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I picked gold because it's a material most are likely to be familiar with. But it really doesn't matter what element you pick - there isn't one single element who terrestrial price isn't a small fraction of what it would cost to haul out of orbit, let alone mine it on the moon. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.
That is changing RIGHT NOW thanks to China.
When a company does a fraction of these actions, it leads to monopoly charges against them. When a nation does this, it leads to wars.

Rare Earth is interesting in that only VERY SMALL AMOUNTS are needed. VERY SMALL AMOUNTS. For example, the prius uses 2 KG. Western Missiles use only grams. BUT, you will go NOWHERE without these elements esp. if China DOES establish the strangle hold that they are working hard towards.

Ah yes, the penultimate argument - I simply am not imagining hard enough. Well, in that you are utterly and completely wrong, I can imagine just fine. What I don't do is confuse imagination with the real world.
Oddly, I was not thinking of you. I was thinking of world leaders. BUT, I do have to say that I believe that you have blinders on. You speak of the costs of various things TODAY. Yet you ignore the history of discovering new places by nations. For example, China explored all the way up to the southern tip of South Africa and subsequently colonized all of Africa and Europe. Right? Likewise, the Vikings colonized all of Greenland and the Americas since they 'discovered' it first. Right? Nope. Both were by done by entities that said that we do not need this now and withdrew. In fact, the Chinese explorers hit the southern edge of Africa and were ordered back by their emperors. The world would be vastly different today had they allowed support for such exploration for just another 2 years. This world would have been colonized by China, and that means all of Europe. As it is, Europe is the one that did all the conquering and created the world that we have today.

I'm sorry but that's just crap. New pilots, sure, they make less, but on *AVERAGE* the pay is around $70k. http://www.avjobs.com/salaries-wages-pay/pilot-pay.asp

Yeah, GP is full of BS. No stats, just single anecdotal sob stories. From a list of overpaid jobs:

9) Major airline pilots

While American and United pilots recently took pay cuts, senior captains earn as much as $250,000 a year at Delta, and their counterparts at other major airlines still earn about $150,000 to $215,000 - several times pilot pay at regional carriers - for a job that technology has made almost fully automated.

By comparison, senior pilots make up to 40 percent less at low-fare carriers like Jet Blue and Southwest, though some enjoy favorable perks like stock options. That helps explain why their employers are profitable while several of the majors are still teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

The pilot's unions are the most powerful in the industry. They demand premium pay as if still in the glory days of long-gone Pan Am and TWA, rather than the cutthroat, deregulated market of under-$200 coast-to-coast roundtrips. In what amounts to a per-passenger commission, the larger the plane, the more they earn - even though it takes little more skill to pilot a jumbo jet. It's as much the airplane mechanics who hold our fate in their hands.

The mechanics are the ones that really get the short end of the stick. But they don't have expensive schooling.

You should pay more attention ;-) Here's a couple I've unearthed with very little digging : "Is the iPhone a Failure? Maybe!", "The iPhone is a Beta Product", "iPhony - Why Apple's new cell phone isn't really revolutionary", "Why the iPhone is a ripoff", "THE LONG VIEW: Why the iPhone will fail", "iPhone Fever: Not Everyone Buys the Hype", "Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone" and "Apple iPhone Doomed To Failure -- Windows Mobile 7 Plans For 2009 Leaked"

It's easy to point and laugh now, except that all those people are still making predictions as analysts.

In my opinion, the long-term return on NSF spending is orders of magnitude greater than what we'll get back on military, entitlement, or even NIH spending.

Not to mention the bailouts. This suggests that the government blew five times the NSF's annual budget (of $6 billion) on propping up GM. (Of course, it's really hard to tabulate how much a handout they got. Some of it is low-interest loans, which have to be valued relative to the market price of GM bonds, some of it is a loan that's instantly forgiven, etc.)

And that's a drop in the bucket compared to the financial industry...

What could possibly go wrong?

http://www.marketwatch.com/m/story/25fdbe85-c490-42a4-9fea-50984f155661/0

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10474750/1/obamas-it-guru-returns-to-work.html

Microsoft has done a very consistent job of managing the Zune. That management got it where it is today, and I see this revelation as being consistent with all the previous management decisions.

And where it is today is right at 2% market share (fifth paragraph from the bottom).

