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Oh, you admitted it. You want to see weiners. Here's one. http://i.bnet.com/blogs/weiner...

Talking about debt isn't helping your case any. Here's the deficit (change in debt) from year to year: Link

Why is that Republicans keep blowing the budget? Well, let's look at the case of Bush. Wow, whodathunkit, massive tax breaks to top income earners skyrockets debt, news at 11! And yes, having the government hawk itself into debt is great for the short term strength of the stock market.

Re, debt outlook under Trump: absolutely not if he enacts his "Bush Tax Cuts+++ proposal.

Just because big carbon makes use of one tax break that other industries use does not mean that that is the only tax break it gets. Your argument is incoherent.. big carbon has been getting different tax breaks for over 100 years.

Wow and you had the nerve to call ME biased!

Just because big carbon makes use of one tax break that other industries use does not mean that that is the only tax break it gets. Your argument is incoherent.. big carbon has been getting different tax breaks for over 100 years.

How efficient is the production of natural gas and pumping it to houses?

That's irrelevant since you incur the same costs whether you directly burn the gas for heating or use it in the fuel cell and then use electric heating. Now in the absolute conventional gas has an EROI somewhere between 20 and 100. I doubt distribution uses much energy but I could not find any figure so if you find any please post them.

There is a basic assumption here that China is subsidising the cost of domestic solar production in order to force non-Chinese producers into bankruptcy, and therefore monopolise the future market.

But that is just an assumption; there is another hypothesis - that the Chinese government is subsidising the cost of solar to stimulate R&D and investment in an important sustainable energy source - exactly the same reasons given by governments elsewhere. Forcing the U.S. solar manufacturing industry to collapse wasn't the goal, it was just a side effect of Chinese manufacturers being more successful than U.S. manufacturers.

The basic allegation is that Chinese manufacturers get "unfair" government support in the form of low-cost access to land, bank loans, research grants and tax breaks. Do other countries not also do this? One of the Chinese manufacturers has already pointed out that China’s subsidies are lower than those in Germany. And is this even wrong? The U.S. subsidises oil and gas by almost $5 billion a year (and that doesn't include the cost of the U.S. military), nuclear is subsidised by $3.5 billion a year, solar at $1.3 billion. And yet, when China subsidises its energy production, suddenly such subsidies are "unfair".

China's solar subsidies are estimated at $34 billion. It sounds like a lot, but put it in context: China currently produces 2GW by solar, but has a domestic solar power goal of 15GW by 2015, and 50 GW by 2020. Within 8 years, China has to manufacture 25 times more panels than it ever has, expanding its solar capacity to the equivalent of 50 nuclear power plants. Of course, for this to be achievable they need to significantly ramp up panel production, which requires them to heavily invest (i.e. subsidise) their industry. It is very shortsighted to assume that China is building a solar industry in order to dominate and destroy Western manufacturers, when in fact they have some of the most ambitious domestic targets in the world.

I hear variations on this claim quite frequently.
Here are several links that dispute your recollection.
http://smallbiztrends.com/2008/04/startup-failure-rates.html
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/news/coladvice/ask/sa990930.htm
http://blog.globalbx.com/2008/10/06/small-business-statistics-and-failure-rates/
A collection of results that span from your estimation to the inverse, http://www.moyak.com/papers/small-business-statistics.html
There also seems to be many discussions on the myth of high failure rates. for example, http://www.bnet.com/blog/business-myths/why-the-small-business-failure-rate-is-90-percent-smoke-and-mirrors/117

This certainly isn't rigorous, but my 3 minute Internet estimation is that you are broadly incorrect. Apparently, the notion of failure is complicated. Failures appear to be inversely proportional to seed capital. It varies substantially with race and industry. And the definition of failure may include businesses that close for reasons other than financial inviability.

