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Maybe they're just trying to ruin their return on equity (ROE), which currently is an unspectacular 16%.

If they were following Microsoft's playbook, they might be trying to avoid expensive acquisitions so that their highly profitable company could achieve a very respectable ROE of 30%. Most of Microsoft's bad investments are organic, not acquisitions, e.g. Bing. In fact, I can't remember the last time Microsoft shelled out even a measly billion dollars for an acquisition. Losing money organically is really smart - much cheaper than losing it through acquisitions.

Then again, maybe Google is just trying to catch down with Facebook's not-so-great ROE of 8%. Facebook sets the gold standard for corporations who pay too much for acquisition.

Maybe they're just trying to ruin their return on equity (ROE), which currently is an unspectacular 16%.

If they were following Microsoft's playbook, they might be trying to avoid expensive acquisitions so that their highly profitable company could achieve a very respectable ROE of 30%. Most of Microsoft's bad investments are organic, not acquisitions, e.g. Bing. In fact, I can't remember the last time Microsoft shelled out even a measly billion dollars for an acquisition. Losing money organically is really smart - much cheaper than losing it through acquisitions.

Then again, maybe Google is just trying to catch down with Facebook's not-so-great ROE of 8%. Facebook sets the gold standard for corporations who pay too much for acquisition.

Maybe they're just trying to ruin their return on equity (ROE), which currently is an unspectacular 16%.

If they were following Microsoft's playbook, they might be trying to avoid expensive acquisitions so that their highly profitable company could achieve a very respectable ROE of 30%. Most of Microsoft's bad investments are organic, not acquisitions, e.g. Bing. In fact, I can't remember the last time Microsoft shelled out even a measly billion dollars for an acquisition. Losing money organically is really smart - much cheaper than losing it through acquisitions.

Then again, maybe Google is just trying to catch down with Facebook's not-so-great ROE of 8%. Facebook sets the gold standard for corporations who pay too much for acquisition.

We have a Nest and love it. The only problem I had until now was the lousy central humidifier support.
Even with the recent cold snap here when temperatures 'as cold as Mars' our Nest never failed to start the furnace.

From TFA:

The researchers surveyed 410 patients between the ages of 18 and 65, two thirds of them male, all of whom had a psychotic episode and were admitted to in-patient psychiatric units.

I'm not a statisticianololgist, but passing out surveys to psychotic people in a mental hospital doesn't seem to me to be the best way to gather accurate data for a study.

This study's major flaw is that the researchers needed 10 more patients to pass the threshold for statistical relevance.

From TFA:

The researchers surveyed 410 patients between the ages of 18 and 65, two thirds of them male, all of whom had a psychotic episode and were admitted to in-patient psychiatric units.

I'm not a statisticianololgist, but passing out surveys to psychotic people in a mental hospital doesn't seem to me to be the best way to gather accurate data for a study.

You can't tell the difference between Yahoo, Bing, and Google. I'm ignoring everything you said now.

OK, I'll bite. What exactly is the difference between Yahoo and Bing? ;-)

Regarding Google, have you ever taken the Bing Test? I have, and the results didn't show any clear preference for me. In fact, I think my minor perceived preference for Google mostly has to do with its simple clean interface, that is, its cosmetics. There's a reason that Yahoo has been systematically updating its cosmetics: people respond to that, whether they realize it or not.

Anyway, even if you do objectively prefer Google for search, that doesn't mean that, for example, their finance feature is better. Specifically, although I really like Google's stock screener, I haven't found anything to beat Yahoo's "Key Statistics" page for that stock metrics. For Yahoo, for example, I can look at that and determine in seconds that it's significantly overvalued.

There still are a few things they do well. For example, their Finance feature is among the best in class of financial information (IMHO).

Except that their charts show the price of the stock/fund without adjusting for dividends, i.e. there is no way to graph "adjusted price" or "growth of a $1000 investment." So, when a mutual fund makes a big capital gain payout, which has no economic significance (they hand you a check for $X per share and the share price drops by $X), the chart shows a big dip. If you try to chart two securities together to compare them it is totally misleading because of the economically meaningless dips when there is a dividend or capital gain payout. They have the data to do this right, it is displayed as the "Adj Close" in the "historical prices" table, but they don't make it available in the charts. When they've been doing something that dumb for over a decade in spite of complaints, how can you trust anything they do?