We, in the US, can't do it. Money alone isn't enough. We don't have the technical expertise anymore

We're not any dumber now than we were 40 years ago. The fact is, that the Space Age is over. It ended sometime in the early 70s. There isn't a country in the world with a surplus of young aerospace engineers, since aerospace just isn't cool anymore.

, and brainpower is getting more difficult to import/adapt, as we are no longer the leader of the free world,

While I might agree that brainpower is becoming more difficult to import, it's certainly not because "we are no longer the leader of the free world." Who is the current leader of the free world? Austria? The loss of appeal of staying in the US has much more to do with the rising economic standards of the developing world, and the current state of the US economy.

but possibly have one of the more oppressive regimes amongst the technically advanced nations.

Obviously, the US is as oppressive as China.

Creative minds are attracted to freedom.

People are attracted to money. Creative or otherwise.

Every penny is ultra important anymore. We no longer have things like Bell Labs, we can't justify Bell Labs anymore on mere financial terms. What's money got to do with it? Unfortunately, everything. We can no longer afford space programs, because we can't afford taxes, car, life, health insurance and credit card fees. And regulation requiring even more mandatory insurance fees is imminent.

US taxes are among the lowest in the industrialized world. Leaving health insurance to the "free market" has resulted in such cost savings, that we spend 15.3% of GDP on healthcare (second in the world), and is estimated to reach 19.5 percent of GDP by 2017.

It's gonna be Japanese(expertise, freedom of creativity)

JAXA? That agency that doesn't even have any capability, nor plans, for manned space flight; let alone "massive space stations". Given the culture is biased towards conformity in Japan, your "freedom of creativity" seems to be based solely on flickr photos of Harajuku.

and Chinese(resources, chinese-wall-building-like stamina, centrally focused government of the ancient Egyptian type) only in space

Wow. Right out of the Onion's Our Dumb Century's headline, "Will the Steam Engine Replace the China-Man?"

Nice to see that you left out the Indians.

But do we really care these days for space stations?

No. We stopped caring after the international pissing contest that was the Cold War ended.

The energy problem is more crucial.

Bingo. So why waste time with "massive space stations?" That was soooo last century.

But we no longer have backyards of Oberlin to figure it out,

Your fetish of the lone amateur scientist, toiling away in his garage, until he alone solves the world's Great Problem is -- to put it delicately -- absurd. You are describing the world of the 19th century. A world where advances in basic science were done with an optical microscope. A world where we knew almost nothing of how the basic laws of the universe worked. Those days are thankfully long gone. You might as well be lamenting the fact that an uneducated goat herder can't make advances in modern math with only two rocks and a compass.

and even if we do, people are too busy working too jobs to make ends meet and don't have the time anymore for it. Look at houses built in the US in the 1890-1920 period, and the decorations on them. Compare ones built in 1960-2000. Who had free time on their hands, and extra

I'm pretty sure Take Two is doing just fine, even considering this.

Think again.

Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. said Tuesday that it swung to a loss for its third fiscal quarter as video-game sales fell sharply from the year-ago period, which benefited from the company's blockbuster "Grand Theft Auto" franchise.
For the period ended July 31, Take-Two reported a net loss of $55.5 million, or 72 cents a share, compared with earnings of $51.8 million, or 67 cents a share, for the same period last year.
Revenue fell 68% to $138.6 million.
  Take-Two Interactive swings to a loss for third quarter
[Sept 1]

There is nothing much new or exciting in the pipeline. Borderlands

My intention was not to defend CEO pay, my argument was against the notion that this CEO pay has a direct effect on the quality of games produced. If you take a look at EA, for example, their CEO makes ~680K/year in actual salary (which is probably about 10x what a typically underpaid game developer makes) http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/erts/execpay.

With EA revenues at 4.2 billion (http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/erts/financials), is the commenter seriously suggesting that the executive compensation detracts from game quality? If so, I disagree.

Furthermore, I argued the fact that game companies make money is a good thing. EA (again, as the most conspicuous example) takes that revenue and reinvests it. If you take a look at EA net earnings, they suck. Always have... in fact, I'd never buy the stock because it's a terrible company to own. They generate a lot of gross, but reinvest so much in their business that the owners just keep losing money - that's why the stock isn't worth buying. But their products (yeah, OMGz EA is evil) are good and advancing gameplay in general.

