Slashdot Mirror

To me it suggests that older drivers are having more difficulty coping with the situation once it arises.

Forbes says that the guy who got himself plastered all over cable last week was 'afraid' to put the vehicle into neutral, or to turn off the engine:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/12/toyota-autos-hoax-media-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html?boxes=financechannelforbes

(They link the 911 recording:

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/the-jim-sikes-911-call-23-minutes-of-unintended-acceleration/

)

So apparently being an idiot is also a likely factor in the failing to cope with the incident before it becomes lethal.

But they key observation is that the higher number of fatalities among older drivers doesn't really point to the source of the problem being driver error (rather, the driver error is in failing to deal with the situation once it arises).

You certainly don't have to be an idiot to fail to handle a stuck throttle, most people will never have the experience, and if it becomes a problem starting at highway speeds, many drivers may feel the need for both hands on the wheel. I would want to know in advance that I could turn the engine off without engaging the steering wheel lock. And that it kills both the electric and gas power in a Prius. Shifting to neutral is likely to to be the last resort, but most effective.

There could well be an issue with the anti-lock brakes as well, if the braking power is being limited, they may well not have the stopping power needed to overcome the engine, the recent police assisted stop was made made after slowing with the emergency brake which probably is mechanical and will actually lock the wheels. That would explain the claims that the brakes were full on but the car didn't slow down, and the odd signs of only partial brake application noted in some cases. Apply full engine power and limit brake effectiveness, if that bug could be proved it would explain many things.

It would also probably exonerate the man who is in prison after unintended acceleration.

Forbes later published an article calling the guy out. The whole incident was just a hoax, and there's more holes in his story than cheese (he was able to reach down and pull on the pedal for instance, but didn't want to turn the car off for fear of taking his hands off the wheel). Sikes was more than 700k in debt, 20k of which was for said Prius. http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/12/toyota-autos-hoax-media-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento_2.html

To me it suggests that older drivers are having more difficulty coping with the situation once it arises.

Forbes says that the guy who got himself plastered all over cable last week was 'afraid' to put the vehicle into neutral, or to turn off the engine:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/12/toyota-autos-hoax-media-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html?boxes=financechannelforbes

(They link the 911 recording:

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/the-jim-sikes-911-call-23-minutes-of-unintended-acceleration/

)

So apparently being an idiot is also a likely factor in the failing to cope with the incident before it becomes lethal.

But they key observation is that the higher number of fatalities among older drivers doesn't really point to the source of the problem being driver error (rather, the driver error is in failing to deal with the situation once it arises).

In what universe is apple the fourth largest publicly traded American company? The Forbes Global 2000 has them ranked at 113 (behind many many American companies) with about 4.86 billion in profits and a total market value of 79.54 billion. Even Microsoft is only ranked 49th with 3 times the profits and market value.

I'd like to point out that Forbes previously announced that Carlos Slim was the world's richest man in 2007.

With such a schedule, please make sure you get enough vitamin D3 (the sunlight vitamin), like from supplements and have your vitamin D3 levels checked with a 25(OH)D blood test:
    http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
"""
We predict that treatment with physiological doses of vitamin D3 (between 4,000-10,000 IU/day from all sources, including sun, food and supplements) along with periodic monitoring of blood calcidiol and calcium levels will become routine. [Zittermann A. Vitamin D in preventive medicine: are we ignoring the evidence? Br J of Nutr. 2003;89:552-572. Holick M. Vitamin D: A Millennium Perspective. J Cell Biochem. 2003;88:296-307.] Research indicates it will help several vitamin D deficiency-associated diseases such as: autism, autoimmune illness, cancer, chronic pain, depression, diabetes, heart disease, hyperparathyroidism, hypertension, influenza, myopathy (neuromuscular disorders), and osteoporosis.
"""

Most people in the USA are vitamin D deficient from our indoor lifestyle, but a schedule like would just about ensures it.

My wife is a night owl, and I'm not, another set of issues... I stayed up late a lot when I met her, and she just assumed that meant I was a night owl. :-) With that said, I've seen both her and my sleep patterns shift over time in different ways, including when having a kid... So, these rhythms can changes sometimes. But, there are advantages and disadvantages to all sorts of things. Getting up late on, say, the US East Coast means you can better connect to people in certain other timezones. Because we both work at home, and I need somewhat less sleep than her, we see a lot of each other anyway. If we both worked outside the home, this would be much more problematical. She has trouble getting up for a 9-5 job (she needs many alarm clocks) -- which her mom growing up probably saw as laziness; but she can happily work very hard on stuff long into the small hours of the morning after everyone else has given up for the day in exhaustion...

We homeschool, and our kid is following her sleep patterns... And it creates another issue, since while we're happy to do afternoon and evening things, many homeschoolers, like most people, seem to be early in the morning kind of people...

And sadly, night driving is several times more dangerous as far as frequency of accidents, since many drivers get tired late at night but push it anyway, and even with good headlights, you see a lot less at night than during the day.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/21/car-accident-times-forbeslife-cx_he_0121driving.html
"Nationwide, 49% of fatal crashes happen at night, with a fatality rate per mile of travel about three times as high as daytime hours. Of people killed at night, roughly two-thirds aren't wearing restraints. During the day, the percentage of unrestrained fatalities tends to be under half."