Relatively recently China allowed the Yuan to float and it has gotten stronger since. 6.38 CNY to 1 USD from 6.82 when it was first allowed to float.. Last year they had a trade surplus with the U.S. of nearly $300 billion. We know this because we know what our deficit was.We know China owns 1.1 trillion in U.S. treasury bonds.

I admit that I may have information bias so I'm interested in the reverse idea.

The funny thing is that it is not entirely impossible:
http://www.bnet.com/blog/smb/i-took-over-my-husbands-company-and-grew-revenue-12-fold/1367
But the legacy MBA courses taught a lot of horrible stuff beyond this, such as that management is a science and anything that can be measured can be managed etc...

Watch out, they may be testing you: If you buy $500 textbook that means you're not smart enough to deserve a diploma.

Seriously it depends on the subject. If you chose a very narrow field that has few students but needs a lot of research textbooks can be pricey.

We're still making stuff.

http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/blog/macro-view/manufacturing-surprise-the-us-still-leads-in-making-things/2134/

Hrrm, the US also has the largest military in the world by far, and they don't buy that abroad - beg that Obama doesn't cut military spending, and better start a new war or two.

Yup, procurement in 2010 $140 billion, US manufacturing segment in 2009 was $1,717 billion, with China a close second with $1,608 billion.

We're still making stuff.

http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/blog/macro-view/manufacturing-surprise-the-us-still-leads-in-making-things/2134/

You have to look at the US manufacturing sector as a percentage of GDP. This has been declining for years. In 1950, 50% of the GDP was used for making goods. Now it's under 30%. These so-called "service" sector jobs are jobs at walmart and McDonalds. Hooray. Also, it's just a matter of time before the design, engineering, and research will be moved offshore too. It makes sense to have the engineering and research close to the factory, because those are closely related.

Tell that to John Carmack
http://www.intomobile.com/2008/08/01/quake-founder-john-carmack-iphone-better-than-dedicated-gaming-systems/
http://www.bnet.com/blog/gadget-guy/john-carmacks-rage-why-the-iphone-game-is-a-success/1038
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/19/ids-carmack-talks-rage-hd-ipads-power-and-future-ios-games/

And you can google many more interviews and statements of him backing up phone gaming as the platform that will win in the long run. Unless you are implying Carmack does not care about specs.

Not gonna happen
http://www.bnet.com/blog/technology-business/8-things-you-didnt-know-about-facebook-and-zynga-update/11862
"Zynga had to give Facebook both platform and game title exclusivity, although the most important details are missing. That helps explain why the company remains so dependent on Facebook."

And

"All Zynga users must have valid Facebook accounts, apparently whether or not they play one of the games covered by the agreement."

They can't port any current games over to G+, which IMO is a good thing. Damn Farmville.

Never trust the government. Especially old data from them: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/blog/macro-view/manufacturing-surprise-the-us-still-leads-in-making-things/2134/ http://beta2.tbo.com/news/nation-world/2011/jan/31/T2NEWSO1-us-still-leads-world-in-manufacturing-pro-ar-11399/ http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102761476 http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/120660/20110309/usa-still-leads-manufacturing.htm http://www.mepol.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=214:made-in-america-still-on-top-of-the-manufacturing-game&catid=1:news&Itemid=187 *

Sparkleshare is still under development, and it seems to have the most traction of any user-friendly project. When released, it will be the open-source Dropbox replacement.

I agree though, it's very hard to get rid of the convenience of Dropbox. Not just for saving files, but for syncing your configuration across machines (save your .dotFiles in ~/Dropbox and then symlink to ~/). But when they refuse to support the BSD's (2 out of the 4 machines I regularly work on), and their Linux implementation starting requiring disabling SELinux, they pretty much did it to themselves. Not to mention the whole thing where the Dropbox CTO admitted they could look at your files if they wanted.

I think the root cause behind MS's anti-trust crimes is the notation that business is war, which is of course flawed.