OK, I'll bite. There still are a few things they do well. For example, their Finance feature is among the best in class of financial information (IMHO).

I began using their email system as a POP server years ago, mainly because I thought the spam filtering worked very well. At some point, they changed their system so that you had to use their address as the reply address, so I began using that rather than my website's forwarding address. Although that should have alienated me and made me go elsewhere, I stuck with them, so now people are used to replying to the Yahoo address and it's hard to switch to something else.

I used to use their "classic" (old-fashioned) mail but they forced me and everyone else out of that last year. So, I got used to the new email interface and even generally like it now, but the performance problems still are inexcusable. For example, I sent one email several times the other day after their system said it had failed to send it, then multiple copies of it appeared in my "Sent" list. So, did it go out or not? - who knows?

Their longstanding "Groups" system still has some attractive features. I tried to find a replacement for it recently for an email list I've run for several years, and I couldn't find any similar free and ready-made (no installation) email group service that allows users to subscribe themselves.

There seems to be a theme lately of Yahoo changing the cosmetics of their system as often as possible. However, they don't seem to understand that users don't want change unless there is a clear benefit to them. And users also don't want continuous change - they need time to digest each new thing that's foisted on them. Yahoo also seems to be disregarding the impact all these changes have on system performance. Even after tolerating senseless change, I'm just about ready to abandon their email due to its increasingly poor performance.

I find their search to be OK, though I'm not particularly loyal to it. Honestly, I can't tell much difference between Yahoo/Bing search and Google, so I just use whichever one comes up in the browser I happen to be using. However, my perception is that Google is very slightly better.

Overall, the challenge for Yahoo is to modernize their systems after years of neglect, while retaining the things that people like about them (in my case: finance, spam filtering, and groups), without impacting quality in terms of performance and security. They might get to the Promised Land one day, but there's a lot of desert to cross first.

Even though it's Yahoo, I checked it out, and with adblock it looks much like a windows 8 screen. It was very visual, and some of the pictures were intriguing, like the 12 foot ramen noodles sculpture.

Not just him. Go to that website:
http://www.yahoo.com/tech/?ref=news

It's wall-to-wall crap and ads. Literally wall-to-wall. It fills the page with graphics slammed up touching to each other. Up-down-left-right.

It's what you would get if a douchbag spec'ed out a site.

>> Silicon Valley-based Morta Security has been operating in "stealth mode," meaning it has not disclosed much information about itself in order to avoid alerting competitors about a product or other activity.

From here

my parents had a dog that could tell when my brother (diabetic) had low blood sugar. They had three dogs at that time and one of them would bark in the middle of the night if he was low. He could somehow tell while sleeping in their bedroom that he was having trouble from across the house. My guess is that his scent changed and the dog was especially sensitive to it, but that is pure speculation on my part.

Not being argumentative here -- was is the same dog that barked all of the time? Maybe one detected it, alerting another who then actually alerted you? (Doesn't matter, I know.) More to the point: dogs have accurate noses, but how fast does smell travel? (One, two, three, four.) I presume it was quiet at night; it could also have been sounds that the dogs were hearing (breathing, coughing, slight moaning, whatever.) No way to test and doesn't really matter; I'm just glad you had a dog that would alert you of the problem. I've heard stories of dogs "acting strangely" and somehow alert their owners before a heart attack or other critical events, so not unheard of. And we're a chemical machine; it makes sense that we'd give off odd smells if things are going badly. My dog tells me of the critical problem that he thinks his stomach is almost empty -- but I think he learned that from the cat. Not nearly as impressive as yours.

