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That's not the point I was making. First off, regular people who own stock don't have the enormous options and kickbacks that the executive class does. And secondly, real incomes are falling. We make up for this by working more, and working harder, to make the same money we were before. Does that seem right to you?

--grendel drago

They have to first overcome the problem that people like Google and don't like MS.

Why do geeks have such a hard time understanding that geeks are a *tiny subset* of the entire population. Are geeks really so ignorant to think, "Well, I think this way, so everybody else must, too"? What's up with that?

Regardless of why you and other geeks think this, you couldn't be more wrong.

I suggest that you and other geeks crawl out of your holes once in a while to see what the whole world is all about.

The Financial Times summarizes the event as a major victory for the bad guys (to make it short). Still, the summary given on FFII's page states that the definition of field of technology as the field of applied natural sciences (and not exact sciences) excludes clearly software patents.

Also, Rocard's phrasing was to characterize what is patentable vs. what is not by considering if it requires or not the use of natural forces. All the good guys (to make it short) seem to agree with that characterization.

Can someone explain why it is a "major blow" ? And more precisely what is patentable with natural sciences which is not with natural forces ?

The problem, as I see it, has many facets: 1) The music comanies start by perceiving everyone as a possible theif. Their general policies and actions have shown this.

2) a lot of people ARE, in fact, "stealing" "to stick it to the man." and who can blame them? Just by taking wide averages--say, $18/CD with about 20 songs, you're looking at about...a dollar a song. This includes packaging, literature, etc. Or, go to iTunes and spend...about a dollar a song. And they're (the music industry) still claims their prices should go up. Consistently.

I don't know about your neighborhood, but 'round here (Philly) the radio market sucks. There's no real variety, even with the stations that claim a "huge archive of music." What would YOU do?

Perhaps this cleaning of the administration is being done in order to facilitate a more military-centric NASA. There has been much speculation (see References) that the US military will begin to weaponize space. A NASA that is less interested in scientific discovery will of course be beneficial to the Pentagon, as they have the capabilities and know-how to design, implement, launch, maintain and control this upcoming space-based weaponry.

References: http://www.reuters.com/audi/newsArticle.jhtml?type =technologyNews&storyID=8522373
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a4a4e198-c8cf-11d9-87c9-0 0000e2511c8.html
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7896613/

I've "known" about it for years. But to back it up I provide these links:

Here

Here

Here

Here

and Here

Judging by the dates on these articles, I'd say at least since 2001, but I'd bet it was long before that.

IBM may be bigger (I dunno, and I'm not going to spend time now researching), but they're not a bigger "software" company. IBM does lots of different things - in fact their business goal since 2001 has been to shift focus to services.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9d46eeb0-c34c-11d9-abf1-0 0000e2511c8.html Downgrades ripple through industry So we can expect another upswing then another downturn: I hope your timing is better than mine!

The EP is pushing for the right changes, making it impossible to weasel patents through by using weasel words. We just have to hope they get them through.

Who cares? If you love your old XBOX games that much, just keep it and play your old XBOX games on it

But what happens when your original XBOX breaks, which seems to happen with certain XBOXes on a fairly regular basis. If you look at the article http://news.ft.com/cms/s/08fce29a-c334-11d9-abf1-0 0000e2511c8.html it seems that Nvidia has stopped making the original XBOX chips, and I would assume this would stop Microsoft from being able to continue manufacture the origional XBOX. While I know this isnt Microsoft's fault (may have something to MS going with ATI for the chipset this time around), that will definatly cut back on sales at least in part.

I dont think backwards compatiblity is used as much for people who owned the previous system. Its more likely a selling point for people who owned a different system (PS2, or GC) and would be able to play all the XBOX games they missed, as well as the XBOX 360 games at launch.

With US real wages fall at fastest rate in 14 years and unemployment for engineers above the national average it remains an outrage the the richest Americans are calling for lower pay for American workers and targeting tech workers for special competition from non-immigrant guest workers.

wrote this interesting piece on the subject.

Copyright and patent protection are like narcotics on a societal scale- useful and effective in small doses for limited times, but addictive and inducing delusional behavior if used for extended periods.

I don't know. Perhaps you can tell me what is wrong with these capitalists? http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ebd06b4a-ad4b-11d9-ad92-0 0000e2511c8.html

Because they got bought by Echostar (Dish Network) http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9269dc9c-a181-11d9-95e5-0 0000e2511c8.html/

Concerning the North's efforts to contain bird flu, the ROK has been asked to help/send assistance to the North. The threat of bird flu (H5N1) and the resulting destruction of an important food source does not bode well for the DPRK.