So, my advice for night owls:
* Use vitamin D supplements or UV-B lamps and have regular 25(OH)D blood tests;
* Marry someone with a similar schedule (or, work at home together), and don't assume about people you're seeing;
* Homeschool; and
* Drive a Volvo or other extra safe car and wear your seat belt.

Well, I'd say those same advice for anyone, :-) but those all can be a bigger issues for people with different rhythms.

Nope. It actually peaked in July 2008 after merging with Blizzard, but had a 2:1 split in September that same year. Currently, it's inline with the rest of studio's performance in the past year.

Another point:
Kotick has been CEO of Activision since 1991. He had a benefits package of $20 million, $900K of which is salary and $5 Million in bonus. The rest was stock and options. (source:here )

So right now...you've got a CEO who probably has a crap ton of stock, no real passion for the products his company produces and is almost in his 50's. Coupled with is his almost sadistic view on video game making, I wouldn't put it past him to do some internal company manipulation to make his worth higher.

Citing revenue numbers and not profits is just a low blow.

I'm sure McDonalds are a bunch of big boys and can handle it. Not really sure how this is a low blow...

I know coffee is cheap, but time, labor, energy, buildings, equipment, management, and lawyers are not. McDonald's does not "make" $1.3M/day selling coffee, they just collect that much, based on estimates of annualized sales and the list price of a cup of coffee.

Care to cite your source?

$1.3M in daily profits from coffee would not be remotely shocking for a company with over 31,000 locations and 47 million customers daily. The gross margins on coffee are around 60% (look at Starbucks income statement if you need proof) and McDonalds EBIT margin in 2008/09 was 29.8%. McDonalds had revenues around $30 billion last year. If they really made $1.3M on coffee per day in profit that means their annual coffee sales were around $1.6 billion or if the gross margin is used the number is more like $780 million in sales. Big numbers but quite reasonable given McDonalds revenues and the amount of coffee they sell. Starbucks revenues by comparison were just under $10 billion last year as a quick sanity check so $1.6 billion in coffee sales from McDonalds sounds pretty reasonable. I'm actually a little surprised it's not higher.

And even "collect" is a stretch, because not every cup of coffee sells at list price, and not every cent of every transaction is necessarily collected by McDonalds (e.g. credit card processing fees).

The percent of losses due to these factors is minor (2-4% at most is typical in the industry) and without question quite well known to McDonalds accountants. It is accounted for (indirectly) in their financial statements so any numbers you look at will have factored this in already.

Disclosure: I am a certified accountant.

No dude, hate to break this, you outperform the slashdot article-submission hive mind, which is insulting to one of our more glamorous insects. A bumble bee can coordinate six legs, a set of wings, a pair of antenna, a pair of eyes, and some really cool frame-of-reference navigation aids. The average slashdot editor is sometimes unable to navigate himself/herself/itself out of a Joe-blog no-link-anywhere-useful cul de scat. The honey dance for that article is about the magnitude of bee mite sneezing into his elbow.

Witness Forbes beating us senseless by two orders of magnitude with an article that at least qualifies for a flirtatious abdominal shimmy, since it actually links to T original FA.

IBM's Data-Sifting Shortcut - Forbes.com

The editor responsible is running the serious risk of coming down with Alzheimer's in later life and no one noticing. What was occupying your mind on the other monitor, the Jamaican mixed naked luge? Unbelievable.

The notion that "anybody can make it in the US if they work hard" is a fairy tale.

Seriously. Be born rich. That's the way to go.

The notion that the notion is a fairytale is a fairytale. People love to blindly spread memes like this because they enjoy feeling sorry for themselves, but it simply isn't true:

Rags To Riches Billionaires: "Almost two-thirds of the world's 946 billionaires made their fortunes from scratch, relying on grit and determination"

That doesn't mean everyone can end up a billionaire, but it's simply false that this notion that 'anyone can make it' is a fairytale; it's borne out on practically a daily basis. If you open your eyes and look, you'll find true-life rags-to-riches story under every second stone you turn --- especially in the USA, but also these days frequently in places like China. But yeah, not everyone is born hard-working, I guess, so keep sitting and feeling sorry for yourself and you'll definitely ensure that nothing ever changes for you.

Rags to Riches CEOs

7 greatest celebrity rags to riches stories

Rags to Riches

Entrepreneur takes women from rags to riches

Rags to Riches billionaires

Asian American Rags to Riches Sagas

Case Study: From Rags to Riches (Brenda French)

Cordia Harrington: From Rags to Riches Success Story

Local cosmetics magnate reveals rags-to-riches life story

China: A rags-to-riches story to dream about (Yan Huiyan)

China’s paper magnate is a rags-to-riches story, literally

Rags to riches: Bill MacAloney: from orphan to successful business owner to CBA

From rags to riches: Filipino weavers trade up

Etc. etc. blah blah ... I could go on pasting these stories in here all day. Nothing worse than listening to whiny losers feeling sorry for themselves that they weren't born rich.

The notion that "anybody can make it in the US if they work hard" is a fairy tale.

Seriously. Be born rich. That's the way to go.

