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The logical extension to this argument is that as the cost of producing, distributing and accessing content approaches zero, increasingly the best content will get the most readership. Newscorp recently announced they are setting up paywalls across all their sites. When people have to pay for content to access it, it not only has to be the best content, but the best by a significant margin. I don't believe this is the case for Newscorp. They'll see a protracted decline unless they can remodel their business to embrace the spirit of the internet, rather than the kneejerk reactions we're seeing.

To verify http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081223191048AAj982v

"Break the Crystal Ball" (from the song lyric earlier) = A crystal ball is a crystal or glass ball believed by some people to aid in the performance of clairvoyance" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clairvoyance = the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses

Where's "Lightning from the heavens" come from? 8 miles high (per the song lyrics again) http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&q=%228+miles+high%22+and+%22clouds%22&oq=%228+miles+high%22+and+%22clouds%22&gs_l=hp.3...73817.73817.3.74988.1.1.0.0.0.0.60.60.1.1.0....0...1c.1.23.hp..5.22.2186.p-HvGHz0aKU&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.50165853,d.aWM&fp=fd7dc74d2b92b341&biw=1600&bih=897

Clouds? Like these -> http://www.google.com/#output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=NSA+and+Cloud&oq=NSA+and+Cloud&gs_l=hp.3..0l2j0i22i30l4j0i22i10i30j0i22i30l3.1314.4736.1.5458.13.13.0.0.0.0.105.1064.12j1.13.0....0...1c.1.23.hp..0.13.1064.Lns73id6IUI&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.50165853,d.aWM&fp=a66b124a18d19552&biw=1600&bih=897

"BUT NO ONE'S THERE TO CATCH YOU (look for the sign, the time, the sign of the southern cross (prism & 'rainbows that shimmer' when the summer falls) per inverted crosses in satanic luciferian rituals http://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&fp=a66b124a18d19552&psj=1&q=%22masons%22+and+%22luciferian%22 )

("Hell" of a coincidence? Song's almost prophetic, and concidering the above was from "Black Sabbath" too...)

Does the hospital fail to collect 90% of its bills?

If the percentage is any less than that, then on that justification it's grossly overcharging.

If the percentage truly is that high, then obviously you'd be a chump to pay anything at all, since clearly you're not actually expected to.

Apparently not:
HCA made $1.69 billion last quarter on $8.5 of business. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hca-reports-second-quarter-2013-121600685.html

And some of them always don't deal straight up:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/whistleblower-suit-hospitals-defrauded-medicaid-005148370.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CdtGPtRKlQAjIWTmYlQ

Does the hospital fail to collect 90% of its bills?

If the percentage is any less than that, then on that justification it's grossly overcharging.

If the percentage truly is that high, then obviously you'd be a chump to pay anything at all, since clearly you're not actually expected to.

Apparently not:
HCA made $1.69 billion last quarter on $8.5 of business. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hca-reports-second-quarter-2013-121600685.html

And some of them always don't deal straight up:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/whistleblower-suit-hospitals-defrauded-medicaid-005148370.html;_ylt=A2KJ3CdtGPtRKlQAjIWTmYlQ

it was confirmed that it was the Long Island Task Force.

No, some journalists have claimed that it was the LITF. The FBI and the local police have all denied any involvement. Here is a follow up story that seems to indicate that the whole thing was a fabrication. There apparently was no raid, no investigation, nothing ... except a woman that wanted some attention.

They might also just haul your ass to the station and 'forget' about you for 4 days.

Apple cash : 10,746,000

Intel's market cap: 115,690,000,000

I didn't post this to prove you wrong - I was sincerely interested. You wouldn't believe the crazy things I've heard on the internet that turned out to make me money!

But, I posted my results just to boost my own ego is all.

Carry on....I have a pathetic little life....

Maybe everyone else is crazy who reports it but I know I've read Apple has over $140 billion in cash. Much of it is overseas and would be subject to taxation if brought back to US but that is a whole lot more than the $10+ billion you mention. In fact it is much more than the market cap for Intel you mention but I have doubts about that since it is from the same source.

Apple cash : 10,746,000

Intel's market cap: 115,690,000,000

I didn't post this to prove you wrong - I was sincerely interested. You wouldn't believe the crazy things I've heard on the internet that turned out to make me money!

But, I posted my results just to boost my own ego is all.

Carry on....I have a pathetic little life....