Perhaps the South's robot technology can lead to robots that can spray disinfectants in the big chicken farms the North Koreans have (or had). Humans have to wear protective suits to do that.

Check out what one scientist says about bird flu killing 1 billion people.

Hope North Korea gets the aid it needs to contain the virus for a while longer.

The US is sending testing kits needed to determine the scope of the problem.

Market value $57 billion

It's kind of hard to see that as "over extended".

Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract

Sites in the US typically sell tracks for 99 cents each. The wholesale price is currently 65 cents per track

The wholesale price of a track is thought to be around 65c, but the success of Apple's iTunes online music store, which to date has sold more than 200m songs and accounts for some 65% of the download market, has raised the eyebrows of music executives

In the United States, online stores typical sell music downloads for about 99c per track. The wholesale cost of these tracks (that the shops pay) is about 65c."

The majors are asking and getting about 65 cents per download from each 99 cent download from Apple

with Apple paying the record companies an average of 65cents per track...[from a FORTUNE article]

Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract

Sites in the US typically sell tracks for 99 cents each. The wholesale price is currently 65 cents per track

The wholesale price of a track is thought to be around 65c, but the success of Apple's iTunes online music store, which to date has sold more than 200m songs and accounts for some 65% of the download market, has raised the eyebrows of music executives

In the United States, online stores typical sell music downloads for about 99c per track. The wholesale cost of these tracks (that the shops pay) is about 65c."

The majors are asking and getting about 65 cents per download from each 99 cent download from Apple

with Apple paying the record companies an average of 65cents per track...[from a FORTUNE article]

Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract

Sites in the US typically sell tracks for 99 cents each. The wholesale price is currently 65 cents per track

The wholesale price of a track is thought to be around 65c, but the success of Apple's iTunes online music store, which to date has sold more than 200m songs and accounts for some 65% of the download market, has raised the eyebrows of music executives

In the United States, online stores typical sell music downloads for about 99c per track. The wholesale cost of these tracks (that the shops pay) is about 65c."

The majors are asking and getting about 65 cents per download from each 99 cent download from Apple

with Apple paying the record companies an average of 65cents per track...[from a FORTUNE article]

Apple gets 3 times as much money as musicians from each sale. Apple takes a 35% cut from every song and every album sold, a huge amount considering how little they have to do. Record labels receive the other 65% of each sale. Of this, major label artists will end up with only 8 to 14 cents per song, depending on their contract

Sites in the US typically sell tracks for 99 cents each. The wholesale price is currently 65 cents per track

The wholesale price of a track is thought to be around 65c, but the success of Apple's iTunes online music store, which to date has sold more than 200m songs and accounts for some 65% of the download market, has raised the eyebrows of music executives

In the United States, online stores typical sell music downloads for about 99c per track. The wholesale cost of these tracks (that the shops pay) is about 65c."

The majors are asking and getting about 65 cents per download from each 99 cent download from Apple

with Apple paying the record companies an average of 65cents per track...[from a FORTUNE article]

who investigated themselves and found themselves not-guilty for torture

the sad thing is all these abuses just increase the hate and distain for USA, make no mistake USA will pay for its crimes one way or another

but the world is safer right ?

I assume that BBC has a British, Anglo-centric bias, but that's clear and obvious. I like the US version of the Fiancial Times, just for general news. http://news.ft.com/home/us and I find the "financial" press gives the best coverage of political, non-financial news. The problem with (American) "corporate" news is that the bias isn't made clear, and its hard to untangle sponsorships and ownerships. I think I'd be more apt to watch NBC News if they called themselves "GE Vivendi Universal News," but I don't expect that to happen soon.

The first thing I did was think "yeah, this could be a really cool way to compare news bias..."

So I added two sections side by side: one from the UK "World News" section, and the other from the US "World News" section.

Top stories in the UK World News were

• Israeli troops kill Palestinian in raid; death may upset truce
• Gunmen kill two police chiefs and two other Iraqis in Baghdad

and yet neither story was mentioned on the US side. The top story in the US world news was:

• How the tide turned against Tung

Does this mean that as an advertising company, Google could be in danger of falling prey to the advertising pressures that rule the traditional US news media? Draw your own conclusions, I guess....

Sony continually goes up against competitors they can never win against. Apple has too strong of a hold on this market for Sony to even budge them. It's no surprise that they are 60 million in debt.

How will Martin Lukes react to this news??