I was reading up on some of the ridiculous patent applications made by facebook.. here's another one.. Broad patent on Location networking Okay.. I dunno how smart the patent division of Facebook is.. but they seem to think Zuckerberg is the only guy in the world who can think more than one level. Quite literally in the case of the original article. It is plain dumb to try and patent common sense... You think of Friends, and any dumbass would reach at Friends of Friends.. I personally have come up some with the ideas which facebook is trying to patent... and when I was high and within a few hours.. So, this whole patent thing is really childish... you can't patent what someone can and cannot think... Antitrust is what it is...

They wasted money. You don't need actors to pretend they appreciate an Android-based product. Just film some patent attorneys who benefit from it.

Teachers as a demographic of college graduates represent the lower half of the GPA pool.

Citation needed. I've heard this sor of allegation many times, but every time I try to look it up, I find counter-data:

"More important than the high school grades, though, the study also tracked one group of students over their college careers from 1979 to 1983. The college grades of this group also showed no differences between potential teachers and others. As sophomores, those who planned to teach had an average college GPA of 2.88; those who planned to do something else came in at 2.87." -- http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=2368DB6068831EED5083CA8B0BCA0C46.inst3_1a?docId=5000446952

"Kevin Rask, an economics professor at Wake Forest...after reviewing the records of more than 5,000 students, who graduated from an unnamed elite liberal arts college in the Northeast from 2001 to 2009", found that education majors had the highest GPA, and chemistry majors, the lowest. -- http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/college-solution/5-best-and-worst-college-majors-for-top-grades/1878/ (How much is this is due to unqualified students seeing chemistry as a good career choice, and how much is due to grade inflation on the "soft" side of campus, is of course a legitimate topic; but that's not the proposition you put forward.)

As Boortz has said, sending your children to a government school in the U.S. is tantamount to child abuse.

Handing them over to a church school or a corporate school is inherently better? It is to laugh.

As long as we're talking about Mobile... did Windows Phone 7 kill Dell's mobile division?

and I think this has something to do with the surge in Android Ad profits of Google, some even say that Android has become Apple's night terror

Apple’s total advertising budget for 2008 came to $486 million. You can find the figure hidden in plain sight in Apple’s Nov. 5 10-K filing on page 62... For what it’s worth, Apple’s 2007 ad budget was $467 million; ad spending in 2006 was $338 million.

That's a lot of money Apple has been throwing into making the public familiar with the "pod" brand, even if we only assume a small portion of it was going specifically into the iPod range. Apple has spent over a billion dollars over that three year period selling people an idea about what Apple products are, and more importantly, linking the idea of Apple products to a specific naming convention - the "i" and the "pod". Does that stand up to the requirements of the law? The court will decide after a lot of appeals I'm sure. More importantly, is it a fair question to ask? Most certainly yes.

Only as noted, the fire truck brake pads aren't ITAR controlled.

This article has talks a little bit more about ITAR reform.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/technology-business/technology-export-controls-set-to-loosen-8212-the-question-is-when/5237

he's the one who got caught with his hand in the till though.

Reports indicate that the total sum paid to Jodie Fisher over 2 years is only $20K, and she did the work. You may want to argue how necessary she was, but that is not something you fire for - it's a legitimate disagreement about the best way to run the business. If an employee abuses his pre-authorized expenses they are (in the worst case) reduced or removed, and that's it. In CEO case, the CFO can just tell him "I was checking expenses, and I think I can't justify $this and $that - you may need to amend the report and pay it out of your pocket." I think a multi-millionaire CEO can afford that, and in the future he will be more careful.

Hurd was fired because of the lawsuit filed by Jodie Fisher. The HP board wanted none of that, and decided that it is easier to drop Hurd. Well, perhaps that wasn't easier, after all. But we aren't accusing the HP board of being smart; they probably don't know what the word means.

