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The lack of major improvement in AppleTV features makes me think perhaps something else is coming. Recall how Steve Jobs was saying he had finally cracked integrated television? It is hard to believe he would make that statement with respect to what is currently on offer from Apple.

If the launcher process on your Android keeps crashing you should take it back. Android apps crash less than iPhone apps so if yours is having issues its because your phone is fucked up. Citation for trolls

They can send you to jail for not cooperating (or even citing the constitution at them), prevent you from traveling freely and deny you the right to exit the country. They can put you on watch lists that make the "more traditional" TLA's pay attention to you. And their influence is spreading.

So, yes, they are.

There are many references to the studies.

See: "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts"
http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986
"Renowned social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson take a compelling look into how the brain is wired for self-justification. When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right -- a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong."

Also:
http://www.lucifereffect.com/

Considering all that, it's amazing there are still so many "good cops" out there trying to do a great job.

Too bad the socio-economic system they are charged with upholding is increasingly so broken in so many ways...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/11/19/police-response-to-occupy-wall-street-is-absurd/
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html

It isn't really 'potential' anymore: meet Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan...

You also fling communism around... communism isn't the answer, a socialist democracy on the other hand is fan-fucking-tastic. Ask us, or the Norwegians, or the Swedes... or any one of another dozen countries that are thriving in what are for america very troubled times, all thanks to our socialist systems.

Or the Germans. An American making less than $100,000 a year (in a secure job) would usually be better off in Germany or Scandinavia.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/
Frederick E. Allen
12/21/2011 @ 5:42PM |60,178 views
How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much

I should thank the Canadians for sending down Adbusters to organize Occupy Wall Street, and show us how these things are done.

Josh Bloom's editorial disagrees, as do the 300,000 laid off in biotech and pharma. Your report, just like every one like it, lumps all of STEM together. What's true for computer programming or particle physics has no bearing on any other STEM occupation. There is no shortage of scientists in the USA. There is a critical shortage of jobs for scientists, and every week there are at least two announcements of more biotech and pharma mass layoffs, numbering from hundreds to tens of thousands. Your own report states on page 4 that 81% of physical and life science degree holders don't work in STEM careers.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2012/01/19/gm-is-back-in-the-auto-sales-drivers-seat/ - Yeah, GM is number 1, however...

Honda, Toyota, and other foreign automakers make many of their cars in the US. I worked for companies that did exactly that, so they win either way. The only real threat to the US auto industry is China and Korea, imo.

I'd be interested in ways Europeans could use as much gasoline per person as a US citizen without buying a US car other than buying a non-US car that isn't already mostly made in the US.

But see, you said world. Is BMW going to put all those cars into China, India, the Middle East, and South America, and Africa? When you said the rest of the world, I took it as really meaning the rest of the world without the Ameri-Euro centric view. And in that regard, the US with NAFTA is poised better than any other country to take advantage of that... not that I think it'll actually happen, just playing the scenario.

Several provisions of the 1933 Banking Act sought to restrict 'speculative' uses of bank credit. Section 3(a) required each Federal Reserve Bank to monitor local member bank lending and investment to ensure there was not âoeundue useâ of bank credit for âoespeculative trading or carryingâ of securities, commodities or real estate.

Most would agree that when the fox is put in charge of the hen house, foul play will ensue. Just a couple examples:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/665c90e8-ecf4-11e0-be97-00144feab49a.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/29/us-lme-warehousing-idUSTRE76R3YZ20110729
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10290085/1/goldman-citigroup-to-make-markets-on-cbot.html
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0413/096-sachs-semgroup-goldman-goose-oil.html
http://seekingalpha.com/symbol/cvi/description

Forget about the economies their bookcooking destroyed, more important are the stooges being PLACED(not elected) into Euro leadership positions:
http://www.infowars.com/banker-coup-goldman-sachs-takes-over-europe/

You're behind on your news, GM back to number 1. http://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2012/01/19/gm-is-back-in-the-auto-sales-drivers-seat/

So, apparently, the pot I'm smoking is better than the pot you're smoking, haha.

Because the average patient doesn't have the background to understand what they're getting themselves into

I thin it is partly that, but probably a much greater part is pure politics. The conservatives and religious types hold much of the voter base, especially in the bible belt and heartlands of the US. A strong approach to "limit the evils of scientists" in political speeches goes a long way to garnishing some of those votes. This isn't new at all, with movement as early as 2006 during the Bush administration when the US was limiting this type of research, but the EU was pushing boldly ahead. However, more recently, they banned patents which came around due to stem cell research which is sort of good and sort of bad - it means that companies are less likely to invest as heavily into the research, but it means that all government funding will certainly be to the benefit of the population.

You can bury your head in the sand, but the truth exists whether you want to believe it or not. The truth is simply that the portugal experiment is working to decrease the number of new addicts and prohibition is not.

