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Yeah, thinking that that oil conglomerates fix prices is a super nutty conspiracy thinking. I mean, it's not like giant companies like ADM have ever been involved in price fixing with their group of international competitors. Now, I may not be totally up on the matter, because I'm a geek and stick to tech news rather than business news, but I've never heard of price-fixing happening in real life and not just in conspiracy nutters ramblings. The whole concept is just crazy. You are a wise man.

Far more money goes to stock dividends than goes to CEO salaries.

I'm not trying to defend their pay packages, I'm just pointing out that you haven't even begun to capture the situation.

As an example, the highest paid CEO in 2009 (at least in the U.S., didn't check for a higher world figure) was Larry Ellison, at $85 million. Meanwhile, Oracle paid about $300 million in dividends. If you jump down to number 20, the CEO made about $20 million, while the company paid more than $1 billion in dividends.

So the CEO compensation is probably outsize, but by no means is it where the majority of the money is ending up.

(Pay numbers from here: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/news/1004/gallery.top_ceo_pay/index.html

Use Cash flow to check the amount of dividends paid: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=ORCL+Cash+Flow&annual )

I'd say you need to start reading the news from Europe.

The Euro has dropped 22% when measured against the dollar in the last 6 months. There are unemployment rates from 10 - 20% across Europe. Even the strongest European economy, Germany, has initiated an austerity plan, and Germany forced budget cuts on Greece, Spain, and Portugal after having to bail them out so they wouldn't default on their debts and take down the entire European economy.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100608/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_europe_financial_crisis

Horrible example. Whole foods market cap is well over 6 billion.

I'll just go to search.yahoo.com... nice and clean, just the way google used to be

Anyone who honestly thinks BP isn't doing E V E R Y T H I N G in its power to stem the flow is a fool.

I believe that BP has every incentive to stop the leak.

I also believe BP has every incentive to do so as cheaply as possible. For instance, they originally wanted to only drill one relief well until Congress insisted they start on another one. Why? Well because a relief well is not a guaranteed fixe. Sometimes the first one you drill doesn't do much, assuming you even succeed in hitting the foot-wide hole with the other foot-wide hole you're drilling at an angle through miles of rock.

I am not about to second-guess the engineers who are busting their ass working on fixes. I fully realize that what they are trying to do is exceedingly difficult -- I mean, that's part of why it's such a big problem. However that also applies to the relief wells. With the problems that keep coming up in all the other attempted solutions, just assuming that a single relief well will work on the first try seems ludicrous. Could the extra cost possibly outweigh the impact if the relief well fails and oil spews until they can go through the whole process of drilling another? Could you, as an engineer, justify that lack of redundancy when solving a problem of this magnitude?

But those decisions aren't made by engineers. Engineers quantify the risks as best they can, and executives make the decision off the summary middle management hands them. For them, maybe the cost vs risk works out? Maybe a mentality that you cut corners and do the minimum (or less) and just hope things work out is so entrenched that they would still try it even after things had already failed to work out?

And not that I don't think their Top Kill attempt was anything but sincere, but that's exactly why it strikes me as odd that you'd mention that $700000/day figure for siphoning oil as some kind of incentive for plugging the well. When they really fix the well it won't be usable anymore. So no more oil. Which gives them the opposite incentive. Again, this is just the thought train your observation led me down.

Yahoo don't work there? Because I live in what I would consider a pretty dang small town (less than 15k, and half of that college kids that are only here for the semester) and I type in "name of city, state pizza" and get every single restaurant that serves pizza in town, including 3 I never heard of (they sound good and got 4 stars though, I'll have to call one later) so maybe you're just using the wrong search?

If you are here in the states (I don't know if it works for other countries) try Yahoo Local. It is fast, it'll save your location so you only need to put it in once, and has reviews from folks that have actually eaten there so you know whether the food is good or not. That is one of the reasons I have stuck with Yahoo, their little services like Yahoo Local just make it too easy to find things on the fly.

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/109725/fast-traders-new-edge
They will just spend their time making sure "latency arbitrage" is part of the competition.
That time-delay wrinkle between the real results and hacking the data they presented.