Sorry I had meant to specify that it was the same dog every time. The other dogs did not seem to notice the difference, even though they slept closer to his room. The three dogs slept in different rooms, though this sometimes happened during the day when they were wandering around the house as well. After he alerted, if you opened the door to let that particular dog out, he would run to my brother's door and bark outside of it until someone went in to check on him. My current dog definitely does not do anything of that nature. She can definitely tell when I am not feeling well, though. Normally she is the neediest dog on the planet. When I am sick, she just lays at my feet and tries not to bother me. That is probably just her reading my body language, though.

my parents had a dog that could tell when my brother (diabetic) had low blood sugar. They had three dogs at that time and one of them would bark in the middle of the night if he was low. He could somehow tell while sleeping in their bedroom that he was having trouble from across the house. My guess is that his scent changed and the dog was especially sensitive to it, but that is pure speculation on my part.

Not being argumentative here -- was is the same dog that barked all of the time? Maybe one detected it, alerting another who then actually alerted you? (Doesn't matter, I know.) More to the point: dogs have accurate noses, but how fast does smell travel? (One, two, three, four.) I presume it was quiet at night; it could also have been sounds that the dogs were hearing (breathing, coughing, slight moaning, whatever.)

No way to test and doesn't really matter; I'm just glad you had a dog that would alert you of the problem. I've heard stories of dogs "acting strangely" and somehow alert their owners before a heart attack or other critical events, so not unheard of. And we're a chemical machine; it makes sense that we'd give off odd smells if things are going badly.

My dog tells me of the critical problem that he thinks his stomach is almost empty -- but I think he learned that from the cat. Not nearly as impressive as yours.

Because destroying what looks like decorative bamboo to an untrained eye is not anywhere close to what you described.

JFK customs inspectors removed and smashed eleven handmade flutes (or thirteen, according to some stories). That's not the level of destruction that should ever be allowed without multiple sign-offs by supervisors and speaking to the owner of those items to determine whether the items fall into one of the many, many exceptions to U.S. import laws (which they did). Anything less than that level of care clearly crosses the line into gross criminal negligence territory.

Do you really think a clarinet or violin would be seized and destroyed based on one story of decorative bamboo?

This same airport, back in 2006, seized and destroyed a grand piano valued at over two hundred thousand dollars and severely damaged a second one. This is not just a single story. U.S. Customs has a long history of destroying things.

1. Antarctic Global Warming Expedition Ship Trapped in Sea Ice. You may have heard about the Russian vessel trapped 100 miles away from land in 10 feet thick ice in Antarctica and how three ice breakers have failed to rescue it. What you may not have heard is this ship is filled with Climate Scientists studying Global Warming. They are comparing data from 100 years ago when there was no sea ice in the same location.

2. Yachts Trapped in Sea Ice in the Arctic Last Summer. You probably didnt hear about all the yachts, sailboats, rowboats, and kayaks that got trapped by sea ice while trying to sail the fabled Northwest Passage. They were promised an ice free passage.

3. Global Sea Ice at Record Levels. Al Gore and John Kerry 5 years ago predicted that 2013 would be ice free in the arctic. You probably havent heard that the exact opposite came true. 2013 is currently at the second highest volume of sea ice ever recorded and will probably break the all time record before the season is over.

4. Half of Meteorologists Dont Believe in Global Warming. Nearly half of meteorologists and atmospheric science experts donâ(TM)t believe that human activities are the driving force behind global warming, according to a survey by the American Meteorological Society.

5. Only 75 Climate Scientists Believe in Global Warming. You probably have heard ad nauseum that 97% percent of Climate Scientists believe in global warming. That stat was based on a study which counted only 75 of 77 Climate Scientists. Compared to the over 31,000 scientists who have signed a petition saying they dont believe in Global Warming. Thats only 2.3 in 1,000 or .23% of scientists that actually believe in Global Warming.

6. NASA caught fudging historical temps to make it look like the globe is warming. By massively cooling the past in their recent graphs, NASA has exaggerated the amount of warming they report by nearly twice as much as they did 13 years ago.

7. Polar Bear Population at Record Levels. Since we've been keeping count the Polar Bear population is estimated at a record high of 20k to 25k. 5,000 are expected to be born around the New Year in Russia alone.