So my bottom line point to the kiddies is (and I honestly don't know why I waste the typing or effort, because I usually just end up talking to a rational adult, like I suspect I am now) don't bitch about games or products in general being made just so "people can shove more money in their pockets", not only do they make money only because they're advancing tech, but in reality, they're not making much money at all.

Here's the text of the judgment if your curious:

Link

The exclusions are at the bottom.

A year from now, I predict 'The Shack' will be liquidating assets under Chapter 11. Anyone wanna take that bet? It would be smarter than buying Radio Shack stock.

Bad prediction. Against all odds and logic, the company is reasonably profitable.

No better argument for paid support than news like this. Fortune 500 companies don't suddenly stop answering the phone.

Being on the S&P 500 index doesn't make you a Fortune 500 company.

No better argument for paid support than news like this. Fortune 500 companies don't suddenly stop answering the phone.

Being on the S&P 500 index doesn't make you a Fortune 500 company.

No better argument for paid support than news like this. Fortune 500 companies don't suddenly stop answering the phone.

Not that CentOS isn't a boon to RHT. But you can bet quite a few IT managers are having some heart burn this morning.

just wrong.

Objecting because nuclear power is dirty is wrong? Objecting because nuclear power is "Hooked On Subsidies" and is not profitable without those subsidies is wrong? Objecting because cost overruns quadruple the cost of building plants is just wrong?

Falcon

Cost overruns are just the result of sloppy accounting, not some overall problem with the business of Nuclear Power Plant construction.

As for you oft-claimed "Hooked on Subsidies" argument, I would say that any business would be crazy *not* too take free money being handed it. However, Nuclear Power has always been at a disadvantage simply because the *total* cost of burning Coal has never been factored into the argument.

Once the environmental impact of burning coal *is* factored in (which, under the new "Cap and Trade" bill currently under consideration, that is *PRECISELY* what will happen), Nuclear can stand straight and tall on it's own too feet because not one of the over 100 Nuclear Plants currently in operation (and the *SEVEN* NEW ones that have been ordered that you conveniently forgot to mention) produce anything but steam and hot water as a byproduct.

No CO2, no Mercury, and no *radioactive* fly-ash (I'm puzzled as too why anti-nuclear zealots leave out the fact that the World's Coal Power Plants release HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of times *MORE* radioactivity every day than all the Nuclear Power Plants AND Nuclear Weapons ever built or detonated).

Long term effects are irrelevant. They want this for soldiers (as in, those who will be dropping the bombs and operating in contaminated territory). See who is funding this research.

The entire point of the Velocity of money is counting the total number of times the money changes hands.

This is a flaw in economic theory, or is a belief in an ideal market. It ignores friction and debt maintenance, and assumes that every transaction involves positive wealth creation. That is not the case in our advertising-driven, buy-more-and-put-it-in-storage economy. Transactions which do not satisfy wants create negative wealth and in our position even the good ones increase the debt maintenance nut. We are spending ourselves into oblivion because we are stuck on the belief that maximizing the number of transactions eliminates the need to live within our means. It is endemic in public and private spending, and gushes from the politicians talking about "freeing up credit" for more inefficient spending even as our public and private debt combined approach 400% of GDP(*) -- 25% higher than in the great depression -- and advertising psychologists create "want it, need it, get it" viral memes to induce impulse spending on big ticket items (cars in that case).

The velocity of money math is sound, as long as you factor all the variables. But when you accept it in its laboratory form, it is as effective as a perpetual motion machine, particularly given our severely damaged economy, crippling debt load, and spendthrift culture.

* http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cost-of-soaring-private-and-public-debt

Because we're not talking about DC transmission...[DC] transmission is actually much cheaper/more efficient than AC for long hauls.

Doesn't change the fact that it's still absurdly expensive. Yet again, much better to put that money into nuclear.

Whether energy comes from coal, nuclear power, solar, or wind those transmission lines still have to do upgraded. If you're going to add the cost of doing so to wind you have to add it to nuclear as well. It's absolutely absurd you count the cost against wind but not nuclear power.

As usual, the hip-and-green crowd gets modded up without proving a thing.

As usual, nuclear power proponents don't prove a thing either. Now I will say something about nuclear power, and provide links to back it up. Nuclear power is not profitable, it is "Hooked on Subsidies". Not even in China, France, India, or Russia is it cost effective:
"How do France (and India, China and Russia) build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Governmental officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Nuclear power appeals to state planners, not market actors."
Meanwhile cost overruns are high and "it would be cheaper for the U.S. to instead focus on energy efficiency and alternative sources such as wind and solar."