Maybe everyone else is crazy who reports it but I know I've read Apple has over $140 billion in cash. Much of it is overseas and would be subject to taxation if brought back to US but that is a whole lot more than the $10+ billion you mention. In fact it is much more than the market cap for Intel you mention but I have doubts about that since it is from the same source.

Apple cash : 10,746,000

Intel's market cap: 115,690,000,000

I didn't post this to prove you wrong - I was sincerely interested. You wouldn't believe the crazy things I've heard on the internet that turned out to make me money!

But, I posted my results just to boost my own ego is all.

Carry on....I have a pathetic little life....

Apple cash : 10,746,000

Intel's market cap: 115,690,000,000

I didn't post this to prove you wrong - I was sincerely interested. You wouldn't believe the crazy things I've heard on the internet that turned out to make me money!

But, I posted my results just to boost my own ego is all.

Carry on....I have a pathetic little life....

"That said, I'm hoping we're slowly getting to a tipping point on the entire privacy vs security discussion. 9/11 has happened long ago enough that the knee-jerk reactions are dying down, and people are starting to question what we're doing in order to make sure 3000 people don't die over the course of a few years."

I quote Chris Christie, small-government Republican, speaking last night at a meeting of GOP governors -- "I mean, these esoteric, intellectual debates [about surveillance and privacy] — I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans [of 9/11] and have that conversation. And they won’t, because that’s a much tougher conversation to have." He also asserted that moves to end NSA surveillance, and the person of Rand Paul, are "very dangerous".

http://news.yahoo.com/chris-christie--rise-of-libertarian-views-like-rand-paul-s-is-%E2%80%98dangerous%E2%80%99-162539832.html

Forgot to add made with by a company with deep ties with the NSA. At least for most Android phones you can install alternatives like CyanogenMod, not get stuck with just one (and bad) option.

Nokia had some control on their future with Symbian, Maemo/Meego. They should focus in making their platform as free as possible, maybe still bundling Windows Phone on them, but making available drivers, specifications and so on so a version of CyanogenMod, Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish or others could be developed as alternative OS. Their target should be sell hardware and services, not operating systems.

Microsoft OS: 90 bucks or whatever they're charging
Smaller ecosystem for apps

Compared to:
Larger ecosystem by orders of magnitude
An OS that doesn't cost a dime (unmodded)

Going with Microsoft on this is corporate suicide and the stock price chart shows it.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=NOK+Basic+Chart&t=5y

http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/06/the-final-reckoning-of-burning-platforms-memo-damaged-nokia-by-wiping-out-13b-in-revenues-and-destro.html

--
BMO

You realize these clusters are locked, right? Not that it's fool proof, but if they're going to be picking a mailbox lock, they're just as likely to drive through a neighborhood and collect mail from unlocked boxes.

Locks, except very strong ones are not a very good crime or vandalism deterrant. People fear getting caught in the act. If there's a cluster of mailboxes outside where many people are looking -- people are going to try, and probably will succeed.

Perhaps you should see this article: Thieves Target Several Cluster Mailboxes In Natomas Subdivisions:

It’s a crime that’s happened not once, not twice, but eight times in several Natomas subdivisions. “The whole thing was broken into,? said George Minor, president of his homeowners’ association. ?It looked like they took a crowbar, or something, and just pried open all the boxes.” Mike Wiley’s cluster mailbox was hit by a thief this past summer.

No. The "locks" are just for show. They are easily defeated. Also, there have been many cases where mail was stolen from cluster mailboxes, because the delivery man forgot to relock the back of the unit once they were done --- so anyone could just open it right up and get at all the mail

They're not going to be spending any real resources on the locks or security design for these; any reasonable level of basic security would be very expensive -- to do so would defeat the whole point of "saving money".

15 seconds with a crowbar, and you have all the mail.

Uh... it's already being exploited...
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/hastings-crash-witness-113514329.html

Congress rejected this bill "very narrowly" (205-217) with 12 abstains. They split themselves into good cops and bad cops almost evenly. How convenient...

Something tells me this was carefully staged political reality show intended to convince people that they still have "some choice", yet it "didn't work out this time". Which is a big lie. They were all complicit in keeping NSA money flowing, they just chose among themselves who will act "good guy" and who will be "bad guy" in this episode.

