically recognize the superior human rights of China. The only group of people that defects to China are North Koreans. Therefore USA = North Korea.

We were paying attention to Germany who shut down their reactors but nonetheless had enough solar and wind to export ...

hahahaha. Yes they exported something. It definitely wasn't solar and wind though.

Solar makes up a pathetic 3% of Germany's power in the summer months. Wind is struggling to crack 8% and that's in a country where you can see a wind farm from every other hill. I'm not sure where you're getting your data from but you may want to do this thing called research.

By the way your wonderful Germany who are abandoning nuclear power opened 2 coal power stations last year, and are planning to open 6 new ones by the end of this year. Yes that's right, your so presumed green country with green power to spare just built 6GW of coal fired glory and plan to open another 12 power plants by 2020. What a shining example of your argument. Germany hasn't even started making serious efforts to shut down nuclear yet but have already increased their coal consumption by 5%.

Hell, some companies may just be fronts for surveillance activities.

Oh, that is a given.

China also has more than 3,000 front companies in the U.S. “for the sole purpose of acquiring ... technology

It is probably not fair for the Chinese to get all the action.

I assume this is the outer containment vessel? I had been lead to believe that the containment vessel was made from a single piece by articles like this one. In fact this pdf from the UK seems to indicate that Japan Steel Works is in fact a supplier for AP1000.

Just fine, except for this http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-26/sweden-riots-put-faces-to-statistics-as-stockholm-burns.html

But how do those funds get to those folks? Courtesy of Wachovia, Bank of America, HSBC etc.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/23/hsbc-court-threat-money-laundering-charges
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-31/money-laundering-banks-still-get-a-pass-from-u-s-.html

It's not so easy to transfer BILLIONS of dollars if those banks and their friends didn't help. There's blood on the hands of those who laundered the money for the drug lords. But only the small fry are going to jail.

So what is the war about really?

But how do those funds get to those folks? Courtesy of Wachovia, Bank of America, HSBC etc.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/23/hsbc-court-threat-money-laundering-charges
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-31/money-laundering-banks-still-get-a-pass-from-u-s-.html

It's not so easy to transfer BILLIONS of dollars if those banks and their friends didn't help. There's blood on the hands of those who laundered the money for the drug lords. But only the small fry are going to jail.

So what is the war about really?

companies raced to make a vaccine against a pandemic influenza virus, but most of the uncontaminated vaccine wasn't ready until the pandemic had peaked

Fixed that for you.