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I mean, they're already increasing the "parallel efficiency" of their human workforce.

Servers of the world, unite!

The link as provided above seems to get stuck in a microsoft passport redirector for me. That might be because I'm super-paranoid and I've disabled cookies, referrer ID, and lots of javascript, but it's certainly a tracking link that pushes through Microsoft's servers for that exclusive reason.

You're better off clicking on http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10532858?source=most_viewed instead.

A lot of the GDP growth was influenced by inflated real estate prices. Budgets at the state and local level were planned around asset wealth which didn't exist then and doesn't exist now. Calculated Risk: California City Nears Bankruptcy and a follow up article.

Again, I already proposed a metric for desirability and economic well-being: housing prices.

Nobody thought you were serious because, well:

• Markets with the biggest drop since peak.
• 68% drop in 1 year in Santa Ana
• California foreclosures at 15-year peak.
• Median price in Valley dives 19% from last year.

Oh? You want to cherry pick your markets? How about these: Merced, CA down 46% from peak. Vallejo, CA down 29%. Salinas, CA down 34%. Modesto, CA down 39.5%. Stockton, CA down 40%. San Francisco down 15%.

To compare a cherry picked market: New York, average price downtown up 10% from last year. Median price in the Village up 63% from last year. Also, NYC Home Prices Outpace Rest of Country as Avg Prices Continue to Rise.

How about you compare the number of businesses leaving the various states. That might be a good idea. Then again, maybe not.

Sorry if there any errors, or omissions, I am trying to be accurate. A lot has happend in a little over a week.

The following takes place between July 29th and August 7th:

August 07, 2008:
Judge rejects student visa injunction sought by H-1B opponents
Tech workers don't have standing to fight Bush administration visa move
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9111963

August 07, 2008:
Jobless claims surge to highest level in 6 years
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/07/news/economy/jobless_benefits.ap/index.htm?cnn=yes

August 06, 2008:
Bureau of Labor Statistics reports big drop in tech jobs
Almost 50,000 IT positions lost in last 12 months
http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/07/news/economy/jobless_benefits.ap/index.htm?cnn=yes

Aug 06,2008:
Yet another visa, this one allows 5000 Koreans to work in the USA each year
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200808/200808060014.html

August 06, 2008:
Apple sued over treatment of it's tech workers
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/08/06/apple-gets-sued-indentured

August 05, 2008:
Bogus diploma ring busted
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-diploma-mill-04-aug04,0,2164133.story

August 03, 2008:
July marks seventh consecutive month of job loses
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/46146.html

August 02, 2008:
Sun to cut between 1000 to 2500 jobs
http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/08/01/sun-us-tech-market-wont-shine-soon/

August 01, 2008:
Gartner's grim IT hiring outlook
http://blogs.zdnet.com/careers/?p=140

August 01, 2008:
Feds charges man for H1-B fraud
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_visa01.47edb3e.html#

Jul 31, 2008:
More than 3.7 million Americans had full-time jobs chopped to part time
the largest figure since the government began tracking such data more than half a century ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/business/economy/31jobs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

July 31, 2008:
Layoffs set for 22,000 California state workers
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_10046324

July 30, 2008:
WTO Doha talks collapse
India's backdoor attempt to allow more H-1Bs into the USA failed, for now
http://www.economicpopulist.org/?q=content/why-you-should-be-thrilled-wto-doha-talks-collapsed

July 30, 2008:
NY gov slashes spending; state said in "recession"
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN3032764920080730?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

July 30, 2008:
China trade has cost 2.3 million U.S. jobs
http://www.reuters.com/article/politic

I think what Arnold wants to do is a crock

It's a question of whether the government of California even has the authority to pay people. The law in California, as ruled by the Supreme Court of California, seems to require what the Governor has ordered, and what the Controller is refusing to do:

Though the 69-page Supreme Court decision [in White v. Davis] addressed many legal arguments, its conclusion was unequivocal. "State law does not authorize the controller to disburse state funds to employees until an applicable appropriation" - a state budget - "has been enacted," the court stated. Once a budget is in place, the employees must receive back pay. And to comply with federal law, the court added, during a budget impasse the state must pay hourly workers the federal minimum wage and those who work overtime time-and-a-half pay.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10005275?nclick_check=1

you must have missed it, the supreme court overturned a handgun ban in DC, they've for the first time ever upheld the right to bear arms.

http://www.mercurynews.com/southbaybaseball/ci_9712109

so just cap those mofos handguns are legal, do the world a favor.