Once again, there is no functioning democracy in the US these days. US government has gone full retard with spying everyone everywhere, setting up inconvenient folks and even killing inconvenient journalists with enough audacity to warn others that it can happen to them (at least this is how I interpret Richard Clarke's statement).

Your government chose to do bad, bad things that happen to be profitable for them and as their misconducts are becoming more and more blatant, they chose more and more opressions instead of less wrongdoings. Don't expect things to improve anytime soon, it's propably too late.

Then why hasn't Dick's estate sued?

Why not? After all, Yes album-cover artist Roger Dean is suing James Cameron because he thinks "Avatar" looks too much like his acid-drenched artwork...

The problem is that PHP and web programmers are quite common. Even so, places like Facebook are looking for PHP developers and SQL engineers. Trying to find decent C programmers, especially those capable of working on embedded systems or the Linux kernel or device drivers are much harder to find. As for college, good luck getting started in the industry without a degree unless you've managed to make a name for yourself without it on some well known project.

For example:

(Facebook) https://www.facebook.com/careers/search?q=&location=menlo-park
(Google) https://www.google.com/about/jobs/search/
(Apple) http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/corporate.html
(Tesla) http://tbe.taleo.net/CH07/ats/careers/jobSearch.jsp?org=TESLA&cws=1
(Cavium) http://www.cavium.com/careers.html
(Amazon Lab 126) http://www.lab126.com/careers.htm
(Yahoo) http://us.careers.yahoo.com/
(Xilinx) https://xapps9.xilinx.com/OA_HTML/RF.jsp?function_id=12325&resp_id=23350&resp_appl_id=800&security_group_id=0&lang_code=US&params=mCsTre-AToe2wnIXflPtqsZZTnVM9.N1OyhNnBv5KuqbLKT.chxR3de6DRGMEkZb&oas=suuh5UdozJuyoXGEIHQclw..
(Altera) http://ch.tbe.taleo.net/CH03/ats/careers/jobSearch.jsp?org=ALTERA&cws=1
(Intel) http://jobs.intel.com/
(Qualcomm) https://jobs.qualcomm.com/public/jobSearch.xhtml#messages

I am certainly not lying nor a shill. These are just off the top of my head. Many of these sites have pages of openings as well as openings for new college graduates.

Does anyone know who bought the franchise for Desert Bus?
http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/desert-bus-worst-videogame-time-160542705.html
That was a classic.

You said that criminals are getting more murdeous when the numbers don't support your assertion. Policing is of course dangerous, but from what I see in the newspapers (and police deaths, accidents, and injuries almost always get reported in the media) I'd say the most dangerous part of your job was writing speeding tickets on the side of the interstate. We had so many police fatalities in Illinois that state law now says you have to move to the left if there's a police car parked on the shoulder with its lights on.

Police officer isn't even in the top ten list of dangerous jobs.

As to assaults, I have no numbers but I'd wager a civilian has a much larger chance of being assaulted by a criminal than a cop does. You'd have to be crazy to assault a man armed with a gun and a taser.

He was trying to make a point that criminals are getting deadlier, when there were only 10 more deaths in 2010 than 2000. The last few police deaths I've heard around here are accidental deaths caused by negligent drivers; from what I read, writing a speeding ticket on an interstate is pretty damned dangerous.

I'm not saying there job isn't dangerous, it certainly is, but it's not in the top ten most dangerous.

Complete and utter bullshit.

I wasn't aware that "bullshit" meant objective measurable fact

Not directly.. that'd be too obvious.
Probably Intellectual Vultures will buy up Vringo and Pendrell Corporation and then begin suing everybody.

Your oversimplification of the stock market leaves out a large number of traditional investors who do vet company performance, and look for value such as dividends. They use statistic too, although the stats traditionally come in text form. It sounds like you got your talking points from other people without doing much research to validate it.

A large number of trades are high-frequency trading, but as you said it is usually a few pennies per share and hardly impacts the market (outside of the rare flash crash). A lot of automated trading is still based on market news, such as

... the contract carves out an even more elite group of clients, who subscribe to the "ultra-low latency distribution platform," or high-speed data feed, offered by Thomson Reuters. Those most elite clients receive the information in a specialized format tailor-made for computer-driven algorithmic trading at 9:54:58.000, according to the terms of the contract.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100809395

That was suspended 8 July, but if you search for more on that you will find similar perks that elite traders get. Do note, the Yahoo article is about HFT because it happens on low-latency platforms, but that is still news-based trading, not the algorithmic sort of HFT.