From page 5 of the very document you linked:

Between 2000 and 2005, the estimate number of problematic drug users in Portugal has
shown a clear decline, with special relevance for injecting drug users.

It is true, that page 18 shows that in 2007 heroin and cocaine use were up very slightly compared to 2001. However, people are more willing to report their drug habit now that it is no longer criminal, and also, the top of the very next page explains that there was NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT INCREASE in drug usage:

There are no significant differences between 2001 and 2007 results; there was a slight
increase of cocaine and heroin use at least once in lifetime by females and a decrease in all
the other substances.

Finally, this report is quite old now, I challenge you to find a document from 2011/2012 that DOESN'T show a DRAMATIC DECREASE in drug use and addiction rates compared to 1999 when the program started.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/07/05/ten-years-after-decriminalization-drug-abuse-down-by-half-in-portugal/

The number of addicts considered "problematic" -- those who repeatedly use "hard" drugs and intravenous users -- had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people

I always pay attention to someone who has first-hand experience.

I think American unions have lots of flaws, but we are better off with them than without them. I'd like to see American unions act more like German unions. The biggest problem with American unions, I think, is that they pursue the short-term interests of their individual workers, rather than the benefits of the company as a whole and workers as a whole.

Salesmen who attended trade shows in New York City told me that they couldn't put a plug in the wall themselves; they had to hire a union electrician for $60 an hour, minimum of 4 hours. Now New York lost the trade show business.

But the American conservatives aren't talking about more cooperation with unions; they want to destroy unions. That's what these right-to-work laws are all about. I don't mind making America more like Germany, but I don't want to turn us into Mississippi.

I think the proverbial incompetent teacher that the school can't get rid of is very rare. In New York City and elsewhere, the school boards ignore the teachers' union argument that (1) teachers know when a fellow teacher is not doing a good job, (2) they can evaluate fellow teachers by sitting in the classroom, better than a test can, (3) you can usually train a teacher to improve, (4) those few teachers who can't teach and can't improve do belong in another job.

This is what I've been reading about it lately. As far as I know this is accurate. I'm always interested in first-hand facts to the contrary.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/

Frederick E. Allen

12/21/2011 @ 5:42PM |60,178 views
How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much

In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour. Yet Germany’s big three car companies—BMW, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), and Volkswagen—are very profitable.

How can that be? The question is explored in a new article from Remapping Debate, a public policy e-journal. Its author, Kevin C. Brown, writes that “the salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.”

There are “two overlapping sets of institutions” in Germany that guarantee high wages and good working conditions for autoworkers. The first is IG Metall, the country’s equivalent of the United Automobile Workers. Virtually all Germany’s car workers are members, and though they have the right to strike, they “hardly use it, because there is an elaborate system of conflict resolution that regularly is used to come to some sort of compromise that is acceptable to all parties,” according to Horst Mund, an IG Metall executive. The second institution is the German constitution, which allows for “works councils” in every factory, where management and employees work together on matters like shop floor conditions and work life. Mund says this guarantees cooperation, “where you don’t always wear your management pin or your union pin.”

Mund points out that this goes

against all mainstream wisdom of the neo-liberals. We have strong unions, we have strong social security systems, we have high wages. So, if I believed what the neo-liberals are arguing, we would have to be bankrupt, but apparently this is not the case. Despite high wages . . . despite our possibility to influence companies, the economy is working well in Ger

No, you're reading that "suggestion" into it incorrectly. The factories in Germany and the U.S. are equally profitable for the company, but they're not equally profitable for the workers.

In Germany, the workers get $67 an hour, and in the U.S., the workers for those same German companies (in non-union factories) get $14.50 to $19.50 an hour.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/

Frederick E. Allen

12/21/2011 @ 5:42PM |60,178 views
How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much

In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour. Yet Germany’s big three car companies—BMW, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), and Volkswagen—are very profitable.

How can that be? The question is explored in a new article from Remapping Debate, a public policy e-journal. Its author, Kevin C. Brown, writes that “the salient difference is that, in Germany, the automakers operate within an environment that precludes a race to the bottom; in the U.S., they operate within an environment that encourages such a race.”

There are “two overlapping sets of institutions” in Germany that guarantee high wages and good working conditions for autoworkers. The first is IG Metall, the country’s equivalent of the United Automobile Workers. Virtually all Germany’s car workers are members, and though they have the right to strike, they “hardly use it, because there is an elaborate system of conflict resolution that regularly is used to come to some sort of compromise that is acceptable to all parties,” according to Horst Mund, an IG Metall executive. The second institution is the German constitution, which allows for “works councils” in every factory, where management and employees work together on matters like shop floor conditions and work life. Mund says this guarantees cooperation, “where you don’t always wear your management pin or your union pin.”