8. Obama Allows Wind Farms to Kill Eagles Without Penalties. Over 50 years ago the green movement started with the book Silent Spring which alleged that DDT was killing the Bald Eagle. Now we have come full circle by allowing wind power companies to kill eagles without penalty because its good for the planet.

9. The Oceans Arent Rising. Remember in 2009 when the officials of the Maldives held a press conference under water to show that their islands were sinking because of global warming. Well a new study do

Haven't heard of any US agencies using Zersetzung yet.

No? You haven't been paying attention... Lots on this, the majority of the media on the other hand have simply ignored it especially the left leaning media.

That's sort of a misinterpretation of what's really happening. It sounds terribly alarming until if you follow the links and references.
See: http://news.yahoo.com/does-constitution-free-zone-really-exist-america-195813138.html

Google did this - search was popular, reached critical mass, then started doing lots of other things, and now no-one would say they will disappear.

I will say it. They will disappear when something newer and shinier catches people's interest. People said the same thing about Yahoo! and Altavista too - they were too big to ever disappear. Where are they now?

Funny you should ask Search atavista, click on the link, and up comes a Yahoo search window. Go to http://www.yahoo.com/ and up pops a strikingly active looking web page for your "Where are they now?" question. The answer is "Pretty much where it's always been.

It's something I've noticed in a lot of slashdotters. Unless a business is number 1, it somehow doesn't exist. Yahoo such as it is, has branched out into sports, with it's own ESPN'ish people. It has subcategories like entertainment, food, health, and other stuff. It has a very active groups section. And as a search engine, it's actually better than Google in many respects. I used to use Google a lot, until my searches just brought up sites that figured out how to game Google, and the first page of links were just other business search engines, that often had what I was looking for only in the meta crap.

Amnestied Russian punk band pair criticize Putin after release
http://news.yahoo.com/russian-punk-band-member-alyokhina-released-jail-russia-054642530.html

I'm no rocket scientist, but perhaps this is just what we need to fix the moon orbit expansion problem.

Then I suspect the people in the companies you work with aren't particularly observant or thoughtful.

Does Canada do signals intelligence and internet spying? Yes. In fact there was a scandalous revelation a few weeks ago about Canadian spying on Brazil. Does Britain do signals intelligence and internet spying? Yes. Does Australia do signals intelligence and internet spying? Yes. New Zealand? Yes. France? Yes. Sweden? Yes. Germany? Yes. Italy? Yes. Norway? Yes. Netherlands? Yes. Spain? Yes. Russia? Yes. China? Yes. .... N

Canadian Police Arrest Man on Trying to Spy for China
Snowden documents show depth of Canadian spy agency amid ‘misinformation’ fears

You are also incorrect when you refer to "unchecked spying without oversight," that certainly isn't true.

The simple fact is in the competitive business world, people will milk this for all that it is worth. They will do so both to persuade clients, and explain failure of sales. Most of the time it is likely there will be little truth to it.

Grippen won because it was inexpensive to buy and operate, a great, highly capable aircraft, and the business terms were friendly. It is as simple as that.

Just an FYI, sellers of houses have offered to accept Bitcoin on at least a couple newsworthy occasions:

- http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/developer-sell-house-bitcoin-020107308.html
- http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2013/03/alberta-man-accepting-bitcoins-in-exchange-for-home.html

A far cry from denominating mortgages, but still, it's something.

Shares of General Motors Company (GM) hit new 52-week high of $33.77 on May 17, which is above its previous level of $32.44 as well as the Initial Public Offering (:IPO) price of $33.00 (held in Nov 2010) for the first time since May 4, 2011.

The government could have sold then and turned a profit (or at least a capital gain).

They chose to wait and sell after the share price had gone back down again, and to not wait and see if it went back up in the future.

GM had no control over those actions.

I'm sure many others who bought at the IPO have sold their shares at various times since then, and taken the then-going price.

If they did so at a loss, GM doesn't owe them anything, and if they did so at a profit, they don't owe GM anything.