Counting trades, the market does look like automated systems battling it out. But counting investors (individuals and financial groups such as fund managers) it's largely still about reacting to market news. The Reuters news above basically has analysts figuring out what to buy, sell, or hold, and advising clients of their findings - still traditional market valuation. And the news here is that Microsoft is rapidly losing ground to competitors due to making boneheaded decisions like RT.

The underlying point is we can't built a Saturn 5 again. We would need to basically redesign the whole rocket to get there.

And of course, why would we? The F1 and the Saturn 5 body were amazing machines, but we could design something much better today. Will we? Nah, we are a nation devoted to servicing stockholders now, and sadly, the Chinese will probably take over where we left off.

http://news.yahoo.com/proposed-nasa-budget-cuts-spark-bitter-debate-congress-151811266.html

Read into that what you will.

Not that I think Mayer is any good as a CEO, but this entire article is based on the premise that most of their revenue in the second quarter was from selling off an investment which is false. The $1.07 billion in revenue is completely separate from the investment gain from Alibaba. Investment gains like that are never counted as revenue.

See official quarterly results for more details: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/yahoo-reports-second-quarter-2013-200500159.html

It is NOT reported as revenue. TFA and summary are wrong. If you want the details: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/yahoo-reports-second-quarter-2013-200500159.html

Yahoo! reported $1.07 billion in revenue without including the gain from Alibaba. The whole article makes little sense and the summary plays up a small piece from the article that isn't even correct. This should never have made it onto Slashdot.

Is not that Windows have a vulnerability, from time to time a vulnerability is found in a lot of systems. The problem is that they didn't fixed, on pourpose, so you can get hacked. That they held that bug since a year ago gives a hint on how safe you should feel with it.

It probably does but not in the "she was dressed like that" manner but more of a this requires further investigation manner. Given the type of weapon, a real assault rifle and not something with different trim, it was (he was a tax stamp holder I assume unless it was an illegal weapon) it would have been highly valuable. Since you are implying he was targeted now the question is how did he become a target?

One guess would be he liked to show the weapon off to just about anyone who came over and even like to show how secure it was since the criminals came prepared. This leads me to the question of why would bank robbing criminals need a fully auto weapon over the standard handgun, shotgun, or semi auto rifle? The others are much easier to come by and if planning a big heist a fully auto weapon will just eat through ammo and wouldn't be of much use unless they were planning to mow down a crowd. You also mentioned that the criminals were caught aiming it out a window which seems to indicate these aren't the real serious criminals who know to shut the hell up and be low key. Most of your criminals (99.999%) aren't like those in the movie Heat even worse is most (99%) don't even measure up to the barely competent Man in Black Robber so something does smell a bit fishy. You claim they were serious criminals but yet they seem to be exceptionally stupid, as in below the average crackhead gang banger who knows not to wave a fucking gun around where people that can turn you in can see it.

Another scenario that jumps to my mind is insurance fraud given the value of the firearm (probably at least $15,000). As such I would have looked at the connections between your father and the criminals as there probably is a very close relationship with 1 maybe 2 degrees of separation if not directly known by your father. Again this seems to fit with the well prepared but incompetent criminals. The only other scenario that seems to fit might be your father wasn't a tax stamp holder (seems unlikely) then it seems like the person who he got it from let someone else know where to get one in which case I don't have much sympathy. But there that doesn't seem to fit since how would the criminals have known to come prepared to remove a wall.

Also I tried to find some cases of a legally owned assault rifle (even ones that were previously legally owned and registered in the US) being used in crime and that seems difficult to find as I haven't come up with anything yet. This task is further confounded by the nebulous term of assault weapon which idiots in the media equate to assault weapon when they are not the same thing. Here are some of what I have found:
Assault Rifles Are Not Heavily Used in Crimes
Has any Fully Automatic Firearm ever been used to commit a Violent Crime?
Fully automatic guns in the US are highly regulated, and regulation workshardly a right wing outfit
I did find a case where privately owned assault rifles/machines guns were stolen but it seems far more common for the government to have them stolen
Feds release photos of stolen machine gunsThe one case of privately owned ones stolen. incompetent as hell
Hotchkiss man pleads guilty in theft of cop’s assault rifle, SWAT gear
Cop shot looking for stolen police rifle

What, no mention of Marmite? Yahoo even have their own "answers" page about it, containing only slightly less information than this fluff piece.