This is the core of the matter. You (and others) want to impose regulations to stop this exact problem. And this is the EXACT problem that has never occurred, and that there is no hint of occurring in the near future, from any ISP of any level of evil. Not even Comcast is considering it, so that should tell you just how likely it is to occur.

How soon we forget, eh?
Telefonic, too

Those are not the only instances, either. Comcast throttling Bittorrent traffic, regardless of legitimacy, likely planned due to their investment in their own P2P streaming video service.

The fact that it hasn't happened yet wholesale has no bearing on "just how likely it is to occur". Private companies can and will do whatever they want to pursue profits. They can be sticking their toe in the water and beating their chests about it today, and tomorrow, it will be realized as the norm. Sans third-party regulation, the absolute worst of industry can and does come home to roost eventually.

I don't know about you, but I am not willing to wait on the inevitable before I do something about it. Reactive remediation is ALWAYS more costly and difficult by at least an order of magnitude than proactive prevention.

We may well see something like ComTube. But it's a far, far cry from there to where they ALSO rate limit YouTube.

Considering they are already talking about it, and have done some investing in streaming video technologies, I think it is a lot closer than you realize.

But the same can be said for regulators. The only difference is that with regulators there is literally no-where else to turn when the worst possible thing happens, because they are the be-all and end all of what is allowed. With companies when one displeases you you simply stop buying services from them. There used to be very little choice, but there's usually at least a choice between Cable and DSL internet, and with WiMax coming online that's enough competition that no ISP would make the suicidal move of rate limiting YouTube.

If you are displeased with regulators, what can you do? Vote in someone who say they will fix it, hope fifty other states do the same more or less, and THEN hope a politician keeps his promise to you? I'd even take voice menus on a help line direct to India over that!'

No, the same can NOT be said for regulators, simply because their job description says that they are charged with serving *me* as one of the people, not the industry schills. Now, they can shirk that charge, and eventually they will be replaced and any damage they did from their corruption repaired. That's simply not an option with corporations. I have ZERO say in what a corporation does. There are no elected / appointed public servants in control of corporations. The only choice I have is as you say, to not use their services. Except where I live there IS no choice. We have DSL. That's it. We have just gotten cable now, but it is owned by the SAME telephone company that provides our DSL, and they do not provide, nor have any plans to provide, internet over it. There is no WiMax or municipal option. This is the situation MANY MILLIONS of Americans are still in, and it is not likely to change much in the next decade, simply because these companies have ZERO incentive to improve on what's out there.

Maybe you live in a big city where there are now (finally!) a few choices, but if they all do the same thing, what choice is there? Without regulation, ISPs who don't cheat can't compete with others who are cheating, so they have to do it, too, or go out of business.

And again, the REALITY is that companies have not done what you are so sure they would do, despite having had any years to do so.

Well, again, you are wrong, because they ARE, and are openly making pla

obligatory: http://i.bnet.com/blogs/its_a_trap.jpg

If anyone puts any stock in what Galen Gruman says they are a complete and utter moron. This guy is the most opinionated and yet clueless money-grubbing-advertisement-whoring 'journalist' that I've seen for a very long time. There are many examples of this guy just not getting it.

This is the same guy who in the same week published one article calling users 'idiots' for wanting to buy iPads and another stating it would kill the Netbook. This guy will do anything to drive traffic to a website that makes regular use huge full-page advertisements, pop-ups and slideshow articles. He calls himself an executive editor of a magazine he owns and uses at his credentials to enter press events where he spouts even more technological ignorance. I honestly don't know a single person who can stand this guy at press events and I know a couple who have come close to hitting him. It's pathetic.

In your other post you mention why does Android have a problem outsell iPhone? The reality is, it doesn't.

If so then why is it news? It's not the first time that /. posts a story of "iPhone vs Android" but never "iPhone vs ".

It took 1 year for Android to ship 5 million unit, it took Apple a year and a half (with the help of the 3G) to do that. Sorry, but you really should try to look up the facts before you start shooting your mouth off.