"Making a good impression" would sort of imply Obama would have to retroactively cease being the single politician who has received the largest financial contributions from BP, though, wouldn't you think??

Given how critical Obama has been of BP, they might want to ask for a refund and give the money to Rand Paul instead. Paul understands that sometimes, you know, accidents just happen, and in blaming business Obama is being decidedly un-American. At very least BP should send Paul a fruit basket.

I'm betting you're wrong http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100604/ap_on_he_me/us_cadmium_shrek

The drinking glasses are the first American-made products to be recalled.

[U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman] Wolfson said the recalled glasses have "far less cadmium" than the recalled jewelry. He would not say how much cadmium leached from the glasses in tests, only that it was "slightly above the protective level currently being developed by the agency."

Arc is a French company with a plant in New Jersey ; its origins as a glassmaker date to 1825. The company said that it has been making glasses for McDonald's for 15 years and that levels of cadmium used in the enamel baked into the glass were within current federal safety guidelines.

Biagi, Arc's vice president of North American sales, said the company was surprised and confused when it got word of the recall Thursday night.

"Our feeling is these glasses are safe," Biagi said.

None of which explains why there's a recall for standards that don't actually exist yet. I'm guessing everyone went into cover-your-ass mode when they heard a Congresswoman involved.

One post at 7:44pm and another identical post at 7:49pm. Can you wait another five minutes and post that a third time please? I'm not so sure I got it after the second time. If that's not convenient, ten or fifteen minute increments would also be acceptable.

I've always thought this happened by design. Although, I've never been sure exactly what the design was.

Perhaps it's an attempt to keep a conversation about a particular topic going through multiple headlines and stories. New stories are being written all of the time, usually with just a paragraph or two that are different from the old story.

Perhaps it was an attempt to cut down on the number of stupid posts. After all, who reads the end of a comment thread that contains 99,601 comments. Surely people realize that few people are going to read their comment after so many have been posted.

Perhaps it's an attempt to cut down on flame wars. It's not easy going through 100's of pages trying to find out if some moron picked up on your finely honed flame-bait.

Perhaps it's a database design issue, and they are simply trying to save disk space.

I'm betting you're wrong
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100604/ap_on_he_me/us_cadmium_shrek

The drinking glasses are the first American-made products to be recalled.

[U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman] Wolfson said the recalled glasses have "far less cadmium" than the recalled jewelry. He would not say how much cadmium leached from the glasses in tests, only that it was "slightly above the protective level currently being developed by the agency."

Arc is a French company with a plant in New Jersey ; its origins as a glassmaker date to 1825. The company said that it has been making glasses for McDonald's for 15 years and that levels of cadmium used in the enamel baked into the glass were within current federal safety guidelines.

Biagi, Arc's vice president of North American sales, said the company was surprised and confused when it got word of the recall Thursday night.

"Our feeling is these glasses are safe," Biagi said.

None of which explains why there's a recall for standards that don't actually exist yet.
I'm guessing everyone went into cover-your-ass mode when they heard a Congresswoman involved.

The glasses were made in China.

I'm betting you're wrong.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100604/ap_on_he_me/us_cadmium_shrek

All the recalled jewelry was made in China. The drinking glasses are the first American-made products to be recalled.

[U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesman] Wolfson said the recalled glasses have "far less cadmium" than the recalled jewelry. He would not say how much cadmium leached from the glasses in tests, only that it was "slightly above the protective level currently being developed by the agency."

Arc is a French company with a plant in New Jersey ; its origins as a glassmaker date to 1825. The company said that it has been making glasses for McDonald's for 15 years and that levels of cadmium used in the enamel baked into the glass were within current federal safety guidelines.

Biagi, Arc's vice president of North American sales, said the company was surprised and confused when it got word of the recall Thursday night.

I'm not sure why the product is being recalled based on CPSC standards that don't actually exist yet.
I'm guessing it's because a Congresswoman got involved and everyone went into cover-your-ass mode.