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061113101418AAETa3c

The obvious downside is that you need to eat Marmite, and about half of the population would rather catch malaria.

NBC actually cut Zimmerman's 911 call to make it seem like he was making racist remarks - I am fully expecting ZImmerman to sue NBC, and settle for something in 7 figures.

He tried to back in December, but it was stayed pending the outcome of the criminal trial. And, now that the verdict is in, he will resume the suit.

After how NBC (and the media at large) handled this whole thing, I hope they get drug through the dirt over this. Guilty or not, they twisted and convoluted the whole scenario--as you mentioned--all in the name of ratings. The media doesn't care about news or reporting anymore (did they ever?), it's all about ad sales and ratings. Their general fear-mongering and giving opinion as fact is a part of the problem with discussing political issues in America, IMO. Damn them all to hell.

The first source on container ship cost I found was http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090118185814AAsUvcb, and that lists a new and really big container ship as about $145M in 2009. The ship was probably worth less than the cargo lost.

And I'll draw attention again to the long established view in the USSR where they did such a thing a lot that such information could not be trusted.

Repeating yourself isn't going to win the argument. I provided a positive example where it worked, and my position all along is you need some way to verify the info you get.

Of course I didn't because those that defined it are far better suited than either of us. I'm not going to make up my own definition just because you are, I'm going to use the established one from experts instead of delving into irrelevant relativism shit.

I mean quote the dictionary definition you are using. You have to be some kind of idiot to think I meant for you to make up your own "dictionary" definition. And I'm the one that managed to quote from the UN convention against torture, unlike the relativistic bullshit that you adopted because it fit your argument, even though it aligns with "enhanced interrogation" bullshit from the Bush administration.

But since you seem to inept to quote from a dictionary, I'll do it for you:

torture: "Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion."

Now explain how twisting somebody's arm behind their back or choking them to gain information doesn't apply.

So at one point you are saying I did define it and at another that I did?

No, you idiot. I said you adopted the same position, not that you provided a dictionary definition. The two are not the same.

I leave the definition to such people as Amnesty International and earlier US governments instead of weasels like Dick Chaney who decided to take the twisted line you appear to be pushing and then pretending that I agree with.

*snort* So you think Amnesty International would disagree that twisting somebody's arm behind their back and choking them to gain information isn't torture? This was the whole point of "enhanced interrogation". They didn't rip people's fingernails off or put them on the rack, but they did waterboard, rough people up, and other stress forms like making them stand or deriving sleep.

And earlier US governments signed the UN convention against torture, which I already provided the definition for, and it clearly covers things like twisting arms behind people's backs and choking.

Looks like your suspicions are correct. The "news" about ET3 seems to stem back to a thinly veiled press release posted by Yahoo News back in May.

But an article about some guy's pipe dream (so to speak) who has no experience with train systems or projects of this magnitude doesn't really grab your attention, does it? Musk was babbling about hyperloops around the same time -- neither of those are very interesting, but it almost seems newsworthy if you can work both into one article.

That's not entirely true. Tesla had its first profitable quarter this year, though admittedly that was due to selling emissions credits pushing them into the black. Over time, the company has continually driven down the cost of production, and you can see from the financials that revenue and gross profit is growing, so it looks promising that it might finally be able to stand on its own soon.

Ballmer isn't a major holder anymore. Bill is still there and some others - but no Steve.

And no votes to squash any ouster.

Ooooo, maybe his job is hanging on a thread.

But he's a billionaire. He could always go on and start another company - he wouldn't need his own money. There'd be plenty of folks who'd invest just because he was CEO of MS.

Where MS excels is the corporate IT stack - a nice fat margin business.

Everything mentioned by the parent is consumer products - products purchased on the whims of the public base upon fads and style.

But let's talk about stock price. Wall Street is a market prone to their own fads and lemming thinking.

Microsoft's stock languished because Apple and Google are exiting and MS isn't.

But look at the numbers - nice!. ROE +20% Operating margin of 35%.

It's a safe stock and a respectable addition to a portfolio - even when the Fed stops QE, I don't expect MSFT to take it on the chin like AAPL and GOOG will.

'He stands accused of running one of the greatest companies in American history into the ground, even as its stock price remains remarkably resilient and the company continues to turn a healthy profit,' he writes.