The notion that the notion is a fairytale is a fairytale. People love to blindly spread memes like this because they enjoy feeling sorry for themselves, but it simply isn't true:

Rags To Riches Billionaires: "Almost two-thirds of the world's 946 billionaires made their fortunes from scratch, relying on grit and determination"

That doesn't mean everyone can end up a billionaire, but it's simply false that this notion that 'anyone can make it' is a fairytale; it's borne out on practically a daily basis. If you open your eyes and look, you'll find true-life rags-to-riches story under every second stone you turn --- especially in the USA, but also these days frequently in places like China. But yeah, not everyone is born hard-working, I guess, so keep sitting and feeling sorry for yourself and you'll definitely ensure that nothing ever changes for you.

Rags to Riches CEOs

7 greatest celebrity rags to riches stories

Rags to Riches

Entrepreneur takes women from rags to riches

Rags to Riches billionaires

Asian American Rags to Riches Sagas

Case Study: From Rags to Riches (Brenda French)

Cordia Harrington: From Rags to Riches Success Story

Local cosmetics magnate reveals rags-to-riches life story

China: A rags-to-riches story to dream about (Yan Huiyan)

China’s paper magnate is a rags-to-riches story, literally

Rags to riches: Bill MacAloney: from orphan to successful business owner to CBA

From rags to riches: Filipino weavers trade up

Etc. etc. blah blah ... I could go on pasting these stories in here all day. Nothing worse than listening to whiny losers feeling sorry for themselves that they weren't born rich.

However, if they are stuck in traffic jams day after day, they may find themselves much more likely to try the train, bus or carpool option

Hasn't happened yet.

it's also faster. At least, it's faster in a well-designed transit system.

Spherical cow. It's all easy if you can postulate away any actual practical limitations. Things like existing residence and employment location patterns ("first, we make everyone live within 5 miles of where they work..."); stuff already in the way of your well-designed transit system ("how many dozens of blocks are you willing to demolish to set up your light rail system?"); and the simple societal preference for individual mobility.

The U.S. is a big, sprawling country, and the cities are big and sprawling too. That is the result of, and the reinforcement for, the big, sprawling, commute-centric mindset of suburban/exurban America. And 3-hour commutes, $4 per gallon gasoline, and 35,000 traffic fatalities a year haven't changed it yet. If you don't mind, I won't hold my breath.

They might still be smiling since they'll get their face fixed for less than it will cost you after they smash your face in retaliation.

Compare how much the US is spending per person with the other countries:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/02/health-care-costs-opinions-columnists-reform.html
http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_hea_car_fun_tot_per_cap-care-funding-total-per-capita

And the average US citizen isn't getting better health care for all that spending.

That said, healthcare costs are increasing in many countries.

It's too easy for politicians to try to spend the money of future generations to win the votes of today's voters.

I think there should be a limit on how much public money each person gets for healthcare. A quota that depends on how rich the country is. Because as technology improves, there's going to be more and more things that can be done, but the costs for each "level" will increase way more than linearly[1].

Once you've used up your quota, you have to find the cash some other way (savings, donations, loans), maybe people should also be allowed to donate some of their quota to you if they want (subject to regulatory approval - to avoid abuse and swindling).

If you can't find enough money, too bad so sad, yes it's unfair that you have to die or stay crippled/sick, but it's also unfair to keep making everyone else pay for you past your allocated quota. And it means other people may get less as a result (which is also unfair).

Past a certain point, it becomes unfair to make others continue paying for you. Like it or not, the rest have done their fair share for you.

Some may ask, why should it be even fair for others to pay in the first place? I think it's fair to make people pay for the civilization they enjoy. To me it's uncivilized (and inefficient and crap) to have people sit in ER in order to get treatment, or even die needlessly from problems that are easily and cheaply avoided.

[1] Billionaires might be able to afford the best. Maybe in the near future there would be tech to grow replacement limbs from scratch - e.g. a batch of 1000 replacements grown, with the best one selected. A billionaire could pay for that. But a country is unlikely to be able to afford to do that for every person who wants that and still be able to provide other healthcare to others, at least not for a long time. So on the "public money" plan in a rich country, you'd just get a high tech prosthetic.

there was no evidence of any laptops being stolen therefore the system shouldn't have been turned on to begin with. The only reason the camera's were turned on would be for misuse.

That's not true, because the school's policies did not require evidence that the laptop was stolen. For instance, officials were permitted to activate the system "to find missing, lost or stolen computers, which would include a loaner computer taken off campus against regulations." See here among other stories. I've seen multiple stories that indicate the system was activated 42 times, 18 of which did help to recover lost or stolen systems.

They could get out of this much easier if they simply fired a couple of people and blamed those directly responsible, and their bosses for the policy.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Whomever you pick to fire, you must make sure that it is justified. If you fire the official that took the picture, you need to find appropriate grounds to do so. Otherwise, they could (rightfully) claim that they violated no policy and were being made a scapegoat. Then you'd be looking at a wrongful termination lawsuit, and possibly paying lost wages. Similarly, the administrators can argue that the policy was put into place to protect assets owned by the school district. So if you want to fire someone, you had better be sure that you can justify it.

One aspect that I haven't seen clarified is whether or not the student was actually disciplined. If he was just confronted and presented with a warning, he is going to have a much more difficult time proving damages in a court. If he was suspended without due process and without proof of wrongdoing, then they're screwed. Either way, though, I would be surprised if this is allowed class action status.