For instance, some of the cables from Apple. I don't know if they can be 'upgraded' or programmed, but they can be counterfeited with malicious additional 'features' (and who better to slip one in than an employee?). This was even discussed previously on Slashdot. Yay?

This is one thing where I don't criticize the NSA. It's certain they know things we don't. The question is, "What do they know?"

Which has already proven to be less harmful to the USA than when the DNC rammed Obamacare (is that "racist") through, without even reading it ("must vote for it, to see what is in it"). So far, Oregon spend 300 million to enroll 44 people, good FUCKING use of tax dollars.

And, just to remind you, Hillary, and Company supported the wars. And saying she didn't know GWB was lying, that is just remember, her Husband was President and knew all about Saddam and OBL, so she SHOULD have known. But then again "What difference does it make!!!!!"

Okay. Time for some fact checking. First, the full quote from Nancy Pelosi (not just the part that Michele Bachmann used and made famous) was: ”We’ll have to pass it so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy.” Nancy Pelosi claims that she was saying that the American people wouldn’t see all the advantages of HCR until after it was passed, not that Congress had no idea what it said. I personally read it as her saying that during the debate in congress there were so many people saying false things about the healthcare law that not all of the benefits (or drawbacks) would be recognized by the public until they were enacted in law.

Second, Oregon has roughly 30,000 paper health care applications waiting for approval. Additionally at least 70,000 more people have signed up for Medicaid in response to informational letters the government sent out to eligible citizens. Given that the uninsured population of Oregon is roughly 500,000, I'd say those numbers are a pretty good indication that the program is both wanted and needed.The fact that the website is broken is a travesty, particularly given the amount of money (more like $150 million, according to the paper) paid to Oracle to get it to work.

However, the fact that a private contractor failed to construct a website does not mean the law is bad. It means we need better private contractors. Hopefully Oregon will figure out how to deal with Oracle and either get their money back, a working website, or both (the same could be said for the federal health exchange website).

Finally, as to your last point. You're saying that former President Bill Clinton was up to date on the most recently collected highly classified intelligence about Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and WMDs. And that he told his wife all about it. You do remember that the war in afghanistan started a year after he left office, and the war in Iraq started two years after he left office? Things can change a lot in a year, especially when an event like 9/11 shifts the focus of the intelligence community. I think you're overestimating the power and knowledge of former presidents.

Some sources: http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2013/12/oregons_health_exchange_woes_s_1.html http://news.yahoo.com/oregon-healthcare-exchange-website-never-worked-no-subscribers-130601969--sector.html http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/12/30000_cover_oregon_enrollment.html http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2010/mar/15/republican-party-texas/texas-gop-says-speaker-nancy-pelosi-said-people-wi/

1. Washington Examiner is one of the MOST extreme right wing political rags in the country.

Assuming that is even true: Did that change the number of people that signed up? Did that change the amount of money that was spent on the Oregon Obamacare project? It appears the answer to that is "No" and "No." It might make them more interested in doing a key job of the media, which is ferret out waste, fraud, and abuse. If the only media is the sort of tame media that President Obama has had for most of his term, you get what we got.

2. Oregon's web site has not even been online most of the time. It is a total fiasco. Any conclusions on the PPACA based on Oregon are completely ridiculous.

http://news.yahoo.com/oregon-healthcare-exchange-website-never-worked-no-subscribers-130601969--sector.html

Wait, are you suggesting that there is a story here? That the web site was a disaster? Shouldn't that be in the media? Isn't that a story worth being told, especially when it costs $300,000,000 for a state? That is a lot of money for a relatively small state. That seems to suggest that your objections to this being covered are nonsense.

3. The situation is NOT representative of what is going on in the rest of the country where signups are increasing at a brisk pace after the improvements on Healthcare.gov.

Mod story -1 stupid.

You just seemed to indicate above that it was a story worth telling in its own right, that it was a disaster for the state. Why wouldn't you want that story being told? Oh, see #1. You disagree with the viewpoint, and don't want the story being told. That is why having media outlets with a different viewpoint is important. You wouldn't want to tell the story, they would. Moderate your post -1 !insightful.