Maintaining a steady stock price isn't what makes the Wall Street Casino happy.

Microsoft is down from its high in 2000 while competitors like Apple and Google are now worth significantly more than they were. Considering Microsoft's once-dominant position, it shouldn't be flat.

Microsoft has done better than HP and Yahoo, but considering even stodgy old IBM has seen its stock price rise you have to wonder if Ballmer knows how to set a new course, adjusting to changes in tech, or just keep the ship afloat, buoyed by Windows and Office.

Microsoft had Windows for Pen Computing, Windows XP Tablet Edition, and later Courier, but lost the tablet market to Apple and Google. They had Windows CE and Windows Mobile well before iOS and Android, but never really made inroads in the smartphone market. Leveraging their default IE homepage, they couldn't get MSN / Live.com / Bing to overtake Google. Even in successful things, like HoTMaiL or IE, they simply stopped innovating until competitors appeared, and in the process those competitors took away chunks of Microsoft's market share. That they continue to exist off the profits from Windows and Office isn't the same as thriving, and that's why Ballmer gets the criticism he deserves.

'He stands accused of running one of the greatest companies in American history into the ground, even as its stock price remains remarkably resilient and the company continues to turn a healthy profit,' he writes.

Maintaining a steady stock price isn't what makes the Wall Street Casino happy.

Microsoft is down from its high in 2000 while competitors like Apple and Google are now worth significantly more than they were. Considering Microsoft's once-dominant position, it shouldn't be flat.

Microsoft has done better than HP and Yahoo, but considering even stodgy old IBM has seen its stock price rise you have to wonder if Ballmer knows how to set a new course, adjusting to changes in tech, or just keep the ship afloat, buoyed by Windows and Office.

Microsoft had Windows for Pen Computing, Windows XP Tablet Edition, and later Courier, but lost the tablet market to Apple and Google. They had Windows CE and Windows Mobile well before iOS and Android, but never really made inroads in the smartphone market. Leveraging their default IE homepage, they couldn't get MSN / Live.com / Bing to overtake Google. Even in successful things, like HoTMaiL or IE, they simply stopped innovating until competitors appeared, and in the process those competitors took away chunks of Microsoft's market share. That they continue to exist off the profits from Windows and Office isn't the same as thriving, and that's why Ballmer gets the criticism he deserves.

'He stands accused of running one of the greatest companies in American history into the ground, even as its stock price remains remarkably resilient and the company continues to turn a healthy profit,' he writes.

Maintaining a steady stock price isn't what makes the Wall Street Casino happy.

Microsoft is down from its high in 2000 while competitors like Apple and Google are now worth significantly more than they were. Considering Microsoft's once-dominant position, it shouldn't be flat.

Microsoft has done better than HP and Yahoo, but considering even stodgy old IBM has seen its stock price rise you have to wonder if Ballmer knows how to set a new course, adjusting to changes in tech, or just keep the ship afloat, buoyed by Windows and Office.

Microsoft had Windows for Pen Computing, Windows XP Tablet Edition, and later Courier, but lost the tablet market to Apple and Google. They had Windows CE and Windows Mobile well before iOS and Android, but never really made inroads in the smartphone market. Leveraging their default IE homepage, they couldn't get MSN / Live.com / Bing to overtake Google. Even in successful things, like HoTMaiL or IE, they simply stopped innovating until competitors appeared, and in the process those competitors took away chunks of Microsoft's market share. That they continue to exist off the profits from Windows and Office isn't the same as thriving, and that's why Ballmer gets the criticism he deserves.

'He stands accused of running one of the greatest companies in American history into the ground, even as its stock price remains remarkably resilient and the company continues to turn a healthy profit,' he writes.

Maintaining a steady stock price isn't what makes the Wall Street Casino happy.

Microsoft is down from its high in 2000 while competitors like Apple and Google are now worth significantly more than they were. Considering Microsoft's once-dominant position, it shouldn't be flat.

Microsoft has done better than HP and Yahoo, but considering even stodgy old IBM has seen its stock price rise you have to wonder if Ballmer knows how to set a new course, adjusting to changes in tech, or just keep the ship afloat, buoyed by Windows and Office.