In short, this guy signed an "Exclusivity" contract. Apparently that's different from a "Non-compete", though how in the world that's possible is beyond me.

Perhaps someone other than the IANAL types can educate me here. But, in short, if this one holds up, you can bet that you're going to see Exclusivity Contracts start popping up among software and hardware designers, instead of just doll designers.

Twitter does have its uses though. Being able to blog from your mobile is pretty useful sometimes...

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9105166

Firefighters are just glad your're OK, even if you are a gorked out dumbass.

My hope for true justice includes someone claiming rights to everything Daryl owns, requiring him to spend huge amounts of money defending his assets in court. I'd say someone should take credit for something Daryl created, but it's pretty clear that he isn't likely to create anything worth claiming rights to.

Not true says this columnist from the San Jose Mercury News. http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8888078?nclick_check=1

More often than you think.

And that's just with a few minutes searching google.

It isn't MySpace's fault that it attracts young teenagers and with them, the predators that prey on them, but this is a real problem. It isn't a technical problem, but a social problem and needs to be treated as such.

Actually, there was an article in the San Jose Mercury News today about PG&E rolling out smart meters. If you consider $2.3 billion / 10.3 million meters installed, that's about $220 per household.

Every time the Wii shortage comes up on the dot, there are people who say they are easy to get. And maybe in certain locales that is true. But when even my local paper notices people hanging out at stores, following the UPS guy and such - I think it is safe to say that these little suckers are difficult to attain in many places. Reggie Fils Aimes has publicly said they wont meet demand through the holidays. And I don't think he'd be saying that if there were any chance of them ramping up production any further.

Where else but China can we get lead toys for our kids? How else can we outsource pollution to a nation which believes it's its right to release carbon to make stuff for us? And what better than having all that junk shipped to us by fume-belching ships?

Seriously, ending trade with China would most likely do more to cut particulate pollution (25% of LA's comes from China), and cut global warming from coal burning. Sure, there'd be short-term disruption of American corporate manufacturing patterns. But what we've learned in the process of outsourcing industries to China is how to build new factories quickly. We could use that knowledge again here.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071205/ap_on_sc/climate_scientists;_ylt=A0WTcU0kAVdHLooAVRes0NUE

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_7641232?source=most_viewed&nclick_check=1

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071205/ap_on_re_us/severe_weather;_ylt=A0WTcU0kAVdHLooABxes0NUE

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071205/ap_on_re_as/bali_climate_conference;_ylt=A0WTcU0kAVdHLooA7xas0NUE

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/12/03/us.debt.ap/index.html

http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying

consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without any distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives), whilst badtolling unprecedented evile, using an unlimited supply of newclear power, since/until forever. see you there?

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

I'm a very social person, and like interaction with people.

Possible intended link.

Don't list an outrageous price for a laptop

There's a laptop for sale today in the FRY's ads section for the L.A. Times today that had one listed for $499
Vista Home Premium
Dual Core
1 GB Ram
http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com/ROP/ads.aspx?advid=32664&adid=5374238&subid=18622826&type=

I don't know if you have been following the market the last year or so, but you can get 2GB sticks now for $50 and I have seen the 2GB ones for laptops for $80.

In this Mercury News interview with Reggie Fils-Aime he pretty much gaurantees that they still wont meet demand for the holidays. Here's the nugget:

We're working very hard to make sure that consumers are satisfied this holiday, but I can't guarantee that we're going to meet demand. As a matter of fact, I can tell you on the record we won't.

I guess I'm going to have to start trolling target, walmart and such on a regular basis.

The Xbox 360 failure rate in Australia during the initial launch period was about 30%, according to retailers, so your numbers sound about right.

You might also enjoy this "enlightening" interview with Todd Holmdahl, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Gaming and Xbox Products Group.
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/06/a_qa_with_todd_holmdahl_the_hardware_guy_at_microsoft_about_xbox_360_failures.html

May your wish come true: PC+LCD for $450 - $50 rebate. 1GB DDR2, 120GB HD, DVD-RW, kbd/mouse, 17" monitor...
It even comes with Vista, so for a really sweet deal you "just" need to manage to get some money back from M$ by returning the OS. :)

Actually, the California ruling came about as the result of the Contra Costa Times suing the City of Oakland.

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_6732431

as a percentage of GDP. And maybe that's why, after cutting 10 divisions during the Clinton years, we don't have enough troops to win a prolonged war.

Percentage of GDP is irrelevant. How does a bigger GDP imply we need a bigger military?