Mund points out that this goes

against all mainstream wisdom of the neo-liberals. We have strong unions, we have strong social security systems, we have high wages. So, if I believed what the neo-liberals are arguing, we would have to be bankrupt, but apparently this is not the case. Despite high wages . . . despite our possibility to influence companies, the economy is working well in Germany.

At Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant, the nonunionized new employees get $14.50 an hour, which rises to $19.50 after three years.

http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/tale-two-systems

A tale of two systems
By Kevin C. Brown
Remapping Debate
Dec. 21, 2011

American autoworkers are constantly told that high-wage work is an unsustainable relic in the face of a hyper-competitive, globalized marketplace. Apostles of neo-liberal economic theory — both in the public and private sectors — have stressed the message that worker adaptation is necessary to survive....

But the case of German automakers — BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen — tells a different story. Each company produces vehicles not only in Germany, but also in “transplant” factories in the U.S. The former are characterized by high wages and high union membership; the U.S. plants pay lower wages and are located in so-called “right-to-work” (anti-union) states. ... the UAW has made significant concessions on wages, especially through the creation of

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2011/12/21/germany-builds-twice-as-many-cars-as-the-u-s-while-paying-its-auto-workers-twice-as-much/

Frederick E. Allen
12/21/2011 @ 5:42PM |60,178 views
How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much

The era of massive data mining is beginning. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ And that's just your groceries, not your online behavior, which likely contains a lot more hidden clues.

When companies can decide to track and analyze your behavior in any way they want to, reasonably accurately predict things such as pregnancies, marriages, divorces, etc., and use it to their advantage, intentionally disguising all this from you... it's borderline absurd to say "people should just keep their secrets secret".

It's true that it's arguable whether this sort of behavior should be regulated (It's not "evil" that they just look what you've bought and try to predict your interests based on that) and if we decide to regulate it, we'll face a lot of problems... But it's quite odd to say that there shouldn't be a lot of public discourse around this subject (It's relevant to a lot of people and we already have some laws about ethical advertising and for a good reason) and just silly to say that people should take personal responsibility about how data miners figure out things they've never told anyone.

This was a really stupid thing for Dr. Gleick to do because it diminishes his cause substantially. For example, he was the lead author of the recent Science paper that everyone was making a big stink about having so many National Academy members on. I'm no (anthropogenic or not)-climate change denier, but this is bad. On a similar note, he also wrote this Forbes piece that mysteriously did not mention he was the lead author of the Science paper.

Skeptic, but his perspective and analysis is spot-on:

http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/02/heartland-documents-whose-biases-are-being-revealed-here.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenmeyer/2012/02/21/peter-gleick-admits-to-stealing-heartland-documents/

Does this really reveal anything nefarious about anyone other than the clergy of the Church of Global Warming? It rightly *is* the goal of the skeptical community to combat the hysteria with both science and by exposing the lack of trustworthiness of those who would have us sink our hard earned money into this far from settled theory.

If anything, this has now backfired and truly exposed how the tide is turning in the AGW debate.

Franklin did not have a license from Apple for anything at all. They just copied Apple's ROMs and OS on the theory that copyright would not apply, and they lost that gamble in court.

The only licensed use was Bell and Howell's Apple II clone. You can find them around (they're in black cases).

Franklin's case is a bit muddy since Franklin claimed that since Apple published the schematics and ROM listing, they were free to take it and build their own. Which of course isn't true (otherwise it would doom Open Source as well - publishing the source code allows anyone to take it? No GPL advocate would go for that)

Well, if Psystar had sold "OS X ready" machines with instructions on how to get OS X installed and running, they might have been OK. But instead they modified OS X and sold the modified versions. Regardless of whether or not you think this should be legal, it clearly is not.

The other thing is the whole Hackintosh community was also against Psystar - they had to change their licensing of all the tools required from some freeware to explicitly "no commercial use allowed".

Anyhow, back on topic - the ProView "iPad" was actually an iMac-styled (this was back in 2000, remember, so it was the bulbuous one) appliance computer. Not even a tablet - just an iMac ripoff design for an internet appliance.

(Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/02/18/proviews-ipad-was-it-an-imac-or-an-ipaq/ images (marketing materials from Proview): http://micgadget.com/22151/proview-has-manufactured-20000-%E2%80%98ipad%E2%80%99-devices-this-is-what-it-looks-like/ ). Funny, apparently Compaq would have a much better claim against Apple with the iPaq...

Yeah? Is that why iOS apps crash more frequently than Android apps?K/a>

Oh? Did you buy that printer with a credit card? Video surveilence at time of purchase could be useful if not....

After this http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ I am seriously thinking of dropping all my cards. I will, at least, be using them a lot less.