As much as I value privacy, I think this story has become a bit sensationalized. Based on the numerous reports I've seen, I believe this is more an example of scope creep than anything nefarious. Basically, to paraphrase a common aphorism, if I must attribute either malice or incompetence, I go with the latter. The possibility of theft does provide a legitimate purpose for the ability to remotely activate the web cam. Where the school screwed up was that they did not have any precise controls over when and how this activation can occur. My guess (I fully admit I have no proof) is that the camera was activated according to district policy, then the official panicked because they thought they saw something. To make it worse for the official, the policy probably did not offer any guidance for what to do in that situation. What if they were trying to locate a stolen laptop and witnessed a rape or murder instead?

The problem comes down to the possibility of secondary use of technology. Whenever technology is deployed that has the potential of violating the privacy of others, the policy should explicitly state under what conditions the technology can be used, including a list of the situations that officials are allowed to document based on their observations. The policy should also default to complete destruction of observed data that does not match the intent of the policy. Hence, the school district should have made the following policy:

• Activation of the remote monitoring system will only be done after informing the student and parents in writing.
• Activation of the remote monitoring system will never occur unless there is documentation indicating a good faith belief that the laptop has been stolen or is missing.
• Data collected during activation will be restricted to the goal of recovering the lost or stolen laptop. The only exception to this rule would be if an operator, while attempting to recover a lost or stolen laptop, observes behavior that constitutes a felony; in such a case, the data will be handed over to

If main stream news sources in copious quantities isn't sufficient corroboration for you, call the court and ask.

Not my fault the school administrators are monumentally stupid.

Oh, and dial back the paranoia a notch. It got away from you.

Cheap, ARM and Linux is the one combination they absolutely MUST discredit.

Yep. Note how much Jobs HATES netbooks:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/22/apple-steve-jobs-technology-enterprise-tech-apple.html
There's only one reason for this: they're too cheap. Apple can't make any money off them. If Apple had invented the netbook, then maybe. Of course we'd be paying up over a grand for 'em...

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.korean/browse_thread/thread/63a135baa9ae8b87

> Average annual income: Taiwan US$16563, Korea US$19921
> PPP: Taiwan US$32041, Korea US$23331
PPP is the purchasing power.

I.e., Because many items are much cheaper in Taiwan than in the US (partially because of laws the corporations have had passed to prevent importation of substantially cheaper medicine and items-- i.e. killing what should happen in a true capitalist economy), the $16,563 annual income allows a citizen of Taiwan to live as well as a person making $32041 dollars in the US. So they live about 3/4 as well as the average income $46,000 american citizen.

http://www.worldsalaries.org/taiwan.shtml
Personal Average Income (2005)
17,138 $US.
297,862 NT$

For example:
http://www.footprintsrecruiting.com/cost-of-living-in-taiwan/cost-of-food-in-taiwan
Monthly expenses (for an expatriate english teacher)...

* Rent: NT$10,000
* Utilities: NT$1,750
* Food: NT$7,500
* Transportation: NT$700
* Entertainment: NT$2,500
* Internet: NT $500
* Cell Phone: NT $1,000
* TOTAL: NT$23,950 (NT$256,000 annually)
---

China and India have the lower wage structure, not Taiwan.

---

India has some advantages over the US for costs. Medical is about 20% of our cost (for nearly identical care for many procedures) and a college degree is about 10% of the cost. The college degree is going to be very intense (so like advanced placement classes here) but perhaps less creative and definitely less networking with other US people in your field.

Medical and University costs have grossly outpaced inflation for the last two decades in the US. Since I got my degree in 93, the cost of an in state degree has gone up 500%.

---

These lower prices are an artifact and they will shed away quickly. I think within 8 years. Wages here will stagnate and wages their will rise.
For exmample:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_13/b3977049.htm
"Last year salaries surged 40%, to an average of $160 a month."

"Wait a minute. Doesn't China have an inexhaustible supply of cheap labor? Not any longer. From the textile and toy factories of the south to the corporate headquarters and research labs in Beijing and Shanghai, the No. 1 challenge today is finding and keeping good workers. "

http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/what-chinas-changing-labour-market-means-for-the-west.aspx
Incomes are rising at double-digit rates - even rural incomes.

http://www.forbes.com/2007/07/02/china-wage-growth-markets-econ-cx_jc_0702markets1.html
On a per-capita basis, the average Chinese worker earned an annual wage of 12,422 yuan ($1,630) in 2002, or 1,035 yuan ($136) per month. As of 2006, they were making 21,001 yuan ($2,756) a year, or 1,750 yuan ($230) a month.

Chinese workers experienced 400% wage inflation at the lowest tiers from 1995 to 2006 alone. Wages for US workers went up about 50% in the same time period (wages for executives went from 85x us workers annual pay to 531x us workers annual pay) http://www.svsu.edu/emplibrary/Whelton%20article.pdf

I

The need reminds me of this guy: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/1101/064.html But... never heard anything about him since 2004.

Google was already thinking to leave in September. From Forbes last month. http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/21/google-baidu-internet-intelligent-technology-fannin.html

I think there are but this is such a complex topic that I don't understand what is and what is not possible.