Falcon

just wrong.

Objecting because nuclear power is dirty is wrong? Objecting because nuclear power is "Hooked On Subsidies" and is not profitable without those subsidies is wrong? Objecting because cost overruns quadruple the cost of building plants is just wrong?

Falcon

Actually the estimate is a couple of trillion lost on sub-prime once the dust finally settles, about another trillion in losses still due on ARMs as they reset, and something less than that on the commercial real estate market. 1/2 trillion up in smoke in Iraq didn't help any though.

"Like every company in the free space, your lifecycle has come to its conclusion. Don't fight it. Admit it. Profit from it."

As I point out occasionally, that's definitely true of social networks, which have a short life cycle of coolness, like nightclubs. It's less true of useful services, like PayPal or eTrade. (eTrade got into trouble because they got into home equity loans as a side business. One of the headaches of running a financial business is keeping the guys who want to do "big deals" with company assets under control.)

eBay is an especially good example, because 1) it has a real revenue model, and 2) there's a strong network effect in having one big auction market rather than many little ones. It's going to be tough for someone to knock off eBay. Many have tried and failed.

Unless your GE :)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ge-to-say-no-to-new-business-in-iran-report

But is it practical? It seems like people are perfectly fine dismissing "clean" coal (aka carbon sequestration) as a pipe dream, technology doesn't exist, etc., and then turning around and throwing scheme's like these out there as perfectly reasonable.

Last I read there's not one "clean coal" plant in production. But there are a number of both solar and wind farms in production. Do you recall the rolling blackouts in CA in 2000? What most people do not know is that there was an idle wind farm that could have been contributing more than 200 megawatts of electricity but wasn't.

Falcon

The cost of free trade will be playing out over the next few years, but was started years ago.

It is really about a race to the bottom via who will work for less, and who will work sweatshop
hours for ppl that run the companies that make idiotic decisions like they did during the DOT COM daze.

These new to the game ppl in India will also suffer once the US companies have canned all the
US workers who WERE the #1 customers of these US companies.

They will see what a tangled web has been woven, much like the tangled
threads of the international finance thieves that sent trillions into oblivion.

Customers with no job tend to spend less, holy cow who would have thought !

The US was the largest economy in the world, but then it sold out most of it textiles
and manufacturing jobs to 3rd world countries like India.

Companies in India do not follow our labor laws, but yet they are attached to US companies
as proxies and do work for customers within the US, so that is a loophole.

If India had to pay the same licenses, fees, taxes, ad naseum that US corps did
things would be a bit different.

With an unlevel playing field these talking heads can spout their rhetoric, but once
it all comes falling down due to 100's of trillions in derivatives tanking then his
high and mighty attitude will have to descend down to the mere mortal's world.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/derivatives-are-the-new-ticking-time-bomb

Buffett warned of this 7 years ago, and other sane folks tried bu have been
ignored by the same empty suits that make statements like this bozo in India.

An upgrade can cost as much as nepotism will allow in a
system that is filled with cronyism and corruption.

What we have is a race to loot as much as can be looted
while the ship has not yet sank beneath the waves.

We have several 100 trillion in derivatives looming in
the distance that damn few will even write about in the media.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/derivatives-are-the-new-ticking-time-bomb

We have The Fed printing 9 Trillion and handing it out, but when
asked where it went they respond "I don't know".

http://www.drudge.com/news/121850/fed-inspector-general-claims-9-trillion

Poof the magic fairies ran off with it and now the american
tax payer is in debt for it even though we forgot to write
it down, aren't you glad we are not your accountant ?

The payroll system could prolly be replaced with a canned solution
by numerous vendors, or an open source one that is already available
could be scaled up with the help of some post grad students.

Like the giant ponzimonium that is about to be unleashed it is
is just another of the many thefts thru corruption that are
running amok.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/20/news/economy/fraud_ponzi.reut/index.htm

We have yet to see this mess really unspool.

GLD is the main gold ETF, and it holds physical gold in a vault. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/surging-gold-etf-holds-more-metal-than-some-governments?siteid=yhoof

You are right, like any successful company, Microsoft doesn't boast its losses. Regardless of what PR they shout, Microsoft has a history of "winning" software battles with their profits, stocks, and assets providing substance behind this claim. Until recently Microsoft have had quite a good track record.