But is there a way a government that can't properly feed 23% of its citizens and has 56% below the poverty line can afford?

source info

Frederick hopes 'if Righthaven shows continued success, that it will find other clients looking for a solution to the theft of copyrighted material' and ends his 'editorial' (or is it an ad?) inviting other newspapers to become Righthaven customers.

So, is this possibly a Glenn Beck/Goldline type of situation?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100603/ts_ynews/ynews_ts2382

I tried that link, filled in the form and submitted it. The result?

Yahoo gives a 999 error with word suggesting it is "temporary" but also suggesting virus infection on my PC and/or suspicious activity from my ISP.

What's your guess?

[ ] Slashdot effect
[ ] Refusal to hear bad news (and implied criticism of person raising it?)
[ ] Genuine error

FWIW I followed the reporting link and sent the following:

Action:
Tried raising privacy concern (text below) at URL
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/privacy/cgi_feedback?radio30=radio305
Outcome:
received repeated '999' error

Desired result:
Please forward the text below to relevant departments

I am disappointed that Yahoo! is following a "me too" approach to its users' privacy with settings opted in by default.

I have long valued Yahoo! mail as a service. The latest moves to 'social features' are a step too far and I am seriously considering telling my contacts to reach me at another address.

I cannot see why you could not offer two services (or one service with two or more preconfigured set of options) -- one with all the social bells and whistles and a second, more basic, service which provides email *and nothing else*.

I would certainly value the second option - basic email with no "connections" no "followers" no "updates" -- I'd be happier to have the screen estate filled with more adverts if that were necessary to fund this. I don't see why anyone should need to have access to information on profiles (or even why I'd want to load up such data) -- those that know me already know the details; other people can be told when I feel the occasion demands it.

Nor do I - anymore. Delete Yahoo! Account

A quick search shows you where to go. Look for "Notifications and Settings" on your "Account Information" page.

A quick search shows you where to go. Look for "Notifications and Settings" on your "Account Information" page.

Hey, they can call it Yahoo Buzz!

Oh wait...

"We're going to fuck all of our users in the ass. But we want to make sure OUR asses are covered, legally speaking. So we are going to warn our users that we are going to fuck them in the ass. But we aren't going to go out of our way to warn them, because then they might not let us fuck them in the ass. We're going to secretly warn them, and then our lawyers have informed us that we can fuck our users in the ass until they ask us to stop. And then confirm that they want to stop the ass-fucking by clicking on a link in an e-mail that they will receive within a few hours, during which they will still be getting fucking in the ass."

-Yahoo! is a leading online provider of ass-fucking. http://www.yahoo.com/

A. Overview of Objective-C

Objective-C is a layer on top of C [6, 17]. It supports classes and message passing paradigms similar to Smalltalk. Describing Objective-C in detail is outside the scope of this paper. Here we give only a brief overview of Objective-C, which is based on the Objective-C FAQ in http://www.yahoo.com/Computers/Languages/Objective_C/. The main characteristics of Objective-C are:

• It is compiled.
• It has a dynamic runtime system (objects are dynamically typed). Full type information (name and type information of methods and instance variables and type information of method arguments) is available at run time.
• Classes and methods can be added (dynamically loaded) at runtime.
• There is one root class Object from which all other classes inherit. (This is not quite true; other root classes can be defined, e.g., NSProxy in OpenStep.)
• Method/message syntax is similar to Smalltalk.
• Unlike in Smalltalk, there is no garbage collection. Instead, reference counting pseudo-garbage collection techniques are typically used.

Because Blu-Ray players require firmware updates.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Nearly-half-of-US-households-apf-1105567323.html?x=0&.v=1>

Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax; Recession, new tax credits have nearly half of US households paying no federal income tax

Sorry, I must not be working hard enough. Us 50% that pay will try to work harder.

You can also buy a diverse portfolio [...] over time the stock market has been outperforming all other assets in recent history.

Apparently you are using a different definition of "recent" than I do. Still, look at the 5-year chart. How can that thing outperform anything? It doesn't outperform a wad of cash under the mattress if you don't get dividends. Investors of 2007-2008 are still in the red. No, I'll stay with bonds, they seldom default and I don't have much of any one. In return for smaller gains I sleep well and don't care what DJI is on any given morning.

well, one should eat yogurts.