But to address your comment, that only works if the store records the serial number with the purchase, and not just the model. And assumes you do not buy a used printer.

Every manufacturing organization (APPLE, LENOVA, IBM, Microsoft, HP, etc) will not return to the USA as long as there are powerful unions to cause strikes and similar harm.

Harm like in Germany where unionized auto workers earn twice as much as their American counterparts while producing twice as many cars? For profitable German car companies?

Blaming unions makes great sense if you're a top business executive - otherwise you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The 5% I mentioned was not a guess at all. We had a /. article on how little money goes into Chinese manufacturing a while back. Here's the link to the slashdot story and here's a direct link to the article.

It shows that Chinese labor costs only make up about 2% of the cost of the iPad. We could triple their salaries and have prices rise by only around 5%. Obviously it would vary by device, but no way would it be 50%.

Source codes:
http://drdobbs.com/windows/226700457 (2010)
http://www.easterbrook.ca/steve/?p=667 (2009)

Raw data:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20739-ok-climate-sceptics-heres-the-raw-data-you-wanted.html (July 28 2011)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/07/28/climategate-researchers-release-long-sought-raw-data-on-global-temperatures/

No need for a public apology for failing Google search.

Without this gem, the discussion is not really complete.


“I don’t f***ing want innovation. “You’re not smarter than your competitor. Just copy what they do and do it until you get their numbers.”

Your first point is an excellent one. However, I would modify it to read:

I no longer care what the Wall Street Journal reports.

Given that the WSJ is now the mouthpiece of that disgusting piece of filth Rupert Murdoch, and that it has abandoned any pretense of reason, logic and objectivity there is no reason for any thinking person to read it. Ever. In fact, one can now begin making the inference that those who persist in reading it are suspect, as they lack the critical thinking faculties required to discern reality from fantasy, truth from lies, and argument from propaganda.

Talk about skewing facts.

I presume you're talking about the workers on the Microsoft Xbox factories who threatened mass suicide, over their plant being shut down, jobs not transferred, and promises of severance were withdrawn.

In other words, they were going to be "fired" anyway. Of course they weren't content, but this particular action was not in direct response to poor working conditions.

Of course, that same western factory worker's pay, benefits, and conditions is why it's so expensive to make anything here. Western standard of living and OSHA is why all the jobs are going overseas, because nobody here is willing to take a pay cut to keep their job.

Germany puts the lie to that corporatist bullshit:

How Germany Builds Twice as Many Cars as the U.S. While Paying Its Workers Twice as Much

In 2010, Germany produced more than 5.5 million automobiles; the U.S produced 2.7 million. At the same time, the average auto worker in Germany made $67.14 per hour in salary in benefits; the average one in the U.S. made $33.77 per hour. Yet Germanyâ(TM)s big three car companiesâ"BMW, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), and Volkswagenâ"are very profitable.

And that's not from some dirty fucking hippie rag like Mother Jones, that's from Forbes.

The problem isn't that American workers aren't competitive, the problem is executive greed.

But we all knew that already. Cheap shipping, cheap third world labor and international communications were all available in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. But we didn't see the gutting of America's manufacturing base until unions were busted, marginal tax rates (91% under Eisenhower) were slashed to less than 30%, and corporatist "free trade" laws were passed that puts Americans in competition with third world labor without giving Americans third world price tags on goods, housing or services.

Well, that would be copyright infringement, and therefore illegal. So people won't do it, or so I would assume.

It's a little idealistic to assume people won't do that. In fact, that quality is something that makes this system more appealing to most people. I mean, as mentioned in a previous post here on Slashdot, there isn't much physically preventing people from downloading pirated music. See this article here which was posted on Slashdot a few days ago: http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/03/you-will-never-kill-piracy-and-piracy-will-never-kill-you/ Yes, it's probably illegal to keep a copy of something you've technically sold but my argument isn't about the legality of it, it's about what will draw customers or not. I have never heard of an industry -- music, movies, cars, whatever... -- that takes a cut of what is sold as used so though it may technically be 'illegal', there is, in fact, little or no harm being done to the industry here. In addition, many things can be 'backed up' before selling them as used products. This may not work with cars but it works with movies, most video games, music, it can work (though more labor-intensively) with books, and that doesn't hurt these industries because they don't have a cut of these resell profits anyway.

The point is that this could help other industries like the ebook industry which if it isn't, should be suffering because of its ridiculous prices. Being able to sell a 'used' copy of something is, in fact, a selling point when buying something, it increases the inherent value of an item to know, when buying it, that somewhere down the road, if you get tired of it, you can sell it and get some of your money back. This very point is why many gamers were up in arms about a new system that only allows game data to be used by a first user and then it must be re-purchased (something also posted recently on Slashdot).