GameStop is 14% of their sales. GameStop is projecting weaker future sales.

Yeah or the EC has decided they want more money. Hmm, our coffers are looking a little low, I know lets sue MS again, hmm which product to chose ..

Actually, it wasn't the EU who initiated this case. Opera, backed by Mozilla, Google, and others, got the EU to investigate what they argued were actions that violated antitrust law.

While I don't always agree with MS's practices, having a competition hearing at a time when the regional experts are unavailable is stupid.

Actually, none of the people Microsoft claimed to be worried about not attending never attend these hearings anyway. Hearings are usually attended by staff level personell in the first place. The hearing would also be attended by the European Commissioner for Competition.

I think a reasonable request has been turned down for political reasons.

A reasonable request for something no one else gets granted. Right. You are buying into Microsoft's bullshit.

Instead of blindly believing Microsoft's lies, check out the comments by Thomas Vinje and commission spokesman Jonathan Todd. It turns out that Microsoft is just lying and stalling, probably hoping for the current competition commissioner to retire later this year and have a more Microsoft-friendly person appointed.

"J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley led the bond sale."

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-announces-first-ever-bond-offering

Sure, you can buy pieces on the secondary market. But that's true of just about anything.

Microsoft is in business to make as much money as possible. They do this by breaking the law and abusing the monopolistic hold they have on the OS market. It most certainly IS some nefarious move by Microsoft orchestrated to increase their profits. To think otherwise is naive.

Sounds like they need the money. Microsoft borrowing money...who woulda thought?

Do you understand that it's a long, painful death for all newspapers right now? And that includes all those newspapers whose web sites are free to the public (the New York Times almost closed the Boston Globe last week!).

Murdoch - who has built a multi-billion empire from a start in newspapers - may actually understand the newspaper business better than you do. My guess is that he is counting on most newspapers to go out of business. The advertising model is simply not profitable enough to support most newspapers. Once the news industry has shaken down to far fewer sources of information, then a hybrid subscription + advertising model actually becomes quite plausible again. You have a few sources doing real investigative journalism (in the US, let's say that we are left with four daily newspapers - the Washington Post, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times) and those who care about the news subscribe to one of the four of them on their Kindles. Subscription costs can be lower, because: A) Newsprint makes up 20% of newspaper costs; B) They will gain subscribers at the cost of their defunct local competitors and their readers who used to use their free sites, and spread the fixed reporting costs across far more subscribers.

Seriously, once the Boston Globe goes out of business, are all the people in Boston who are used to reading the newspaper every day going to stop reading the news? Or are they going to find another newspaper to read? And when there are only 4 major newspapers, will those 4 still feed into the AP to provide free news through Internet feeds? Or will they decide to control their own business model?

if you can estimate manufacturing costs and sales, you can get a good idea of Amazon's revenue and costs - this is important if you are interested in investing in AMZN

Or you could.. you know.. just look up their revenue and costs.

You're ultimately correct that the loan is not a bailout for Tesla, but I wanted to add a few clarifying points (which make Tesla look even better):

Much of the bailout for the Big Three was also in the form of loans. Where Tesla differs, however, is that Tesla actually has a chance of paying it back, while it's pure fantasy to believe GM and Chrysler could do the same. The former's bonds are currently yielding 220% or thereabouts, meaning investors place a HUGE risk discount on loaning to GM. In contrast, Tesla's biggest "problem" is keeping up with demand.

Moreover, whatever the pretense of the "loans", including the one allegedly to help "retool" for more energy efficient cars, the fact of the matter is that the money for the Big Three is really going to pay off legacy costs that they were too stupid and short-sighted to plan for, *not* to improving technology, and especially not when you consider how close to collapse they are.

Now, in fairness, I don't think the government should be making these loans at all. (To the extent that the environment is a problem, that should be addressed by pricing environmental costs into fossil fuels, and then let the market do whatever's efficient given that price premium.) However, *if* it's going to make these loans, they should go to companies that have a realistic chance of accomplishing the stated goals of the loans. And so far, Tesla has been far more efficient at it, and has no legacy costs to pay off.