Again they are comparing ALL Android phones, a lot of different models, and comparing it to a single model, confirming my original comments. Of course it sells more; if it doesn't then there's really a problem. And I'm not exactly an Apple fanboi like you try to make me; I'm also getting fed up with iPhone all the time being compared to everything else (it says something though if your phone is the de-facto reference).

Much more valid is comparing Apple's iPhone sales to the latest Motorola Droid model for example - why don't we see those statistics? Why only comparing to the complete Android line of phones which spans various makers and maybe dozens of different models?

So you want a frontpage story of a smartphone almost a year old... I don't see any iPhone 3GS stories...

As for the Droid, it had a huge marketing campaign, seriously, how did you miss it? It had frontpage news on Slashdot. It was a major thing when it came out. Not knowing what the Droid is shows you aren't paying attention to anythng but Apple. Not knowing things like the Desire, Dream and other models, sure, they didn't have agressive marketing. But the Droid did and it was really hard to miss. As for why aren't we talking more about it? Because it's not a huge screwed up mess that iPhone has managed to drag itself into.

As for your other post about news count, thats a poor way to examine anything. RIM is well known as the biggest seller of smartphones, but they don't have aggressive marketing like Apple declaring that they "Just work" when in reality, they don't always work with the newer issue of the antenna that should have been noticed long before it was released. Its like the saying goes "When I do something right, no one notices. When I do something wrong, everyone notices." Blackberry/RIM isn't screwing up so what is there to post? "RIM has another smartphone that works..." Doesn't quite get your attention does it? Now "Apple, who claims they always work, has a major screw up." That gets attention. Welcome to news, its about sensationalism at its finest, looking for the next Clinton/Monica Lewinsky, not Mother Teresa, its why your newspaper will have on it's cover page about a murder three cities away from you, but not about the huge fundraiser 3 blocks from you. Or a better example, there are more books written about Jack the Ripper then George Washington because not as many care about good, they want the horror and screw ups.

In your other post you mention why does Android have a problem outsell iPhone? The reality is, it doesn't. It took 1 year for Android to ship 5 million unit, it took Apple a year and a half (with the help of the 3G) to do that. Sorry, but you really should try to look up the facts before you start shooting your mouth off.

and there are basically no oil-fueled electrical power plants out there.

Potential government is often heavily (esp. Bush dynasty) connected with oil; the fossil fuel electricity generation companies have the same "anti-environmentalist" stances as these people; the campaign donations support these people. For example, AEP's CEO donated about $100k to Gingrich's 2009 oil drilling promotional and Southern gave $250k to Bush's last campaign. The AEP amount may seem small, but opensecrets asserts total $9 million p.a. lobbying in 2008-2009. The oil lobby often is the government, and the fossil fuel lobby acts in symbiosis.

Your car won't run off uranium,

But it will run off a battery charged by a uranium power plant.

People get scared because all the cheap junk they buy says "Made in China" and don't notice the heavy equipment, jumbo jets, commercial trucks, et al,

It's the decline that's scary, not the overall output. And making a killing on heavy items does not give you the same stability as a giant consumer manufacturing base.

(Aside: "et al" is for people.)

I think it's obvious who "came into this with their mind made up."

People that actually bother to analyze things, other than noting the CfC was not purely an environmental program, but also economic stimulus, are more rational, and note the program had both benefits and disadvantages:

Take a look herefor example:

First, an important point, it's not all about CO2:

"Of course, cleaner-running cars also spew fewer air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds, benzene, formaldehyde, particulate matter, and other toxic materials that contribute to smog and respiratory disease."

And here is where we get some interesting numbers...

"According to a study by Christopher Knittel of the Center for the Study of Energy Markets, that would reduce annual gas consumption in the United States by roughly 186 million gallons per year, lowering emissions of carbon dioxide, the most important element in the greenhouse gases that are implicated in global warming, by about 1.9 million tons a year."