To put some perfect system in place to prevent people from stealing what they need/want would likely require satisfying the needs/wants of all the billions of people in the world since history has shown that trying to put laws and blockades in place to circumvent stealing is ineffective. As this ideal system would likely come long after pigs take to the sky in flight, it's important to focus on systems that have the least loss and though this system may still allow for users to keep music they've sold, it also causes much less loss overall for industries than other methods. That's the important part here.

America isn't an option because of labor regulations and an expensive workforce. iPads would be up at $1499 and still losing money

Bullshit See thisForbes article.

Using the correct labor costs of assembling an iPad 2 in the U.S., an iPad 2 made in the U.S would cost $445 ($325 for parts + $120 for labor), as opposed to a Chinese iPad’s cost of $335 ($325 for parts + $10 for labor). Assembling the iPad 2 in the U.S. and selling it for $729 would bring Apple’s gross margin down to 39%, not the 15.25% cited to by Mr. Thompson.

That a 39% margin vs. the current 54% margin.

The types of ultrawealthy are pretty diversified. http://www.forbes.com/wealth/billionaires/list. 2 of the top 5 are software, but there's industrial, financial, steel, and retail. If the 4 Walton heirs in the top 25 were combined, they'd top the list.

Did you even RTFA? Here, I'll do it for you:

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/insertcoin/files/2012/02/movie-steam.jpg

Explain what's wrong with this.

And before you try, realize this: nobody's entitled to a billion dollar industry no matter how many politicians you bribe nor how many lawyers you buy to justify your existence. Deal with it Hollywood - adapt or die. That's how business works.

Google started off with their heart in the right place, and from that they earned our trust. The fact that many of us trust them with our entire e-Mail collection is pretty amazing.

But we see that money is their primary driver. For anyone who thought could be trusted to keep giving away generously, look at the about turn they did on Google Maps. People who build their businesses on it were shafted overnight with demands for a $10K license fee. Some indy developers and startups did contact Google: surely you can't mean us? Google replied that yes, they most certainly did.

Forbes: "Google's Penny Pinching Is Costing It Customers"
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisbarth/2011/12/27/googles-penny-pinching-is-costing-it-customers/print/

This is the new Google who believe they have come as far as they can on goodwill and destroying competitors by giving stuff away for 'free'. Now it's payback time!

They've also been dodging their taxes: "The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is auditing how Google Inc. (GOOG) avoided federal income taxes by shifting profit into offshore subsidiaries"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-13/irs-auditing-how-google-shifted-profits-offshore-to-avoid-taxes.html

As for their latest toadying to repressive regimes and corrupt governments in the pockets of lobbyists, well, Google have struck a new low. That's the bad news. The worse news is they don't care: If corporations are people, and the US Supreme Court things they are, then Google is a real asshole.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/19/expensive-drugs-cost-business-healthcare-rare-diseases.html

Alexion Pharmaceutical's Soliris, at $409,500 a year, is the world's single most expensive drug. This monoclonal antibody drug treats a rare disorder in which the immune system destroys red blood cells at night. The disorder, paroxysymal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), hits 8,000 Americans.

Elaprase ($375,000 per year) treats an ultra-rare metabolic disorder called Hunter's syndrome. Just 500 Americans suffer from the disease, which causes infections, breathing problems and brain damage.

Naglazyme from BioMarin Pharmaceuticals treats another rare metabolic disorder and costs $365,000 a year, according to investment bank Robert W. Baird. Viropharma predicts that sales of its Cinryze, a treatment to prevent a dangerous swelling of the face, will increase from $95 million last year to $350 million several years from now. The drug costs an estimated $350,000 a year.

Not really. Context is important. Check out this Forbes article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2012/01/31/how-facebooks-ipo-could-transform-marketing/

"For a site that makes almost all its money from advertising, and which claims 96 of the top 100 US advertisers as customers, Facebook harbors a dirty little secret: Marketing on Facebook doesn’t work very well. In fact, user engagement rates on branded pages are declining rather than increasing, and most large marketers tell us they simply haven’t gotten much value from their Facebook investments. (The biggest difference between the Google IPO in 2004 and the Facebook IPO? In 2004, even the least sophisticated marketers were generating enormous ROI on Google; today, even the savviest marketers often struggle to do likewise on Facebook.) Facebook can – and must – domuch more to turn the data it has on users into effective ad targeting."

The problem Facebook must solve is not just technical -- it's psychological. What can you show the user to alter his mindset so he becomes receptive to doing business?

It's the reverse challenge that Google faces: how to alter goal-oriented mindset into one that's all about social and party. Google is failing in theirs, and I predict FB will fail in theirs too. Except that Google doesn't need the new goal for money to keep flowing, and FB does.

Is "adopted" the right word here? It's funny how some people consider that same "influence" to be stealing.