Yep killing the stock price too. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/prnewswire/2009/12/08/prnewswire200912081230PR_NEWS_USPR_____CG22704.html Down 2% @9:00am 12 Besides it takes too long to kill them. Probably have 2 litters of rats before kidney or liver failure. With the high yields they get with DeKalb Genuity VT, the rats will die fat and happy. Hmm, I think I will switch from Jack Daniels & Canadian Mist to Capn' Morgan and E&J.

I'm sorry you do not feel I am worthy of being better informed. All of my research without your assistance seems to come up with information basically contradicting your statements. I guess the "socialists" have managed to hide the truth from my eyes?

Tax rates by country seem to put the US on the lower side of things for personal tax rates, but still comperable to Canada, and higher than Iceland, Ireland, and Australia, and the highest of the graphed countries for corporate tax rate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world

As for "by what measure is the US at the top of the health care heap"? Well we have the shortest times for getting treatment, we have the highest number of hi-tech medical equipment per capita, we have the highest survival rate of premature births, the highest survival rate for cancer patients, we have access to the most advanced medicines and treatments, we have the highest number of doctors per capita - do you want me to continue?

Humm, LA seems to have 12+ hour wait times in the emergency room, which doesn't sound great:

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-er-wait-times-socal21-2009dec21,0,2238664.story

I can't think of how to search for "hi-tech medical equipment per capita", so could you let me know where to find that?

Premature birth survival rates are also hard to find for me at least, and as you noted, the birth survival stats are a bit hard to compare across countries and regions due to different reporting methods - if you had some references I would be interested if it wasn't too much trouble.

The US cancer survival rate seems among the highest, but clearly not THE highest, particularly if you are not white it would seem:
http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20080716/cancer-survival-rates-vary-by-country

The US is way down the list on doctors-per-capita, ranking 52nd on the list by nationmaster, and also mentioned in this piece on Forbes. Oh the Forbs article mentions "the amount of highly expensive medical equipment per capita" as being highest in the USA, but that the lead is shrinking.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_phy_per_1000_peo-physicians-per-1-000-people
http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/02/health-care-costs-opinions-columnists-reform.html

Heck, that Forbes article (are they a socialist rag? I thought they were sort of right-leaning?) seems to indicate they at least do not think "it [the US medical system]'s a hell of a lot better than what the rest of the world has."

The overall point seems to be that American citizens, as a whole, do NOT "have access to the most advanced medicines and treatments", in that a significant fraction of them have little to no access to primary health care that they can afford.

In my opinion, much of your opposition to various levels of socialism is well founded. There are downsides and disincentives inherent in any system trying to promote the collective good, however I think you are being willfully ignorant to think that the current situation in the USA is somehow vastly superior to situations in other places where different decisions have been made. One of the biggest problems in policy formation in the US is the instinctive fear or socialism and big government so what seems to happen is that we end up with the worst of both worlds - governmental programs that artificially alter the market, but do not actually benefit anyone but a few special interests. In the US we already have a whole lot of socialism, it is just half-assed and poorly implemented.

you can blame the fact that the websense ceo is the same guy who was ceo of Mcafee during the time when Mcafee was known to be a piece of shit software that wasn't complete or accurate. Is it any more surprising that he's equally badly mismanaging websense, and is selling to the same crowd with both basically?

The issue is a man named gene hodges , the guy is a horrible ceo (and cause for many tech issues relying on anything he is a part of) .

Caterpillar

Wrong.

no complaint was ever launched (and never will be), and glorious Google still continues to return accurate and unbiased results

Never say never.

Money, politics, law and religion make a volitile mix in any culture. You cannot predict the outcome.

Apple Censors Dalai Lama IPhone Apps in China [Dec 29]

Google's China Blues [Dec 21]

There is a very simple counter factual to this. CEO pay has grown 6 fold since 1990 (Forbes). The economy hasn't. Median salary hasn't. Have they somehow become six times rarer or six times more effective without the economy noticing? The market doesn't drive ceo salary. Productivity doesn't drive ceo salary.

Here you go, this has lots of citations: http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/climate-science-gore-intelligent-technology-sutton.html Therein: -Science March 1, 1975 issue -1974 National Science Board announcement that an Ice Age of 10,000 years in length should be expected -The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."

You'd actually dismiss the whole concept of the earth orbiting the sun?

Oh, I see, what you mean. The Global Warming is right, it is just the CRU "scientists" are partisan fools. Whatever — the "concept" of Earth orbiting Sun is supported by enough evidence. The concept of Global Warming (in the face of actual Cooling rebranded as "Climate Change") is not. The burden of proof remains on you...

No they weren't.

Yes, they were. The threat of global cooling was — according to your own link (BTW, couldn't you find something more reputable than "RealClimate", which the disgraced CRU "scientist" exposed as "their own"?) — published by the same mass-media (such as Newsweek), that pushes the global warming now. The link I gave you talks about Smithsonian curators — quite respectable institution, is not it?

But, interestingly, even your link confirms a cooling trend between 40ies and 70ies... Khmm...

the general theory is quite simple to understand if you're reasonably literate. You're supposed to be able to understand it yourself. Perhaps that's asking a bit much in some cases.

Yes, yes, the emperor is very well dressed, and only the illiterate could possibly not see it. Is that the best you can do?