"Another criticism of the plan is that cash for clunkers is an expensive way to reduce carbon emissions. One estimate, by Henry Jacoby, co-director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT, is that CARS will reduce carbon emissions at a cost of about $160 a ton; Knittel puts the figure at $237 and possibly much more. By comparison, a ton of carbon on the European trading system goes for about $20 right now.

"But while the direct environmental effect might be expensive and not necessarily huge, is it at least a meaningful step in the right direction? To answer that, one has to look at a more complicated picture. First of all, there is the environmental cost of manufacturing all those new cars; the process of making and transporting the average new car creates 6.7 tons of carbon dioxide. So that’s about 4.6 million tons of carbon dioxide created right there from the trading in of 690,000 cars."

If we went by that without considering side-factors, then CfC would eventually result in a net CO2 reduction.

However, they even take into account your point:

"What’s more, there is the “Mexico effect.” As Matthew Kahn, an environmental economist at UCLA, notes, the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement has, in effect, been a hemispheric cash-for-clunker program, as the United States and Canada ship used but sellable cars south of the border. If these are sent to the scrap heap instead, that means that many older and dirtier Mexican clunkers will stay on the road longer, reducing the gains of the slightly greener U.S. fleet."

But in the end:

"Moreover, most of the the funds for cash for clunkers came by shifting money from the loan guarantee program for renewable energy, which is designed to make it easier to invest in and expand green energy projects. Unfortunately, there is no alternate universe in which to test whether there would have been more green for the buck had the money stayed where it was. But the point is that to determine the calculus of environmental impact, one has to go beyond the simple arithmetic of new cars and mileage standards. The most that can be said of cash for clunkers is that it probably has some modest environmental benefits, and that these will accrue over time — but at above-market cost." ...which, as programs that are primarily designed as economic stimulus, not environmental programs, go, is a pretty good side-benefit. History will show CfC to have been an effective program. I may wish that it was tweaked, but I am capable of recognizing that it did, indeed, work.

Also, it never hurts to ask snopes.

Not that there weren't other causes, but well-intentioned government mucking about with mortgages was an undeniable factor. See also this.

To advantage which of it own Apps does Apple use its OS advantage ?

On the iPad, only Apple software can multitask (this article has a list: email client, SMS text client, and other apps). On any of their platforms, only Apple software may use the APIs that let you customize the way the UI widgets display. Only Apple software can use the full functionality of the accelerometer. Here is a blog post discussing some undocumented OS X features that made Safari much faster than Firefox 3. And here is a blog post discussing how several apps were rejected for using undocumented functionality. And here is a whole article discussing undocumented Apple APIs, with examples of cool stuff that only Apple's own software is allowed to do. And here is an article discussing cool things that Safari can do, that Firefox isn't allowed to do. And here is a column that claims that Apple inserts undocumented APIs and uses them in its own code for years, without ever documenting them (but presumably without breaking them because it would break Apple's own code). Even the APIs for the WiFi are undocumented.

I understand the argument that Apple doesn't want to commit to supporting these APIs forever, like Microsoft has had to do with even obscure APIs in Windows. If you use these undocumented APIs to do cool things, and Apple revises the OS, your app may break. And Apple doesn't want the customer to think it's Apple's fault that your app broke.

But I also understand the argument that some of these APIs allow for really cool stuff, which is currently reserved only for Apple. People don't like this.

As for me, give me Linux anyway. No such thing as an "undocumented" API, and there is no entity that has an unfair advantage over everyone else, and I can install any software I want.

steveha

To advantage which of it own Apps does Apple use its OS advantage ?