And we had enough troops to easily win the wars against the Taliban's Afghanistan and Saddam's Iraq. We don't have enough troops to turn either nation into a instant peaceful democracy, any more than we have enough gasoline to put out the latest forest fires - you can never have enough of a tool that does the opposite of your goal. Every day we occupy Iraq, we might as well be printing recruitment posters for Al Qaeda.

In the early 1960s the Department of Defense constituted 45 percent of federal spending, whereas this year it will constitute an estimated 17 percent, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

Except that that's wrong. When you add in war spending (not accounted for in the budget), veteran's health and retirement benefits, and interest on debt accrued for defense spending, annual military spending makes about about a trillion dollars.

Funny how all of you lefties want to cut the things the Constitution actually requires the government to do, not the preposterous entitlements that are not mentioned in the Constitution, and are bankrupting America.

Funny how all of you righties want to lump several very different things under the rubric of "entitlements: support to the elderly and disabled in the form of Social Security and Medicare; the veteran's and military benefits that should be rightly understood as part of defense spending; other federal retirement spending; and support to poor people. We can only meaningfully deal with reform when these are understood individually.

Really?

Interesting I've only known one person who bought an iPod. The CTO at a local e-commerce company. Everybody else seems to still be demanding crackberries.

Dude wtf are you talking about? The iPhone has been selling in record numbers and by all metrics was the best selling smartphone in July.

The total number of iPhones sold in July was below that of the pace needed to meet Apple's target of selling 1 million phones by the end of September, acknowledged Greg Sheppard, iSuppli's chief development officer.

"It's a pretty darn successful product, but (its sales are) probably lower than what everyone else is expecting it to be," Sheppard said.

Oh that explains it. You're just bitter because you're locked into a T-Mobile contract and don't want to pay an early termination fee for the sexy iPhone.

As I pointed out the last time someone posted that link, that's only true on Amazon.com. If you look at US-wide statistics, you'll find the Xbox 360 outselling the PS3 by over 2:1. (NDP figures for the first half of 2007)

Amazon.com is an outlier.

By the way, the "five exclusives" is wrong, it counts Mass Effect twice.

Actually you need to also thank the congressmaen that have whored themselves out to these companies and produced the farm bill

No it wasn't.

The first British edition of "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone" had a print run of 500-1000 copies. First edition of `Philosopher's Stone' snags $18,000 at auction [June 26, 2007]

That a book that is relatively new would fetch such large amounts is unprecedented, said Luke Battenham, Bonham's book specialist.
"The author is still alive, it's a fairly new series . . . but by the time there was a third book, you could already see it would be a hit," Battenham said. "It's a phenomenon."

Under which scenario are you MORE likely to write a new book/album?

How many authors and musicians remain a significant creative force after fourteen years? How many who do remain productive have benefited from having an independent income?

It is not the young and hungry Spielberg of Duel who gets to produce Schindler's List.

Because they are not doing it out of good will but for damage control (e.g., to avoid class action). Plus, it makes it known that they were bullshitting when they repeatedly claimed that the 360 doesn't have a higher than normal defect rate

As for warranties, I'd much rather have a 15 month warranty on a product with about a 1 percent defect rate than a 3 year warranty on one that has a defect rate that is somewhere less than 50 percent.

What did customers expect? Fool me once... It's both the customer's and Apple's fault for this one. Customers (including my girlfriend) has consistent bad service and customer service from Cingular (now ATT). It's confirmed in so many news articles. It must be some pretty big kickbacks from ATT that convinced Apple to work with them despite Apple knowing about impending customer service problems. Do you think a company that big (Apple) wouldn't research that beforehand and decide to look away, distance themselves from their carrier while going after the bigger margin? Duh..that's how business works. By buying this phone we are voting with our dollar saying...yeah we want more of this...subscribe and support this lousy service more! http://blogs.mercurynews.com/consumeractionline/20 05/06/worst_cell_phon.html http://www.epinions.com/content_277319683716

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/06/a_qa_with _todd_holmdahl_the_hardware_guy_at_microsoft_about _xbox_360_failures.html

Actually, per a recent court decision, no, they can't. http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_6063897 For which, ironically, we can thank Dick "Go fuck yourself" Cheney...

The new policy was put in place after a January 2003 broadcast of the Golden Globes awards show by NBC when U2 lead singer Bono said an expletive before the word "brilliant." The FCC said the "F-word" in any context "inherently has a sexual connotation" and can trigger enforcement.

...