For those who don't read the Financial Times, the Martin Lukes column is a horribly spot on satire of a man completely brainwashed with all that trendy business thinking. (Creovative, anyone?) He names his baby daughter after Carly Fiorina.

How will Martin Lukes react to this news??

For those who don't read the Financial Times, the Martin Lukes column is a horribly spot on satire of a man completely brainwashed with all that trendy business thinking. (Creovative, anyone?) He names his baby daughter after Carly Fiorina.

"While I regret the board and I have differences about how to execute HP's strategy, I respect their decision," Fiorina said a statement. "HP is a great company, and I wish all the people of HP much success in the future."

There have been other shakeups in personel at HP leading to speculation that there is something wrong. You have to wonder if all the animosity she accrued while making the HP/Compaq merger happen has finally been returned.

I've read the Economist quite a few times and I've almost always been disappointed in the quality of the reporting. IMNSHO, the best English language news publication is the Financial Times.

http://www.ft.com/

In similar news, "UK will match Gates vaccines cash" Article here

From the Financial Times,

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d4230280-6b53-11d9-9357-0 0000e2511c8.html

Governments had agreed a compromise version of the law more than six months ago, but Poland subsequently refused formally to sign it.

But a Brussels-based Polish official said yesterday Warsaw was now prepared to back the legislation, though Poland would issue a declaration detailing its concerns over the draft law.

So, does this mean that HP are no longer good guys?

Remember the "starter cartridges" being the exact same as regular cartridges, just half-filled?

If you want to know who is to blame for this latest piece of BS, the guy's name is Vyomesh Joshi http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f7f94b56-68f6-11d9-9183-0 0000e2511c8.html,
or for the lazy:

Vyomesh Joshi has been widely praised for boosting earnings at Hewlett- Packard's highly profitable printing unit. Now the rising star will try his hand at the struggling personal computer division.

Last week HP said it would combine its printing unit with its PC division, giving Mr Joshi, 50, control of its two most consumer-focused businesses as the $80bn-a-year company pushes to become a provider of digital home electronics gear.

> Hint: WMD was one of several reasons, and not the top one.

Guess that's why Powell played it down when he presented the case to the UN, huh.

> The report stated that Saddam had a complete bioweapons infrastructure in place and ready to ramp up to full production within a 6 month period.

What the Administration likes to forget to tell you is that practically any nation in the world could start producing bioweapons within six months.

> Knowing now just how rotten and corrupt the oil for food program was, it was only a short matter of time before Saddam was once again cranking out bioweapons.

Another alternative would have been to crack down on the corruption rather than ignoring it.

The Bush Administration has been trying to put an anti-UN spin on the scandal, but it's about to kick them in the balls.

Well in South Korea Matsushita is not loved, since they just brought down some of their patent portfolio weight on a competitor (LG). S Korea responded with banning Matsushita products from being sold after LG complained that Matsushita's product infringed on their S Korean Patents. A brief news article

Just goes to show you that even the best companies are still competitors, and will use their patents to their advantadge.

Nowadays we're on our way to 1 Euro equaling 1.5 dollars [...] and (no surprise) again the US stupidos are laughing

I would call you a moron straight up, but it would be sarcasm through the tears, since I myself am not happy with the situation, which I will correctly describe to you below.

The "US stupidos" might not be so stupid, unfortunately. A weak dollar (while making their Walmart-sold imported goods expensive) is making the debts cheap for the U.S. For a simple reason: because the dollar-denominated debt (government bonds mainly) nominally stays the same (plus of course interest). The debt is however a burden on the side of those who are being owed - non-US-currency-based economies. The U.S. government owes to those who hold the U.S. government bonds (the bonds are sold by the government whenever it needs to finance its activities, examples: war, budget incompetency/deficit, project, ...).

The current major holders of U.S. government bonds are foreign banks (mainly central banks like the European Central Bank or the Chinese, Japanese and other equivalents of a central bank).

The dollar being weaker and weaker, their holdings for which they paid big money at the time (let's say a bond for 100 Euro) are becoming worth less and less (75, 50, ... and less Euro). Essentially, everyone is watching the dollars in their hands become a more and more useless comodity that eventually no one will be interested in holding. The central banks are already diversifying, but the game is becoming "the later you jump out of the wagon, the more screwed you will get" and possible solutions are few.

By the way, your comment about who is paying less for oil products, Europe or the U.S. (it is the U.S. in case you didn't know) has nothing to do with this discussion.

Its already having implications.