On the iPad, only Apple software can multitask (this article has a list: email client, SMS text client, and other apps). On any of their platforms, only Apple software may use the APIs that let you customize the way the UI widgets display. Only Apple software can use the full functionality of the accelerometer. Here is a blog post discussing some undocumented OS X features that made Safari much faster than Firefox 3. And here is a blog post discussing how several apps were rejected for using undocumented functionality. And here is a whole article discussing undocumented Apple APIs, with examples of cool stuff that only Apple's own software is allowed to do. And here is an article discussing cool things that Safari can do, that Firefox isn't allowed to do. And here is a column that claims that Apple inserts undocumented APIs and uses them in its own code for years, without ever documenting them (but presumably without breaking them because it would break Apple's own code). Even the APIs for the WiFi are undocumented.

I understand the argument that Apple doesn't want to commit to supporting these APIs forever, like Microsoft has had to do with even obscure APIs in Windows. If you use these undocumented APIs to do cool things, and Apple revises the OS, your app may break. And Apple doesn't want the customer to think it's Apple's fault that your app broke.

But I also understand the argument that some of these APIs allow for really cool stuff, which is currently reserved only for Apple. People don't like this.

As for me, give me Linux anyway. No such thing as an "undocumented" API, and there is no entity that has an unfair advantage over everyone else, and I can install any software I want.

steveha

Google doesn't respond to its own abuse either. Via their cache they often do requests (to check if the pages still exist?) on our servers. These sometimes trigger our www-burglar-alarm (they actually do something that is not allowed). When you send an abuse mailing you never hear again.

Feedback is not one of their strong sides.

Wow, that's a surprise.

Feedback doesn't generate revenue to pay for the founder's private jumbo jet.

"Do no evil"? My ass. Google has a pending patent on sniffing wireless traffic from a vehicle in order to get information to improve ad revenue.

Actually, that's very easily worked around. All it takes is a subsidiary, or literally anyone within the company to apply for a patent under the lesser price, and then sell the patent to the holding corporation.

Not that I disagree with the idea. The more you contribute to the queue with fluff, especially if you're planning on leveraging that to harm others instead of benefiting industry. There would need to be some sort of auditing of who holds the patents after after they're granted to properly apply the pressure to the trolls.. err.. businesses that are causing the biggest backlogs.

This guy sounds like a desperate market speculator that has no clue how the market works... etc etc etc

Whereas you sound like you didn't even read TFA. Or if you did, you don't understand it. Let me break it down for you.

TFA says that there will be relentless downward pressure on computer prices from now on. This point is unassailable.

I can buy a Compaq laptop with a dual-core AMD chip, a great 15.6" display, big hard disk, a DVD drive, and lots of RAM, all for about $400, quantity 1 retail. (Or $370 on sale at Fry's.) I can put Ubuntu on it, and the result is nearly as nice as an Apple laptop. Checking apple.com, I see that I can buy a 13" MacBook for $1000, or a 15" MacBook Pro for $1800. No question, the Apple notebooks are nicer: they have that nifty magnetic power cord, they have slot-loading optical drives, they have the great unibody aluminum chassis, etc. But I have to tell you, if I'm spending my own money, it's going to be that $400 computer, or even a $250 netbook with a 10.1" screen. Does a 13" MacBook really offer me four times the value of a $250 netbook?

TFA says that in the future, Apple is worried that it will be forced to cut their prices and sell at low margins, because the entire PC industry will be forced to cut prices and sell at low margins. I don't see much to debate here either. Here is a quote from TFA:

PCs are becoming commodity items. The price of PCs and laptops is falling by about 50% per decade in real terms, despite performance simultaneously rising in real terms. The profit margin on a typical netbook or desktop PC is under 10%. Apple has so far survived this collapse in profitability by aiming at the premium end of the market -- if they were an auto manufacturer, they'd be Mercedes, BMW, Porsche and Jaguar rolled into one. But nevertheless, the underlying prices are dropping. Moreover, the PC revolution has saturated the market at any accessible price point. That is, anyone who needs and can afford a PC has now got one. Elsewhere, in the developing world, the market is still growing -- but it's at the bottom end of the price pyramid, with margins squeezed down to nothing.