As to your rosy picture of signups in the rest of the country:

Juking the ObamaCare Stats - HHS won't disclose the enrollment data that really matter.

On Wednesday the Health and Human Services Department continued its Victorian-era strip tease and allowed a glimpse into the Affordable Care Act's "enrollment" for November. Out of respect for a free press, reporters ought to boycott these releases because they're so selective that they reveal little about real enrollment. But we'll try to parse the data as best we can without the White House high gloss.

A charitable reading suggests that ObamaCare's net enrollment stands at about negative four million. That's the estimated four million to five and a half million people who had their individual health plans liquidated as ObamaCare-noncompliant—offset by the 364,682 who have signed up for a plan on a state or federal exchange and the 803,077 who have been found eligible to receive Medicaid.

HHS is boasting of enrollment for November that was four times as high as October, yet 62% of the total was in the state exchanges, some of which are marginally less prone to crashing than the federal version. Then again, 41 states posted sign-ups only in the three or four figures, including eight states that run their own exchanges. Oregon managed to scrape up 44 people. Among the 137,204 federal sign-ups, no state is reaching the critical mass necessary for stable insurance prices. -- more

Not quite so rosy.

1. Washington Examiner is one of the MOST extreme right wing political rags in the country.

2. Oregon's web site has not even been online most of the time. It is a total fiasco. Any conclusions on the PPACA based on Oregon are completely ridiculous.

http://news.yahoo.com/oregon-healthcare-exchange-website-never-worked-no-subscribers-130601969--sector.html

3. The situation is NOT representative of what is going on in the rest of the country where signups are increasing at a brisk pace after the improvements on Healthcare.gov.

Mod story -1 stupid.

Let's convert how much energy is wasted in tesla's sleep mode compared to a fossil fuel car: According to yahoo answers, 1 gallon of gasoline = 34.7 kWh.

Energy consumed by a model s in a month = 30 x 1.1 = 33 kWh Converting 33 kWh to equivalent gallons of gasoline = 33 / 34.7 = 0.95 gallons

The tesla wastes the equivalent of 1 gallon gasoline/month while parked!

I hope Tesla keeps working on reducing the amount of energy wasted. But lets use those same numbers for cars that actually get driven and see how the Tesla compares:

Given the average US driver drives 13476 miles per year, which is 1123 miles per month. And the average new car gets 24.9 miles per gallon. Therefore the kWh equivalent for the average ICE car is: 1123/24.9*34.7 = 1564 kWh / month

Whereas the Tesla consumes 38 kWh/100 miles. So for the Tesla we have: 38/100 * 1123 = 427 kWh driving per month, plus 33 kWh wasted per month gives a grand total of 460 kWh / month.

In other words, for people that actually drive their cars, the Tesla uses less than 1/3 of the energy of an ICE. Which seems relevant to the conversation.

Now, to be fair. I bet that people drive their Teslas more aggressively and get less than the EPA 38 kWh/100 miles. And there is the drain of accessories, etc. But that is a lot of headroom, I doubt any of the similar sized ICEs ever come close to the Tesla in energy efficiency.

Let's convert how much energy is wasted in tesla's sleep mode compared to a fossil fuel car:
According to yahoo answers, 1 gallon of gasoline = 34.7 kWh.

Energy consumed by a model s in a month = 30 x 1.1 = 33 kWh
Converting 33 kWh to equivalent gallons of gasoline = 33 / 34.7 = 0.95 gallons

The tesla wastes the equivalent of 1 gallon gasoline/month while parked!

The logic espoused by the quoted idea is the same as saying if police were to start strip searching everyone without cause, it would be reasonable simply because it always happens.

But they already have been doing that:
http://news.yahoo.com/police-turn-routine-traffic-stops-into-cavity-searches-201433510.html
http://www.wnd.com/2013/11/3rd-target-of-body-cavity-searches-comes-forward/
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/06/justice/new-mexico-search-lawsuit/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/troopers-texas-probe-genitals-women-traffic-stops-article-1.1414668

And dont have your dog along:
http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/video?clipId=9513174&autostart=false
http://www.businessinsider.com/police-are-shooting-dogs-2013-7

Seriously people, wake the fuck up. This has happened before, we know where it leads. Technologies getting better though, this time around all the worlds armies my not be able to stop them. Why do we keep letting this happen?