Of course, the fact that Apple did, indeed, pay Xerox for those ideas, makes it hard for most people to see it as stealing. They got an amazingly good deal because Xerox didn't value what they'd developed. Again, not stealing.

So very very very wrong.

Is "adopted" the right word here? It's funny how some people consider that same "influence" to be stealing.

Of course, the fact that Apple did, indeed, pay Xerox for those ideas, makes it hard for most people to see it as stealing. They got an amazingly good deal because Xerox didn't value what they'd developed. Again, not stealing.

Needs one kind of elite to innovate, and another kind of elite to monopolize, shut down, put trivial patents around that innovations or other "innovative" measures to avoid them to succeed.

Heh, I got some laughs out of reading this article as well:

Yet Apple has also repeatedly displayed its openness to new ideas and influences as exemplified by the visit that Mr. Jobs made to the Palo Alto research center of Xerox in 1979. He saw an experimental computer with a point-and-click mouse and graphical on-screen icons, which he adopted at Apple. It later became the standard for the personal computer industry.

Is "adopted" the right word here? It's funny how some people consider that same "influence" to be stealing.

In 2010, Apple bought Siri, a personal assistant application for smartphones. At the time, it was a small start-up in Silicon Valley that originated as a program funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Pentagon. Last year, Siri became the talking question-answering application on iPhones.

So those are you examples for 'repeatedly displayed its openness to new ideas and influences'? They "borrow" and idea and then they buy up and assimilate a start-up? Well, if that's your frame of reference, Microsoft excels at openness too! I know this article is not even trying to be exhaustive but Android isn't even mentioned once. I don't understand how Apple can even be called "open" when compared with Google's offerings to everyone.

Second one: I mean like this prediction When Things Get Even Worse Than You Thought - 1st Preview of Potential for Nokia Microsoft Partnership, short term 2011 and 2012. He got the numbers down with remarkable accuracy.

So if we take just one prediction of Mr. Ahonen that happened to hit the ballpark, and ignore some others where he was full of shit, we can say he is remarkably accurate? OK...

Thirdly, forbes:
# Number 1 spot belongs to ex-Nokia executive Tomi Ahonen whose blog Communities Dominate Brands is a fixture on the mobile scene largely because of Ahonen’s comprehensive knowledge of the mobile ecosystem. Tomi is based out of Hong Kong.

And the method of this particular Forbes contributor is to measure the Twitter flutter that each posting generates. Sorry, I was unaware that the most successful internet trolls count for "power influencers" these days. I guess that weather announcer guy named Watts is a power influencer in climate science, by the same measure.

And lastly, same analyst posts 13 reasons based on fact that Lumia is a failure. You should read it, instead of just ranting that everyone is being unfair to microsoft.

I actually read it earlier, and most of the reasons he puts forward are not true or carry disputable opinions. No messaging, really? Bad cameras? I'm afraid he didn't see the 900 coming. Look and feel not competitive? I guess by "typical Nokia elements" he means the retarded Symbian menus. Fails in variety of models? Yeah, Nokia should have put 20 barely distinguishable models on the market a year down from the big platform switch. Can't you see that this guy started with the conclusion and then tried to work out reasons for it?

First response is an ad hominem, I won't bother responding.

Second one: I mean like this prediction When Things Get Even Worse Than You Thought - 1st Preview of Potential for Nokia Microsoft Partnership, short term 2011 and 2012. He got the numbers down with remarkable accuracy.

Thirdly, forbes:
# Number 1 spot belongs to ex-Nokia executive Tomi Ahonen whose blog Communities Dominate Brands is a fixture on the mobile scene largely because of Ahonen’s comprehensive knowledge of the mobile ecosystem. Tomi is based out of Hong Kong.

And lastly, same analyst posts 13 reasons based on fact that Lumia is a failure. You should read it, instead of just ranting that everyone is being unfair to microsoft.

Twitter should refuse to do business in totalitarian regimes. The more obviously things are suppressed the more people will ask...

Why a 61 year-old grandfather should be sentenced for 20 years in Thailand's infamous jails for 4 alleged SMS messages about democracy. (he's also been denied treatment for cancer - an expected death sentence). http://gjbkkblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/24/20-years-sentence-for-sending-sms/

Why they use army snipers to murder unarmed democracy protesters taking refuge in temples and foreign journalists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/Hiro%20Muramoto).

The more these injustices occur, and the less people can speak openly, the more distrust will grow. This should only make people ask more whether the Royals are fit people to amass a personal fortune of $35Bn USD from their business monopolies (i.e. ~50% more than King of Saudi Arabia or Sultan of Brunei). http://www.forbes.com/sites/investopedia/2011/04/29/the-worlds-richest-royals/

The more obviously they are suppressed, the more they will ask why the Royal heir-apparent makes his own wife eat naked on the ground on all fours, in front of guests, from the dog's bowl (http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Suppressed_video_of_Thai_Crown_Prince_and_Princess_at_decadent_dog_party). Are these people who love and respect all Thais? The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and still no one can explain the mystery death of the King's brother (original heir).