In a statement, Martin said: "It is the New York court, not the commission, that is divorced from reality in concluding that the word `f---' does not invoke a sexual connotation."

the worst example that comes to mind is the 'frys javascript nightmare/hell page'. aka, their online ads.

try this url:

http://newspaperads.mercurynews.com/ROP/ads.aspx?a dvid=32664

takes forever to load (even on fast connection) and just really slows FF down noticeably.

hit page-up and page-down to see slow scrolling.

worse, use the thumbwheel in any 5btn mouse, give it a few spins and sit and wait until FF catches up.

The story has more info and content than the CNN acticle.

Well then I probably shouldn't tell you about the X2 AM2 6000+ retail CPU complete with K8M890-M motherboard at Arbeit Macht Fry's for $230 then?

Not too shabby.
Let's see what it would cost for me to build a system like that and throw on Linux instead:
Retail X2 3800+ CPU & ECS GeForce6100SM-M motherboard (onboard GF6100): $90.
2 GB Kingston PC5300 DDR2 RAM (after $40 MIR): $100.
Maxtor 160 GB Serial ATA/300 hard drive: $40.
Geforce 7600 GT video card with 256 MB RAM: $110.
Samsung 18X DVD-RW: $30.
Apevia X-QPack-NW-AL MicroATX case with 420W power supply (after shipping & $10 MIR): $86.
Total: $556 plus tax, $607 total after $50 MIRs.

I guess the extra $93 is the Microsoft tax. Of course the system I describe comes with twice as much RAM and good quality onboard graphics for those wanting Xinerama Beryl dual-monitor goodness, plus a slick little case, probably much smaller and handier than what you ended up with. Since I'm not a gamer I'd save a little money and stick with the onboard graphics or maybe add a Geforce 6100 for $40 instead if I wanted dual monitors.

Quote: "I'm the biggest money whore in the world,' Osbourne told me. "I love it. But it's time to stop."

She said greed was killing the concert business, and the bubble was about to burst, as it did in the music industry.

The record companies need to think out of the box regarding CD sales as well, not claim that they're underpriced...

Why is a man being sentenced to 101 years for spamming?

Goodin is scheduled to be sentenced June 11.

Market researcher David Cole, who runs the firm DFC Intelligence, says his best estimate is that 40 percent of U.S. households own a working video-game console.

link

Census Info

The facts are that there are approximately 100 Million households in the us, of which 40% own a working console ...

Now the PS2 has sold about 42 Million systems, the Gamecube has sold about 12 Million systems and the XBox sold about 16 Million systems in North America of which the bulk was in the United states. As a rough guestimate, I would expect 1/3 to 1/2 of all household which have consoles to have multiple systems; being that this represents a userbase approximately equal to the Gamecube or the XBox I would assume that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo would try to ensure that their platform was the dominant choice for these gamers.

Envy? Somewhere between 30,000 and 600,000 dead -- by population percentage, somwhere between 100 and 2,000 9/11s -- and you think the Iranians and Syrians are *envying* them? How long did it take you to create this little world you live in?

"Ask an Iraqi what American troops are fighting for in Iraq, and the answer likely will be: not for me.

No matter the politics of the respondent, recent interviews with 19 Iraqis, both Shiite and Sunni Muslims, found almost no one who thought the Americans were fighting for them. Only ethnic Kurds, who have established a largely autonomous region in Iraq's north, were willing to say that American troops serve their interests.

Public opinion surveys over the years have shown growing Iraqi discontent with the American presence. The most recent, released in September by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a group affiliated with the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, found that seven of 10 Iraqis want U.S.-led forces to withdraw within a year. In the same survey, 78 percent said the U.S. presence provokes more conflict than it prevents; 84 percent said they had little or no confidence in the U.S military.

But the unwillingness of Iraqis to say that the Americans were fighting specifically for them underscores how confusing U.S. policy has become in Iraq's complicated political environment of competing sects, ethnic groups, tribes, militias, interest groups and leaders."

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/15924376.htm

As for Clinton, he pitched a near perfect game in Serbia/Kosovo, and that area is in tolerable shape. I was a bit leery of his motives there myself, but I gotta give the man props for waging a war so effectively from start to finish.

The stock market closed on a new record high today (November, 8, 2006). Granted, most reasonable (i.e., not media) observers already knew the likely outcome of the election yesterday and so much of recent gains have been that taken into account. So yesterday was just gravy. But as the desired outcome is approached it has the effect one would expect on the market -- the markets have risen to record highs the past three days. Hallelujah, Democrats!!

From The Mercury News:

'It wasn't anything radioactive,' San Jose Fire Capt. Guerrero said.

Radioactive? If someone sets off a radioactive bomb, that's one PO'd customer. Paypal'd rather shut down its operations!!