This will get little coverage in news outlets around the world, but its worth spreading and this article is as good as any to mention it. The Japanese Lower House, in the Diet, passed a bill which set up a National Secrets law. Essentially it is an anti-whistleblower law. It has many of the usual sections present in other countries save for one. The bill sets forth that all information dealing with "nuclear energy" will be considered a national secret and releasing any information without the oversight of the government will basically be illegal.

This means that if something bad is happening at the Fukushima plant, then we have to rely on someone doing the moral thing and telling the world and then going to jail.

The bill still has to go through the Upper House but it's likely to pass without much opposition even though the media and the public have been strongly opposed to it. It seems very likely that the bill is there to cover up any bad information that might tarnish Japan or TEPCO's image.

Japan state secrets bill on track to become law despite protests

Nice troll ''fluffy''. What about that traffic light you went through just as it was going red the other day?

That's worth a bit of anal search, if you ask me... [source]

The moral of the story, to me, is that you should never engage in DDoS from your home machine. Especially if you are attacking the Koch Brothers.

Dog crap is pretty crappy as fertilizers go (depending on their diet). More often than not, it will harm the grass more than help it.

See http://voices.yahoo.com/common-misconceptions-dog-feces-fertilizing-1285581.html?cat=32

The Euro and Dollar are the largest world currencies. In the last 10 years the Euro has varied from $1.17 to $1.59, and made that rise in 2.75 years (+11.8%/year) The steepest drop seems to be 4 months from Jul to Nov 2008, when it dropped from $1.59 to $1.25 (-48.5%/year rate).

Admittedly, bitcoin has a long way to go to reach that level of stability, but currencies are not as stable as you think.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=EURUSD%3DX+Interactive#symbol=;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined;

People need to look at a log graph of the NASDAQ It is silly to think that something that happened 13 years ago is the same in absolute terms. 4000 is just a number, after all.

The better criticism of FB's current valuation is that it projects too much growth. The user base is kind of saturated. Once you have a double-digit percentage of the entire planet, it's hard to go much higher. If they try to grow revenue through increasing advertising, they run the risk of alienating users.

Spot on. Facebook is a classic example of a good company that's a bad stock, due to its high valuation. As shown by Yahoo Finance, Facebook's trailing P/E is over 100 and its forward P/E is over 40. That's compared to a typical "growth" company that might have P/E's of 15-30. So why is Facebook worth several times what investors are currently paying for companies that still have room to grow? Just doesn't make any sense.

However, that's not surprising for a company that has a double-digit percentage of the entire planet in its user base: there are enough folks among its users who don't understand stock valuation to purchase it at any price. (BTW, the same is true for Amazon, which has a similarly high valuation - though perhaps Amazon has more room to grow.)

Or, you could simply put your money into the S&P500, and do pretty well. You'd also save yourself a lot on broker fees, and the headaches of researching individual companies. Here's a chart going back to 1950. You can clearly see the "Internet bubble", and the collapse from from the housing bubble as well. But, over time, it's essentially, a continuous climb.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^GSPC&t=my&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=

Over the last 12 months, Facebook, had revenues of nearly $7B and profits of about $1B. You can argue that their stock is overvalued (and I'd tend to agree), but they clearly have a pretty solid business plan.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=FB+Key+Statistics

ISON is currently moving at 117 km/s! You can track ISON live here: http://theskylive.com/ison-tracker
Many theories have been going around about the breakup. This forums is a great place for info: http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/comets-ml/conversations/topics
Also, you can checkout real-time images of ISON as they are submitted here: http://spaceweathergallery.com/ison_gallery.html

Also, If interested, I've built a site with lots of ISON information. http://isontracker.com/ - Updates everyday

But wait, there's more!