Is that clear enough for you? PCs aren't going away, but the traditional PC profit margins are going away, and this will cause a shakeup in the PC manufacturing industry. Apple has, so far, managed to make higher margins than the typical 10%, but how long can they continue this?

And what do you know, Apple has successfully set up a whole ecosystem where consumers must go through the Apple App Store to get applications, and Apple collects a 30% cut. TFA says that Apple would do almost anything, maybe even give the hardware away, to get all their customers locked into such an ecosystem.

In short, TFA doesn't say that PCs are going away. It says that PCs are going to be cheap, fast, and ubiquitous, and that companies selling PCs will be forced to accept slim margins. And Apple really doesn't want to play that game. Remember how Steve Jobs dissed netbooks? Apple doesn't want to sell a netbook, or even an iPad, for $250; and the market won't let them get away with selling a netbook for $500. The actual problem Steve Jobs has with netbooks is the razor-thin margins. So far, the market will allow Apple to charge $500 and up for an iPad (although I don't think that can last forever either; great iPad competitors ).

TFA isn't the only place I have seen this theory. See also: http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10006035/why-apple-will-eventually-dump-the-mac/

Maybe the article is far-fetched. But if Steve Jobs thinks he has any chance at all of locking all of Apple's customers into an App Store ecosystem where Apple skims 30% of all the action, you better believe he will go for it.

steveha

Is it my imagination, or is Steve being more douchey than usual?

No, it's not just your imagination.

"Yet iPhone dominates Android in the market."

Danger! I detect starry eyes! Well, it's that or out of date information.

The truth is that Android phone sales are on a rocketship headed straight up. If they stay on pace Android handsets are expected to surpass the iPhone in 2011 or so.

http://industry.bnet.com/technology/10005344/android-unit-sales-catching-iphones/

So Apple's iPhone is ahead yes, but mostly because they had a head start. Android shipping 5.4 million handsets in a quarter is no small feat. The iPhone has only managed it thrice since 2007.

Is it technically accurate to say that iPhone is "dominating"? Arguably yes, but to use that to justfy everything else you wrote is laughable in light of the competitions performance. It's also funny to hear about iPhone "dominating" when it's getting it's ass thorougly kicked by Symbian and RIM.

The iPhone is sexy and mostly functional but it is not the final word in smartphone development, it's not even close.

Er, but what are we going to do with all the people who just don't "have" the brains? They get a free ride?

That seems to be the way it's been working so far.

"how many sales are they missing because of these China-like rules?" [...] Probably none at all. [...] Please if you don't like it don't buy an iPhone.

Yes, that's the point. cyber1kenobe is wondering how many people are not liking it and not buying an iPhone as a result.

Call me when their sales start dropping.

Ring ring.

Interesting timing, since now they have the go ahead to do so...

He really isn't allowed to express his own personal opinion

Yea, I still remember an incident, like that make sense these days: http://www.bnet.com/2403-13058_23-358555.html (This one is about Facebook photos, but I'd say the same about personal opinions too)

It seems to me that public people might need two twitter accounts just to create the legal definition of what they're posting as part of their job (which definitely should be subject to retention policies) and what they're positing as a member of the public.

Yea, like there is a separation between personal and professional these days: http://www.bnet.com/2403-13058_23-358555.html

Sounds like they're working on trying to give AT&T a way to shut down iPhones that either loaded the tethering hack for 3.0, or are jailbroken for tethering.

You might want to take a look at Better Place whose core business plan is based on developing battery swapping stations.

The summary is wrong. The article linked doesn't support the idea that i4i think OpenOffice.org isn't infringing, only that OpenDocument isn't infringing.

Still it is trivial extention and part of the ISO specification. So in other words Open XML as an ISO standard is a jeopardy. And the patent is not enforced against ODF.

Am I the only person who wonders why i4i sounds like eye4eye?