May the schwartz be with you!

Let's see, you are in favor of transforming private companies (private property) by force into "in practice, semi-autonomous, self-budgeting, revenue-sharing government branches" as a "transition period" to "reach ultimate goal of socialism" (all quotes from your previous post). Doesn't sound very centrist to me.

I don't have time to fully reply (Lakers game is about to start) but let me just state briefly that whether you realize it or not what you are describing above is called fascism (which unlike socialism does not involve state ownership of industry, but it can be defined as system where all powerful state controls the privately owned industry directly).

There is no way in the world that the economic policies of USA can be called laissez faire but lets say they are slightly closer to that than economies in many other countries. Please provide some reference for your claim that capital gets invested until certain point and then stops getting invested. I have never heard any such thing before and it doesn't sound plausible. How is it that the USA had become the engine of worlds innovation in just about any field you can imagine (take computer technology, medicine, biotech etc etc) during the last 20-30 years, far outpacing Europe in new inventions and especially entrepreneurship (just take growth of various computer companies from nothing to multi-billion dollar corporations). Take progress of medical science. All that happened with huge amounts of capital investment.

If you think that the recent financial crisis proves anything take a look at this chart

It is but a blip that will correct itself in no time. While you are looking at it, also notice the stagnation in the 60s and 70s when socialist craze was at it's peak and vastly increased rate of the growth of the economy since return to capitalism occurred from Reagan years and on. I'd also recommend youtube clips of one of the architects of that growth Milton Friedman, he's been educating and converting socialists far better than I can: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Milton+Friedman

Yes you can. Yahoo pipes allows you to do such things. Either make your own, or go with a premade one such as the feed found at http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=527129296c75002203989957b76e87d9

As always, you can use yahoo pipes to filter out idle. Or just subscribe to one that someone has already created. Like the one found at http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=527129296c75002203989957b76e87d9

Before you accuse other people of ignorance it might help to do a little research. By many estimates this spill is much larger than the Exxon Valdez spill. See for example http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100527/us_nm/us_oil_rig_flowrate.

That's understandable - they're mostly a hardware company, which historically have lower margins than software companies.

Having said that, compare:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT

21.15% vs 29%

That's understandable - they're mostly a hardware company, which historically have lower margins than software companies.

Having said that, compare:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT

21.15% vs 29%

Market capitalization is only the value of a company's equity and not its debt and is accordingly a function of its capital structure (debt to equity ratio).

Enterprise value is a combination of the market value of the debt and equity of a company. As such, it is not distorted by the capital structure of the company.

Using this less biased measure, Apple has an enterprise value of $200B whereas Microsoft's is $197B

Market capitalization is only the value of a company's equity and not its debt and is accordingly a function of its capital structure (debt to equity ratio).

Enterprise value is a combination of the market value of the debt and equity of a company. As such, it is not distorted by the capital structure of the company.

Using this less biased measure, Apple has an enterprise value of $200B whereas Microsoft's is $197B

As of this writing, BP's market cap is $129.89B, while google's is $149.69B. Even before the current mess, BP's stock was about 50% higher, which would have given it a market cap of about $195B; more than google, but still in the same league.

Links (will probably have different values by the time you view):

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=bp
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog

I think the comparison is unfair for other reasons, as I mentioned, but relative company size is not one of them.

As of this writing, BP's market cap is $129.89B, while google's is $149.69B. Even before the current mess, BP's stock was about 50% higher, which would have given it a market cap of about $195B; more than google, but still in the same league.

Links (will probably have different values by the time you view):

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=bp
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog

I think the comparison is unfair for other reasons, as I mentioned, but relative company size is not one of them.

... Just look at home pages, which working PC repair I can tell you the average Joe by a good 99 out of 100 have set to this instead of this because they actually LIKE it that way!

Um, did you ever think the reason peeps have it set to www.yahoo.com is because yahoo is most likely their email, and they might use the portal crap on yahoo's front page?