It is not a matter of trust. It is a matter of learning to read IDL code (which is not that hard) and comparing the plotting commands to the published plot.

It is easy enough to read, but you missed the bigger point. If this kind of data-massaging was ever contemplated, we can't trust the rest of their practices. You trust their code, which you can read — but have you seen, what data they feed to that code? Hint, they say, they used "calibration" because data collected over the years was collected differently.

How did they calibrate it? What kind of coefficients were they picking for the calibration? Are you sure, they didn't stop searching for "better" values, until the results showed, what they set out to find from the get-go? They no longer have the original data — only the "calibrated" results — is not that "convenient"?

Being on a jury, would you be comfortable convicting a man based on this sort of evidence?

For crying out loud, in 1975 we were threatened with Global Cooling! Just as convincingly...

If you had a computer model of the solar system, and it failed to predict the earth's orbit accurately, would you try and fix your model? Or would you discard Heliocentric theory?

Depending on how "accurately"... For example, if, the model was off by some percentage, I would've asked for possible explanations and minor corrections. On the other hand, if the model predicted Moon falling onto Earth in October 2008, I would've not only discarded the entire theory, but tarred-and-feathered the pompous assholes, who wasted billions of dollars predicting the doom.

The same kind of people were already warnings us about global cooling from their ivory towers — in twenty years they did a complete flip-flop, and we are supposed to believe them without doubts?

The little bit of journalistic integrity left will be destroyed if the government starts picking up the tab. Newspapers will have a vested interest in getting funding so support of one candidate or another will be rewarded with money, instead of just interviews, questions at press conferences, and leaked memos.

As much as I hate to say it, it's that way now. NBC and it's sister stations are all owned by GE (at least until they sell to Comcast soon). This includes MSNBC. MSNBC is a very left-of-center network. While it has been shown that all media was biased toward Obama in the last election (yes, even Fox News... numbers don't lie), MSNBC went above and beyond the call of duty and by far the biggest Obama supporter of all the major media networks.

Now what does this have to do with GE? Who do you think would give more for green programs, Obama or McCain? Obviously Obama. Who stands to make a fortune off green programs? GE! GE makes the wind generators for wind farms, CFL and LED light bulbs and are well invested in other "green" areas. While it's great that GE is taking such a stance to greenify our world, it's not so great that they use their media subsidiaries to shape public opinion toward favoring one political party over the other to help their bottom line.

GE "we bring good things to life!" makers of the General Electric minigun as well as a multitude of other military products. Now I have to wonder who would dump more tax payer dollars into the big dollar things that GE sells, Obama or McCain (of if he dies Palin who hates the Ruskies).
Green products are fine but are they worth more than military contracts? This is GE we are talking about, not Hempco or Dirty Hippies Affiliated.

The little bit of journalistic integrity left will be destroyed if the government starts picking up the tab. Newspapers will have a vested interest in getting funding so support of one candidate or another will be rewarded with money, instead of just interviews, questions at press conferences, and leaked memos.

As much as I hate to say it, it's that way now. NBC and it's sister stations are all owned by GE (at least until they sell to Comcast soon). This includes MSNBC. MSNBC is a very left-of-center network. While it has been shown that all media was biased toward Obama in the last election (yes, even Fox News... numbers don't lie), MSNBC went above and beyond the call of duty and by far the biggest Obama supporter of all the major media networks.

Now what does this have to do with GE? Who do you think would give more for green programs, Obama or McCain? Obviously Obama. Who stands to make a fortune off green programs? GE! GE makes the wind generators for wind farms, CFL and LED light bulbs and are well invested in other "green" areas. While it's great that GE is taking such a stance to greenify our world, it's not so great that they use their media subsidiaries to shape public opinion toward favoring one political party over the other to help their bottom line.

However, you are correct that it would get much worse if the government were paying the bills. You could expect that whichever presidential candidate or political party that promised to increased funding to the press outlets would get the more favorable treatment.

With that said, there should be some kind of oversight to prevent the corporations that own the press from using it to drive agendas with the purpose of increasing profits. For that matter, the press shouldn't be driving agendas at all!

Firstly stop being xenophobic.
Maybe the name is Bangalore because of this?
http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/intel-makes-single-chip-cloud-computer.html
"This represents the latest achievement from Intel's Tera-scale Computing Research Program. The research was co-led by Intel Labs Bangalore, India, Intel Labs Braunschweig, Germany and Intel Labs researchers in the United States. "
And Intel is an international company headquartered in the US. Intel gets just 20% of its revenue from the Americas
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/businesswire/2009/10/13/businesswire130140595.html

And Bangalore has nothing to do with the current or the previous US recession. India imports more from the US than it exports to the US. Hence the US has a trade surplus with India. The current crisis was caused by reckless behavior by American financial institutions and the American housing bubble and it has affected the rest of the world.

Stop being so driven by hatred and country sentiments. We all live in this same world, are humans, dependant on each other and deserve respect from all other human beings. Hatred is so 2008.... grow up.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/businesswire/2009/10/14/businesswire130175625_print.html

The jobless rate for those under 25 is 42% in Spain. The jobless rate for all workers there is 19.3%.