If the King is so rich for the good of the country - why does he need constant PR advertisements on television so many times every day? If people only ever hear good things about the King of course they will be brainwashed to think he is good. But when someone needs 20 years jail for a couple of SMS message to suppress people speaking the truth - then people start to wake up that the reality is very different. Now days, so many hundreds of people are thrown in prison every year, for no other crime than speaking the truth.

The current Royal family has always used power to change the law or government (even PM's knows this http://www.zenjournalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/yingluck-1024x652.jpg). Royals control the army, the army changes the government at their will, the chosen government writes their own constitution to reinforce this system and protect each others business monopolies. That's how they have always done it.

It's now estimated that Thailand is blocking ~750,000 websites for lese majeste and open political discussion. More Thai's need to use proxies, Tor, TAILS, etc.

Whatever their intent, Twitter would be misguided to collaborate with these dictators.

It's not just Twitter's fault though (Facebook, etc. already censor too). It's already illegal for US companies to bribe foreign officials. The US needs to make it illegal for their companies to support other human rights abuses too (Twitter needs to be given a level playing field).

Sprint's Dan Hesse said the iPhone is so data-efficient, it will help Sprint keep its mobile data plans unlimited. He claims they do not ping the network near as much, and are better at handing off data to wireless networks. http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethwoyke/2011/10/26/sprint-ceo-iphone-will-help-us-keep-unlimited-data-plans/ Assuming that was a comparison to Android?

Weirdly, they are:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mobiledia/2012/01/18/apple-audits-factories-to-improve-working-conditions/

Of course, no one wants to talk about that, because it's fun to hate Apple.

The $75bn valuation is based on the *idea* that FB will become a better advertising platform than Google. Because so many people from all walks of life spend time on FB, the logic goes, it will make a perfect platform for advertising and selling anything.

But in reality when people are FB they are drug addicts looking to score. The drug is stimulation -- in the form of their friends' gossip, funny photos, maybe even a post from a fan page if it's really super interesting, anything to break the boredom or make you forget about hard stuff. I'm speaking from own experience and that of close friends. Anything that is not stimulating is not welcome -- and that includes ads for the majority of products and services out there. By contrast, when you want to buy bicycle tires you go to Google with the intention of buying them, so it's a different mindset, one where good ads are actually welcome. Drug addicts do spend money on drugs though, so FB will be a great platform to sell Zynga games, music, digital goods that offer instant gratification and the like. But that is all.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/02/01/four-keys-to-facebooks-valuation/

Is the market for selling digital crack worth $75bn? I hope not.

Please see:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/01/two_incontrovertible_things_an.php?utm_source=combinedfeed&utm_medium=rss
and
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/
and
http://blog.ucsusa.org/dismal-science-at-the-wall-street-journal

I'm sure the inferior primates who do not comprehend physics, mathematics, statistics, climatology, oceanography, geology, chemistry, or any of the other topics known to those of us who qualify as homo sapiens will once again display their profound ignorance by declaring that anthropocentric global warming is false. These are the same gibbering baboons that support "creation science" and "holistic medicine" and other idiocy. It's a sad testament to the aggregate stupidity of our society that any of these are given more attention than summary dismissal.

From this article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/
"But the most amazing and telling evidence of the bias of the Wall Street Journal in this field is the fact that 255 members of the United States National Academy of Sciences wrote a comparable (but scientifically accurate) essay on the realities of climate change and on the need for improved and serious public debate around the issue, offered it to the Wall Street Journal, and were turned down."

And here's the reference, for those who want to take a look for themselves: Remarkable Editorial Bias on Climate Science at the Wall Street Journal The brief article contains a link to both the letter written by the National Academy of Sciences, and the WSJ.

Spook BackDoors In Cisco Routers
- Older news, but still relevant!!
Please save this story and repost it everywhere
Especially in Security Discussion Forum Sites
- You should use OpenBSD or a hardened Linux distro
For a router, NOT these blackboxes offered with
proprietary hardware & firmware!

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking-equipment-technology-security-cisco.html

"Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Activists have long grumbled about the privacy implications of the legal "backdoors" that networking companies like Cisco build into their equipment--functions that let law enforcement quietly track the Internet activities of criminal suspects. Now an IBM researcher has revealed a more serious problem with those backdoors: They don't have particularly strong locks, and consumers are at risk.

In a presentation at the Black Hat security conference Wednesday, IBM ( IBM - news - people ) Internet Security Systems researcher Tom Cross unveiled research on how easily the "lawful intercept" function in Cisco's ( CSCO - news - people ) IOS operating system can be exploited by cybercriminals or cyberspies to pull data out of the routers belonging to an Internet service provider (ISP) and watch innocent victims' online behavior.