Microsoft had Windows for Pen Computing, Windows XP Tablet Edition, and later Courier, but lost the tablet market to Apple and Google. They had Windows CE and Windows Mobile well before iOS and Android, but never really made inroads in the smartphone market. Leveraging their default IE homepage, they couldn't get MSN / Live.com / Bing to overtake Google. Even in successful things, like HoTMaiL or IE, they simply stopped innovating until competitors appeared, and in the process those competitors took away chunks of Microsoft's market share. That they continue to exist off the profits from Windows and Office isn't the same as thriving, and that's why Ballmer gets the criticism he deserves.

'He stands accused of running one of the greatest companies in American history into the ground, even as its stock price remains remarkably resilient and the company continues to turn a healthy profit,' he writes.

Maintaining a steady stock price isn't what makes the Wall Street Casino happy.

Microsoft is down from its high in 2000 while competitors like Apple and Google are now worth significantly more than they were. Considering Microsoft's once-dominant position, it shouldn't be flat.

Microsoft has done better than HP and Yahoo, but considering even stodgy old IBM has seen its stock price rise you have to wonder if Ballmer knows how to set a new course, adjusting to changes in tech, or just keep the ship afloat, buoyed by Windows and Office.

Microsoft had Windows for Pen Computing, Windows XP Tablet Edition, and later Courier, but lost the tablet market to Apple and Google. They had Windows CE and Windows Mobile well before iOS and Android, but never really made inroads in the smartphone market. Leveraging their default IE homepage, they couldn't get MSN / Live.com / Bing to overtake Google. Even in successful things, like HoTMaiL or IE, they simply stopped innovating until competitors appeared, and in the process those competitors took away chunks of Microsoft's market share. That they continue to exist off the profits from Windows and Office isn't the same as thriving, and that's why Ballmer gets the criticism he deserves.

'He stands accused of running one of the greatest companies in American history into the ground, even as its stock price remains remarkably resilient and the company continues to turn a healthy profit,' he writes.

Maintaining a steady stock price isn't what makes the Wall Street Casino happy.

Microsoft is down from its high in 2000 while competitors like Apple and Google are now worth significantly more than they were. Considering Microsoft's once-dominant position, it shouldn't be flat.

Microsoft has done better than HP and Yahoo, but considering even stodgy old IBM has seen its stock price rise you have to wonder if Ballmer knows how to set a new course, adjusting to changes in tech, or just keep the ship afloat, buoyed by Windows and Office.

Microsoft had Windows for Pen Computing, Windows XP Tablet Edition, and later Courier, but lost the tablet market to Apple and Google. They had Windows CE and Windows Mobile well before iOS and Android, but never really made inroads in the smartphone market. Leveraging their default IE homepage, they couldn't get MSN / Live.com / Bing to overtake Google. Even in successful things, like HoTMaiL or IE, they simply stopped innovating until competitors appeared, and in the process those competitors took away chunks of Microsoft's market share. That they continue to exist off the profits from Windows and Office isn't the same as thriving, and that's why Ballmer gets the criticism he deserves.

Looks like Boeing went down about 7% when the news broke ...

If everybody moves closer, then what will people eat? Some cities have abused zoning laws to send people to jail for growing what used to be called victory gardens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-ion_battery

I'm wondering how useful this technology would be for large-scale energy storage. Say you have a wind farm, and you want to grab all the power when the wind is blowing, and store it for later.

400 charge/discharge cycles seems like each battery might last a year. Then the battery is swapped out for a new one. How expensive is that part?

How much will it cost to take a wood battery and recover the sodium and tin? Would it be cheaper to dispose of the sodium and just build a new battery? How do you dispose of sodium anyway... mix it with chlorine to make salt, or just dump it in the ocean, or bury it, or what?

Hmm. I did a Google search on "refine sodium" and it looks as if, much like aluminum, you use an electric process to purify sodium. If so, then refining sodium can be viewed as another way to use excess power. Perhaps it would make sense to have a facility to recycle old sodium ion batteries co-located with a major wind farm or other large-scale variable power source?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080514052937AAu27e4

And how does this compare with other well-understood technologies for energy storage? For example: using excess power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

P.S. Another article:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-battery-made-of-wood-long-lasting-efficient-environmentally-friendly

http://news.yahoo.com/5-ways-nsa-leaker-edward-snowdens-story-isnt-115500971.html

Just scanning the front page crawl over at Yahoo, I marvelled at the number of headlines involving the NBA's Dwight Howard (a free agent center who just left the LA Lakers to join the Houston Rockets). Here's my count:

• Dwight Howard Free Agency: 5 Winners and Losers of the Dwightmare
• Dwight Howard contract includes early opt-out and trade kicker, according to report
• Dwight Howard: Kobe never offered to teach me how to be a champion
• Dwight Howard asked Lakers to hire Phil Jackson
• With Dwight Howard gone, Lakers will no longer consider using the amnesty provision on Pau Gasol
• Shaq says Dwight Howard couldn’t handle the pressure of playing for the Lakers (VIDEO)
• Lakers fans burn Dwight Howard jerseys, we come up with better solutions
• Howard turns Rockets from promising to contenders
• Lakers may move Gasol back to center "Losing Dwight Howard to the Houston Rockets allows the Los Angeles Lakers..."
• Dwight Howard can become free agent in 2016
• Lakers re-group after being spurned by Howard
• Dwight Howard tweets that he'll sign with Rockets
• NBA free agency rumors: Pau Gasol staying with Lakers, LeBron James going to L.A., and more "It's over! Dwightmare is officially over!"
• Dwight Howard discusses Houston Rockets decision, says he wanted Phil Jackson as coach in LA
• NBA Roundup: Howard deal worth $88 million, Gasol moves to center for Lakers

Sounds like Ms. Mayer gave a special order to her editor...

Spain admitted it as well
http://news.yahoo.com/spain-were-told-snowden-bolivia-plane-173406207.html

Thats three of the four accused countries.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo told Spanish National Television that "they told us that the information was clear, that he was inside."

Slightly dated now that el Presedente Chávez has passed on, but I doubt much has changed since. I'm sure Snowden will be happy if he makes it there, although he should probably bring toilet paper with him.

Venezuela toilet paper shortage sends ordinary lives around the bend - 23 May 2013

Scarcity of toilet rolls seen as part of 'general malaise' in which Venezuelans have to use guile during shortage in many staples

Venezuela crackdown deemed worst in years

Chavez Wasn't Just a Zany Buffoon, He Was an Oppressive Autocrat - Mar 5 2013

Like an old-style dictator, he treated the state as his personal plaything but, unlike one, his power rested not on violence but on genuine popular affection. Venezuela's history since 1999 has been the story of that contradiction playing itself out across the lives of 29 million people.

Chávez's insistence on absolute submission from his supporters paved the way for the rise of an over-the-top cult of personality. As questioning any presidential directive was a sure career-ender for his followers, the upper reaches of his government came to be dominated by yes-men. Further down the food chain, too, extravagant displays of personal loyalty were required from every person in every nook and cranny of Venezuela's massive and fast-growing state apparatus, with state-owned factory workers required to attend rallies and clerical personnel fully expected to donate part of their salaries to the ruling party.

Instead of a police state, Chávez built a propaganda state, one that churned out slogan after slogan stressing the intense, personal, near-mystical bond between him and his followers. . .

Finding no resistance, Chávez gave free rein to his creative streak. He changed the country's official name, shifted its time zone by half-an-hour on a whim and added an extra star to the flag. At one point, he ordered the National Coat of Arms changed on his then 9-year-old daughter's suggestion. When an opposition satirist responded by publishing an Open Letter to the First Daughter -- reasoning that if she was now making public policy, people had a right to address her -- Chávez had the paper that printed the letter fined for violating a child's privacy.

Venezuela - 2013 Index of Economic Freedom

In 1999, Hugo Chávez won the presidency, vanquished the traditional party system, and launched his Bolivarian Revolution aimed at “Socialism for the 21st Century.” Chávez styles himself the leader of Latin America’s anti–free market forces and has made alliances with China, Cuba, Russia, and rogue states like Iran. He has persecuted his political adversaries and critics, restricted media freedom, undermined the rule of law and property rights, militarized the government, and tried to destabilize neighboring Colombia. The national assembly, which he controls, passed a 2009 constitutional amendment allowing him to seek yet another presidential term, and he won re-election in October 2012. Venezuela has Latin America’s highest inflation rate (currently nearly 30 percent); chronic electricity, food, and housing shortages; and skyrocketing crime rates.

The judiciary is dysfunctional and completely controlled by the executive. Politically inconvenient contracts are abrogated, and the legal system discriminates against or in favor of investors from certain foreign countries. The government expropriates land and other private holdings across the economy arbitrarily and without compensation. Corruption, exacerbated by cronyism and