No, Geitner actually put forward a plan (starting with financials) that would allow the government to label companies as 'too big to fail' and then take them over at will. Doesn't matter if they took bailout money or not.

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/27/1256231&art_pos=3

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from MarketWatch:
"A one-megaton nuclear bomb detonated 250 miles over Kansas could cripple many modern electronic devices and systems in the continental US and take out the power grid for a long time. ... A solar storm similar to the one that occurred in 1859, which shorted out telegraph wires in the United States and Europe, could wreak havoc on electrical systems. Each of the above scenarios can create a powerful electromagnetic pulse that overloads electronic devices and systems.
IAN staff and Frostburg State University physics and engineering professor Hilkat Soysal are teaming — through a $165,000 project recently approved by the Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program — to create renewable energy-powered, electromagnetic pulse (EMP)-protected microgrids that could provide electricity for critical infrastructure facilities in the event of a disaster."

Also available are an EMP threat assessment (PDF) written for the US Congress and an estimate of economic impact (PDF).

Uh, does anyone else find it a bit suspect that this is from a site called Apple Insider? For me that completely ruins the credibility of this story. I mean, any smartphone is miles less dull than the generic clamshells and candybars that the telcos keep pushing.

The Apple Insider article and the Slashdot summary also linked here:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/dell-phone-stalled-poor-reception/story.aspx?guid={E1450208-5E11-4A8F-B726-85A6AFF04E2A}

These guys make forecasts based on new projects coming on-line as well as past behavior and geopolitical concerns. According to them, oil production peaked in 2008. The former peak was 2005 but due to the energy crisis, oil producers manage to squeeze a little bit more production out. Based on the number of new projects coming on-line and their projected size, they won't balance out known rates of depletion of existing fields for the foreseeable future. We're in a lull right now in the energy market because the economy is ruined (which probably was helped by high oil prices), but energy prices will come back up.

Incidentally, what we're seeing now is very similar to what happened with the price of the last portable fuel we used before petroleum oil: whale oil (which is renewable if harvested in low enough quantities). There were massive oscillations in price that started just after the production of whale oil production peaked in 1845 when the whales started being hunted faster than they could reproduce. The great-grand-parent is totally wrong about the peak being in the future, it's here now and we all have to deal with that. The real question now is how long production can be sustained at this level and how soon will it decline?

By not trying to move onto new energy sources, Shell is resigning itself to becoming a two-bit company. You'd think they would have learned their lesson in 2004 when they had to downgrade their reserve estimates, but I guess not. I wouldn't buy stock in them.

Dvorak seems to think otherwise...

"I've been playing with one of many new systems that are hitting the market which allow the user to quickly boot the machine and go directly to a small version of Linux rather than wait to load Windows."

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Microsoft-business-model-over/story.aspx?guid={4C81119F-100F-4D73-95AD-80424E949DC1}

Cheers
-P@

I tend to take Warren Buffett's explanation as a fairly
likely cause too.

They took massive amounts of debt and hid it on the
UNREGULATED OTC market so the SEC could not do its job.

The top link is Buffet's take on it, and the 2nd link
below is another man's more in depth explanation into
the shell game that took place.

If you read this, make sure you are sitting and not
drinking anything.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/derivatives-new-ticking-time-bomb/story.aspx?guid={B9E54A5D-4796-4D0D-AC9E-D9124B59D436}&print=true&dist=printTop

http://theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/The_Quadrillion_Dollar_Powder_Keg_Waiting_To_Blow

http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=msft&sid=0&o_symb=msft&freq=2&time=20

Here in the US it's going to take the money of a large corporation to get the phone FCC type approved. I doubt it is much better elsewhere.

Actually, no approval is needed to build your own cellphone. Just the desire to innovate.

Even if you get past that the carriers won't touch it. They want to charge you for each program you install, each ringtone you download etc... Then they want to charge it again when you upgrade to a new phone. They won't let your open phone on their network.

Verizon, at least, has no choice but to let you enjoin their service. I'm sure they can still charge you an arm and a leg, and you may still have to run VOIP.