But the result, Cross says, is that any credentialed employee can implement the intercept to watch users, and the ISP has no method of tracking those privacy violations. "An insider who knows the password can use it without an audit trail and send the data to anywhere on the Internet," Cross says.

Cross told Cisco about his findings in December 2008, but with the exception of the patch Cisco released following the revelation of its router bug in 2008, the security flaws he discussed haven't been fixed. In an interview following Cross' talk, Cisco spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson said that the company is "confident in its framework." "We recognize that security is complicated," she said. "We're looking at [Cross'] findings and we'll take them into account."

Cisco isn't actually the primary target of Cross' critique. He points out that all networking companies are legally required to build lawful intercepts into their equipment.

Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Cisco, in fact, is the only networking company that follows the recommendations of the Internet Engineering Task Force standards body and makes its lawful intercept architecture public, exposing it to peer review and security scrutiny. The other companies keep theirs in the dark, and they likely suffer from the same security flaws or worse. "Cisco did the right thing by publishing this," says Cross. "Although I found some weaknesses, at least we know what they are and how to mitigate them."

The exploitation of lawful intercept is more than theoretical. Security and privacy guru Bruce Schneier wrote last month that the Google ( GOOG - news - people ) hackings in China were enabled by Google's procedures for sharing information with U.S. law enforcement officials. And in 2004 and 2005, a group of hackers used intercept vulnerabilities in Ericsson ( ERIC - news - people ) network switches to spy on a wide range of political targets including the cellphone of Greece's prime minister.

All of that, argues IBM's Cross, means that Internet-related companies need to be more transparent about their lawful intercept procedures or risk exposing all of their users. "There are a lot of other technology companies out there that haven't published their architecture

Spook BackDoors In Cisco Routers
- Older news, but still relevant!!
Please save this story and repost it everywhere
Especially in Security Discussion Forum Sites
- You should use OpenBSD or a hardened Linux distro
For a router, NOT these blackboxes offered with
proprietary hardware & firmware!

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/03/hackers-networking-equipment-technology-security-cisco.html

"Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Activists have long grumbled about the privacy implications of the legal "backdoors" that networking companies like Cisco build into their equipment--functions that let law enforcement quietly track the Internet activities of criminal suspects. Now an IBM researcher has revealed a more serious problem with those backdoors: They don't have particularly strong locks, and consumers are at risk.

In a presentation at the Black Hat security conference Wednesday, IBM ( IBM - news - people ) Internet Security Systems researcher Tom Cross unveiled research on how easily the "lawful intercept" function in Cisco's ( CSCO - news - people ) IOS operating system can be exploited by cybercriminals or cyberspies to pull data out of the routers belonging to an Internet service provider (ISP) and watch innocent victims' online behavior.

But the result, Cross says, is that any credentialed employee can implement the intercept to watch users, and the ISP has no method of tracking those privacy violations. "An insider who knows the password can use it without an audit trail and send the data to anywhere on the Internet," Cross says.

Cross told Cisco about his findings in December 2008, but with the exception of the patch Cisco released following the revelation of its router bug in 2008, the security flaws he discussed haven't been fixed. In an interview following Cross' talk, Cisco spokeswoman Jennifer Greeson said that the company is "confident in its framework." "We recognize that security is complicated," she said. "We're looking at [Cross'] findings and we'll take them into account."

Cisco isn't actually the primary target of Cross' critique. He points out that all networking companies are legally required to build lawful intercepts into their equipment.

Special Report
Cisco's Backdoor For Hackers
Andy Greenberg, 02.03.10, 01:45 PM EST
The methods networking companies use to let the Feds watch suspects also expose the rest of us.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Cisco, in fact, is the only networking company that follows the recommendations of the Internet Engineering Task Force standards body and makes its lawful intercept architecture public, exposing it to peer review and security scrutiny. The other companies keep theirs in the dark, and they likely suffer from the same security flaws or worse. "Cisco did the right thing by publishing this," says Cross. "Although I found some weaknesses, at least we know what they are and how to mitigate them."

The exploitation of lawful intercept is more than theoretical. Security and privacy guru Bruce Schneier wrote last month that the Google ( GOOG - news - people ) hackings in China were enabled by Google's procedures for sharing information with U.S. law enforcement officials. And in 2004 and 2005, a group of hackers used intercept vulnerabilities in Ericsson ( ERIC - news - people ) network switches to spy on a wide range of political targets including the cellphone of Greece's prime minister.

All of that, argues IBM's Cross, means that Internet-related companies need to be more transparent about their lawful intercept procedures or risk exposing all of their users. "There are a lot of other technology companies out there that haven't published their architectur