Who's paying for this delay in government progress toward freedom from terrorist-loving oil producers? The US taxpayer, that's who. In the mean time, GM and DMC have gotten with the program and decided to produce hybrid drivetrains, and most if not all hybrid systems can be adapted to become partially grid-powered plug-in hybrids with the addition of bigger batteries, different energy-management algorithms and a charging system. Such cars would not require wiring beyond a standard extension cord until their all-electric range got upwards of 30 miles, while even short all-electric range could eliminate an enormous fraction of motor fuel consumption.

In other words, industry is about to do incrementally what the current administration appears to be trying to prevent by demanding all-or-nothing leaps.

Considering the age of the planet, versus the age of the Human species, it will. Oil takes several tens of millions of years to form while under great pressures while the human species has only been on this earth for maybe 3 million years. Millions of years from now, oil will renew its self, and chances are heavily in favor of an extinction event occuring some time before them regarding the human race. So yes, petrolium will eventually renew, and will outlast the human race, because we will not be inhabiting the planet to extract the oil.

If you are reffering to the current oil reserves, (which I assume you are), then it is almost inevitable the impact on the human species due to inadequate oil supplies will take hold. Ranges on the peak date vary somewhat, with 2007 being the earliest generally accepted date. The USGS predicts peak extraction will occur around 2025, and this is considered a "best case" scenario. One only needs to look at previous data to confirm that M. King Hubbert was correct in his 1970 peak extraction date for the contidental United States. The CIA also performed a study in 1977 regarding the upcoming Soviet Oil Crisis (doc ER 77-10147). Interesting to note is the fact that this report was not declassified until January 29, 2001 even though the USSR had collapsed almost 10 years earlier.

Peak Oil is a well known phenomenon, only this time, it is taking place on a global scale, and not only on a reigonal basis. Due in part to the lack of sufficient energy, the Soviet Union no longer exists. The United States also outspending the USSR also contrubuted significantly to thier collapse. This situation is also being repeated with OPEC reducing the amount of funds held in USD in favor of the Euro and Pound Sterling, as well as Japan threatening a "Huge Dollar Sell Off". Enjoy the good times while they last, for they may not last long.

And here's Financial Time's story.

It's interesting to note that Lenovo will move its HQ from beijing to New York and its current president will be chair while IBM's PC division head will be the new CEO.

I just hope these drugs taste like Flintstone vitamins, with the "fun" effects of MDMA, and the cool look of smiley faces (tongue hanging out :P).

Napster creator unveils new company Any Coincidence ?

indication of very thing I mention above

Google rules out becoming a net portal.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3d077db6-25ff-11d9-81d9-0 0000e2511c8.html/

Nothing worse than ruining the speculation wars with facts.

One widely rumoured defence against Microsoft has been a Google web browser potentially countering the software giant's ability to embed its own search engine into its operating system.
"We are not building a browser," Mr Schmidt said.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7bf16ffe-25f1-11d9-81d9-0 0000e2511c8.html

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/7bf16ffe-25f1-11d9-81d9-0 0000e2511c8.html/

Of course, if non-US citizens could vote, it's pretty clear what the result would be...

Any sequels to the LOTR will surely piss off many, many fans (of the books and movies). On the other hand if The Hobbit gets made that will please many, many fans. Let's just hope that Time Warner is successful in its bid to purchase MGM Studios who owns part of the movie rights to The Hobbit.

fixed the link for you

So this is where "Dumb American" finds its roots... Sadly, I'm an American (or more correctly, a US citizen).

Actually,yes. Compare the volume of books in your local bookstore today with that of a standard bookstore 30 years ago. Do you think it's possible to have such an increase in volume based on typewriter technology? In fact, any idiot can write and publish a book today. In fact, although not everyone is Dante, it is becoming harder for good writers to gain recognition because most people end up buying crap Tom Clancy books. Hence the death of literature. So the same paradigm applies to your example too.

= 9J =

Let me turn now to chemical weapons (CW). In searching for retained stocks of chemical munitions, ISG has had to contend with the almost unbelievable scale of Iraq's conventional weapons armory, which dwarfs by orders of magnitude the physical size of any conceivable stock of chemical weapons.

For example, there are approximately 130 known Iraqi Ammunition Storage Points (ASP), many of which exceed 50 square miles in size and hold an estimated 600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ordinance. Of these 130 ASPs, approximately 120 still remain unexamined.

As Iraqi practice was not to mark much of their chemical ordinance and to store it at the same ASPs that held conventional rounds, the size of the required search effort is enormous.