In order for a woman to drive a car legally in Memphis, Tennessee, a man must walk or run in front of it while waving a red flag to warn other motorists and pedestrians.

In order to remain in good standing with the law in Forest City, North Carolina, one must call City Hall before entering town in an automobile.

In Colorado, you are breaking the law if you drive a black car on Sundays.

It's illegal to drive a motor vehicle in Redlands, California, unless a man holding a lantern is walking in front of it.

In Glendale, Arizona, it's against the law to drive a car in reverse.

While driving along a country road at night in Pennsylvania, motorists must fire a rocket signal and wait 10 minutes for livestock to clear the road before continuing.

And one of my favorite Arizona laws: You may not have more than two dildos in a house.

There's also this one: When being attacked by a criminal or burglar, you may only protect yourself with the same weapon that the other person posseses.

That makes a real obvious way for criminals to completely run amok in this state: all they have to do is use 3 dildos to attack someone.

When'd he have TIME to deal with that?

While he was on the golf course or out demonizing somebody, that's when. He's never in the office doing his job.

Where were you when Dubya took off goddamned near a full YEAR of vacation days during his 8 years? Obama's had 92 days off so far, that's like 18 days a year. Had Dubya continued playing golf after 2003 at the rate he was doing, he would have played 192 rounds of golf during his term rather than the 24 he put in because he thought it wasn't a Good Thing to be caught playing golf while American troops were getting their asses shot off. So Obama plays golf. I don't blame him, they tell me it relieves stress. And if you don't think he's stressed, care to explain how grey he's become over the last 5 years?

They overwhelmingly rejected it.

Depends on how this system will work. If the plane is equipped with a micro-cell which relays via satellite like the ones I've been on then it won't matter where you are. You're roaming.

You may end up like this guy who thought he was still local as his cruise ship hasn't left the port yet and then got slapped with $27000 worth of roaming charges because he was connected to the ship's microcell and was steaming data via satellite.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=XOM+Income+Statement&annual

Apple remains obsessed with thermonuclear war instead of introducing products that people want. Meanwhile its market share keeps slip, slip, slipping away.

I am leaving the iPhone and OS X "ecosystem" behind after using it since the very first
Macintosh.

Why ?

Because Apple chose to cripple local sync for iOS devices in the Mavericks version of
OS X.

Words cannot express how disgusted I am that Apple has removed the ability to sync my
PERSONAL information without sending that data to iCloud. Well, I am not going to send that
data to iCloud or any other cloud. I will not allow Apple to coerce me into using their cloud.
Instead I will switch to a dual boot Windows / Ubuntu machine and a non-smart phone
and be better off in the end because of it.

Tim Cook is a clueless bean counter. Apple's corporate stance ignores the needs of its
most loyal and hard core users who have been buying Apple product since before iOS
devices existed. We who have been using computers since the days of the IBM 370 and punch
cards don't need some douche like Jony Ive removing features we care about.

Apple is on the way down the toilet, mark my words. You don't piss off your core customers
and come out of that smiling, not in the long term. Personally I look forward to seeing Apple
go down the tubes, and I am quite sure I am not the only former Apple user who feels this way.

/

Apple remains obsessed with thermonuclear war instead of introducing products that people want. Meanwhile its market share keeps slip, slip, slipping away.

For the same reason there's one in Hawai'i.

Which is?

Because there's a glottal stop there in the original pronounciation that is hard to reflect in English characters without it.

All envelopes have been photographed by the USPS for some time now - and that data is available via existing legal means and conditions. Whether there is wider collection I don't know.

A search brings this up as one of the early results:

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-interview-usps-takes-photos-mail-072949079.html

and according to the article the data is kept for up to a month "but they are available for law enforcement, if requested." The program started after the ricin attacks in 2001. Also according to the article, each sorting machine keeps its own stuff - their is no central store.

How do you respond to this: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/secret-environmental-cost-us-ethanol-220037254.html

I think this is just the beginning. The environmental movement has a lot to answer for, including out of control forest fires, millions of deaths from malaria, and so on. I'm not saying that a clean environment is a noble goal, just that proper evaluations are needed.