What Fox "News" broadcasts is not a "challenge" to the White House. It's made-up accusations, like this Anita Dunn nonsense, like the fuss about ACORN, like the association between the President and Bill Ayers, that make it an arm of the Republican party. These stories are simply specious, having no purpose beyond allowing the talking heads to call President Obama a socialist over and over on national TV.

Oh, Good God! Fox News did not make the videos up! Anita Dunn really did say that Mao Tse Tung was one of her favorite philosophers. Could you imagine the uproar if a member of GWB's cabinet had stated that Hitler or Pol Pot were one of his favorite philosophers?!!? It would be broadcast nonstop on every news network until this cabinet member resigned in shame with full investigations to follow. Sorry, but Anita said it, she meant it, and it was on video. Fox didn't need to make anything up. If you believe that, you are deluding yourself. Look up the video for yourself.

As for the relationship between Ayers and Obama, it was real. Sure, they may not have been best friends and swapped wives or anything, but there was a relationship. These guys not only worked together and served on various boards together, but Obama's political career was started at a meet-and-greet hosted at Bill Ayers' house by Bill Ayers himself. Again, if GWB or any other Republican and most Democrats had started their political careers at the home of an admitted terrorist, it would make the news 24/7. And again, this relationship is well documented by non-Fox sources and is public record/fact. If you deny that there was a relationship, you are deluding yourself again. You seem to be doing a lot of that lately.

You bring up ACORN. ACORN is an organization that receives tax payer money whose members were offering to assist what they thought were a pimp and prostitute get tax breaks for their child sex slave operation. The evidence is on video and indisputable. Are you seriously OK with that? Sure, the organization has done some good, but there are other organizations that could do a better job without all the unadulterated corruption. Oh, and Obama once worked for ACORN and wears his Community Organizing experience like a badge of honor. You do know what the C and the O in ACORN stands for don't you? Funny how that relationship didn't get any media attention either.

Finally, it has been proven that Fox News truly is the most "Fair and Balanced" network out there. I understand that you don't like views you disagree with being shared, but just because they are not YOUR views doesn't mean that those who with differing views should be silenced. You'll need to look up the First Amendment for the reasons why.

What ever happened to that bit about States not being able to tax interstate commerce? The 'use' tax is simple a loophole for that isn't it?

There was that brouhaha with New York a year ago

"The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling 16 years ago in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota reaffirmed that a corporation must have a "substantial nexus" with a state in order to be subject to its sales and use taxes. When corporations lack physical presence in a state and rely only on common-carrier contacts or the mail to reach its customers, those corporations do not fall under the requisite "substantial nexus." Nor does a corporation's mere licensing of software to customers in another state fall under this requirement. "

So why is this even being debated?

Here and google has a whole bunch of stories on the site and him here

If I was making 2.2 million dollars a year salary I would probably say exactly what my bosses wanted to hear, too.

The pharma industry? Hurting? When the pharma industry hurts, pigs will fly!

I'll certainly be on the lookout next time I step outdoors. Beware what you step over, version 2 might be delivered unannounced. I've complained about the pig spotters before: there are some people out there milking the jest-coma that the next version of Windows won't fit on a 1.5 TB disk drive. They'll finally shut up ... when their grandkids ask "What was Microsoft?" Maybe.

If you've been paying any attention at all, you'll realize that the drug discovery industry has arrived at the cusp of an unpleasant sea change: the old model of statistical epidemiology (and its cost structure) is failing, yet the new model, narrowly targeted drugs administered with diagnostic certainty (which I refer to etiology-based medicine) can't possibly work under the current regulatory regime.

Pricing life saving medicines (even a life with few innings left to save) is one of the most debated issues going, with voices weighing in at every conceivable price point short of "sex with your 12 year old daughter". Four years of tuition at a top school, however, lies within the realm debated. This was the subject matter on Econtalk recently, but not one of his better episodes, so I won't post the link.

The current FDA drug approval process operates at a price point one can only justify if the sales model is to add the drug to the water supply, e.g. your HDL is low, you might be at risk, you need to take Lipitor until pigs fly (aka a generic alternative materializes circa 2011).

Pfizer Wins Longer Life For Lipitor

Do drug companies fear the FDA? How would you like to be pulled over for missing a tick box on a 100 page licence application form and have your leased Ferrari immediately confiscated? Plus, you're a public company, so they grab your cell phone and Tweet this fact to everyone who has ever known you. And then you have to walk back to the office and write the incident up on your TPS form.

The small sticky labels have long been the bane of waste-conscious fruit and vegetable eaters ... No more peeling those annoying labels!

Those comments incited me to discover why Marge married Homer. She must have got herself seriously tittered by Jabba the Hutt to follow Homer back to the golf castle. Somewhere in that small mind of hers "No more peeling those annoying labels!" The woman has priorities.

[citation required]

For which part?

The sales figures can be found here: http://www.vgchartz.com/chartsindex.php

The anecdote about Monster Hunter Tri is here: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2007/10/10/afx4204151.html. 'Due to high development cost of titles for PS3, we have decided to switch the platform to which we release our Monster Hunster 3 title,' Capcom managing corporate officer Katsuhiko Ichii said.

I would have to agree that most millionaires make the money on their own. That being said, a look at the top ten in America shows that half of those people inherited their fortunes (the Waltons).