Even ignoring the C Block spectrum, it seems most providers have no qualms with you running your own devices on their service, as long as you pay them for it.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/microsoft-profit-boosted-vista-office/story.aspx?guid={46D585CE-B7D5-4F18-A19F-7EA2202FC200}

So it doesn't have 2008 year-long profits listed outright, but you can see they are talking ~$15 billion revenue per quarter and ~$15 billion profit per year.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/amd-10-bagger-pick-2009/story.aspx?guid=D82F39D6-90CC-442A-AECF-FC1C7CE9BD1C&dist=SecMostCommented Which means he thinks the stock could sell for $20 in 2009 (10x current share price, which was ~2 when the article was written). I'm not saying this is a realistic prediction (I hope it is since I'm a shareholder), but just goes to show how meaningless these stupid predictions are. Just like this summer when nearly everyone was predicting $200+/barrel oil.

How true ...

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/derivatives-new-ticking-time-bomb/story.aspx?guid={B9E54A5D-4796-4D0D-AC9E-D9124B59D436}

They want an excuse to close down the US plants and shift
it all overseas.

The shifting of labor overseas, and importing Visa workers
has been going on for decades.

Some of it is for truly brilliant ppl, some of it is for cheaper
labor for the mega-corps.

The long term result of eliminating jobs for US citizens is
the US citizens will not be able to afford the ever rising
taxes, fuel costs, insurance, and health care.

It will hit critical mass if the US automakers fail and
the credit default swap derivatives hidden on the OTC tank to
the tune of 100's of trillions of dollars.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/derivatives-new-ticking-time-bomb/story.aspx?guid={B9E54A5D-4796-4D0D-AC9E-D9124B59D436}

It's funny that is from March and damn near no one knows about it.

Regardless, Good Luck to you all !

But I thought most of the scientific community and the FLOSS guys were ANTI DRM? Isn't it true you have NO access to the GPU at all and only a limited access to the cell to stop "teh evil piratez!" and enforce Sony DRM? And if the Cell is really that wonderful why wouldn't you simply add a few cells to your x86/CUDA cluster and have a supercomputer capable of doing it all? And since the above cell fits into a 1x or 4x PCIe slot, you could simply add more as required or budgeting allows. So the only advantage I can see for Cell is for making a super cheapo cluster.

But if you are pushing the kind of data that needs a super computer anyway I'm sure there are grants and endowments that will help you get the hardware required for your research if you don't already have the money. And with the above solution you have 1)complete control of the hardware 2)The ability to scale the existing units by adding more CPUs/cells/GPUs, and finally 3) The ability to do several kinds of research as your cluster wouldn't need to be tied to the subset of calculations that the cell outperforms on. Oh and lets us not forget gigabit ethernet to tie it all together to help keep the cluster well fed.

So am I missing something here? Or is all this cell talk just because you can pick them up for cheap at Wally World? And since Sony loses serious money on PS3 sales wouldn't a big uptick in those using the PS3 for research seriously damage the company, who last I heard is already bleeding pretty bad?

You need to keep up on the news. Madoff's niece is a lawyer for his firm, and she's married to an SEC investigator.

That's not evidence of corruption. Conflict of interest maybe but absent additional facts that is not sufficient grounds to level a charge of corruption. The SEC has plenty of investigators and their real problem is that they lack the funding and manpower to seriously fulfill their job of regulating financial institutions. Furthermore the SEC has freely admitted they dropped the ball and that so far there is no evidence of malfeasance by any SEC employee. Furthermore the husband of the niece in question left the agency in 2006. If you can point me to a news article illustrating that there is any clear evidence that this niece unduly influenced investigative proceedings then I will gladly concede the issue.

Just because someone could potentially act unethically doesn't automatically imply that they did in fact act unethically. I know it makes for a nice conspiracy theory but let's get some actual evidence first shall we?

the recession just knocked the bottom out from under the copper market. copper stocks, mining companies and futures are all way down lately and so bad they made the news today.

- "We don't believe we're going to have a recession though." [Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/08]
- "I think the experts will tell you we're not in a recession." [President Bush, 2/10/08]
- "The answer is, I don't think we are in a recession right now." [Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear, 2/11/08]
- "First of all, we're not in a recession." [President Bush, 4/22/08]
- "The data are pretty clear that we are not in a recession." [Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Edward Lazear, 5/7/08]
- "I don't think we are" in a recession. [Director of the National Economic Council Keith Hennesy, 6/3/08]
- "I think we have avoided a recession." [White House Budget Director Jim Nussle, 7/31/08]
- "I don't think anybody could tell you right now if we're in a recession or not" [Dana Perino, 10/7/08]