Gates, William H III
Buffett, Warren Edward
Allen, Paul Gardner
Walton, Helen R
Walton, S Robson
Walton, John T
Walton, Jim C
Walton, Alice L
Ellison, Lawrence Joseph
Ballmer, Steven Anthony

Detailed Forbes List

It is also interesting to note that the top two (Gates and Buffett) are pretty much double anyone even close to them.

If the Federal tax burden is the lowest level in three decades, how do you explain that projected receipts for 2009 are the highest ever recorded?

Because the population and the economy have grown.

Look at the same chart you cited and see the percentage of GDP that's taken up by taxes. That's your proper measure of the tax burden, because it allows for population growth, economic cycles, and inflation. It's the same index used by the Forbes index I cited previously, so don't even try to dismiss it as some sort of "handwaving".

Tax revenues as a percentage of GDP peaked at 20.9% in 1944 and in 2000. The 2009 estimate is 18.0%.

And no "Per capita" handwaving will cancel out the fact that we're paying more in taxes to the federal government than we ever have. Which is *precisely* what I stated.

It's not "handwaving" to look at the proper statistic.

Your claim was that higher marginal tax rates in the past were offset because "There were many, many deductions you could apply for", so that individually people paid less taxes back then. But if that were the case, the percentage of income going to taxes would be higher today. It's not. You're simply incorrect.

Also, you might want to act like people you disagree with have brains and perhaps valid points

I'm sure you have a brain. It just happens to be filled with misinformation. You have raised no valid points, and have made several statements that are counter-factual.

Now we're paying far more in taxes than we ever have

No, we are not, not in constant dollars per capita. I suggest you stop getting your tax information from the teabaggers.

Federal income tax burden is near its lowest level in three decades: the average American family pays about 9% of its income in income taxes. The peak was 12% in 1981. Meanwhile state and local tax burden per capita hasn't changed much, and is now slightly lower then its peak.

And Americans are, compared to almost every other industrialized nation, under-taxed. The only countries with comparable standards of living with lower tax burdens are Japan and Switzerland. (Nations with low defense spending that don't try to run empires...)

and we're trillions of dollars in debt.

Because conservatives have created the myth that taxes are too high, and so we cut taxes on the aristocracy -- shifting the burden to those who work for a living. Restore those taxes, end the pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we can start climbing out of the hole that decades of Republican borrow-and-spend policies have given us.

not made up, do some research please:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/11/worlds-richest-people-billionaires-2009-billionaires_land.html

and

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=480406&in_page_id=2

May be a good place to start. It was a Forbes article where I found the original stat although I can't find the actual article right now.

Good luck on your broadening your horizons.

Einstein is no. 9 on Forbes magazine's list of top-earning dead celebrities, nestled between Dr. Seuss and Michael Crichton.

Android's been getting a lot of tech press lately. I'm not sure who that press impacts - and while we're smarmy about the new Droid ad, I'm not sure who that's impacting either - the existing Android faithful or a new market.

Now Forbes - the darling of investors and managers - is telling that audience that a major defense contractor with an iconic American name in electronics has selected Android.

To top it off, the follow-on links given to Forbes readers are:

Motorola CEO Talks Android

Google's Android To Invade Homes

I think that this one story just did a lot to validate Android as mainstream-ready to corporate America - and that it's good for personal use, too (second tagged story alone).

Anyway - those are just my ideas. I don't really know what the inflection points for new tech-product demand are - I'm one of those clowns that tends to adopt any new tech as soon as reasonably practical - if not before.

Maybe I'm romanticizing - but I seem to recall a lot of stories about soldiers getting GPS units from home back in Desert Storm, sent by parents buying them from Radio Shack. I think that that really raised awareness and GPS units proliferated and prices dropped.

Android's been getting a lot of tech press lately. I'm not sure who that press impacts - and while we're smarmy about the new Droid ad, I'm not sure who that's impacting either - the existing Android faithful or a new market.

Now Forbes - the darling of investors and managers - is telling that audience that a major defense contractor with an iconic American name in electronics has selected Android.

To top it off, the follow-on links given to Forbes readers are:

Motorola CEO Talks Android

Google's Android To Invade Homes

I think that this one story just did a lot to validate Android as mainstream-ready to corporate America - and that it's good for personal use, too (second tagged story alone).

Anyway - those are just my ideas. I don't really know what the inflection points for new tech-product demand are - I'm one of those clowns that tends to adopt any new tech as soon as reasonably practical - if not before.

Maybe I'm romanticizing - but I seem to recall a lot of stories about soldiers getting GPS units from home back in Desert Storm, sent by parents buying them from Radio Shack. I think that that really raised awareness and GPS units proliferated and prices dropped.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/16/swine-flu-world-health-organization-pandemic-opinions-contributors-michael-fumento.html

Ah yes - please tell that to laborers in China or India, where such solutions don't exist.

I agreed with you up until here. Chinese and Indian laborer's lives have improved greatly since their markets have opened up. They each now have millions of millionaires as well as billionaires. Though more than 2 years old here's 2 lists of Greater China's 40 Richest and India's 40 Richest. On Fortune's List of billionaires for 2008 India has 56 and is tied with Germany.

You may think of working in one of China's factories as working in a sweat shop but Chinese compeat to get those jobs. After a few years working and saving money they can then have enough money to start their own business.

Falcon