... Just look at home pages, which working PC repair I can tell you the average Joe by a good 99 out of 100 have set to this instead of this because they actually LIKE it that way!

Um, did you ever think the reason peeps have it set to www.yahoo.com is because yahoo is most likely their email, and they might use the portal crap on yahoo's front page?

Uuuuhhhh...You DO know that if all you want is the burner Nero will let you have it for free, yes? Or that if you want an even more simple interface there are great free choices such as IMGBurn which you can even install with a one click unattended installation thanks to Ninite that will install nearly all the major apps folks need/want, like FF,.NET/Flash/Silerlight/Java, even IM, AV, and Media Players, all in an interface so simple even your grandma can use it?

So while the full Nero may not be YOUR cup of tea, there are enough folks buying it that Nero thinks it is the correct way to go for their customers, but they are still nice enough to offer the basic version for $0. And just because you think it is "bloated" doesn't mean the masses do. Just look at home pages, which working PC repair I can tell you the average Joe by a good 99 out of 100 have set to this instead of this because they actually LIKE it that way!

Uuuuhhhh...You DO know that if all you want is the burner Nero will let you have it for free, yes? Or that if you want an even more simple interface there are great free choices such as IMGBurn which you can even install with a one click unattended installation thanks to Ninite that will install nearly all the major apps folks need/want, like FF,.NET/Flash/Silerlight/Java, even IM, AV, and Media Players, all in an interface so simple even your grandma can use it?

So while the full Nero may not be YOUR cup of tea, there are enough folks buying it that Nero thinks it is the correct way to go for their customers, but they are still nice enough to offer the basic version for $0. And just because you think it is "bloated" doesn't mean the masses do. Just look at home pages, which working PC repair I can tell you the average Joe by a good 99 out of 100 have set to this instead of this because they actually LIKE it that way!

You know what would be funny in a black humor sense (African American humor for the politically correct)?

If this rig, the BP's Atlantis, which apparently never even submitted its blue prints for any inspection and is drilling some place even deeper and with more oil also sank and created another oil geyser at the bottom of the ocean. It's possible, apparently BP found some issues with Atlantis and of-course it would be even a worse disaster.

I bet BP has learned so much by now, they can plug a new leak where Atlantis is in no time and everything will be hunky dory. Oh wait a second...

Ah, nevermind.

It reminds me of the Non-Sequitur comic this week.

Markets seems to don't to like to be regulated, as with latest Germany measures. Next days we will see how they will take this regulation, if well won't happen in a 5-min period probably at the end of the day will get the kind of hit they want to prevent.

I'm going to blatantly copy and paste an answer from Kwlest http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100518205646AAeQc1L

----

I'm a Muslim & I'm glad you asked this question - (sorry if my answer is too long)

Some people who call them selves Muslims have blown this out of proportion, letting their Anger overcome them.

As Muslims if we call for protests on the drawings of Prophet Mohamed we should have protested the same way when the movie passion of Christ was made as it is degradation of one of the Greatest prophets sent by God

Sadly similar to some Christians and Jews who do not know their religion properly there is a group of Muslims who do not know what they are doing or why they are doing so; in the process they have done more harm to Islam than the original drawing.

But here is the reason why you should not draw a picture of a Prophet (notice I said prophet and not just Mohamed)

A prophet is a Human sent by God to spread the word of God and if one does a painting of this man then with due time others would start idolizing this picture and praying to it instead of God, associating partners with God is an unforgivable sin

it is best to avoid drawing pictures of prophets as this would result in hanging such paintings/Drawings in important places and respecting it as if it were holy

Having said that, drawing inappropriate pictures of anyone for that matter is morally incorrect, imagine I draw a picture of someone’s mother or father in a degrading manner how offensive is that to the persons children, they may not react the same way but it is equally degrading

Why would a non Muslim want to draw a picture of Prophet Mohamed in a wrong manner (if not to anger Muslims) you can call it freedom but Freedom is a trial from God and to miss use it is to be answerable to God and we have no right to kill or hurt such a person

When Prophet Mohamed visited a town and the people of that town stoned him God sent the Angel Gabriel and asked the prophet if you wish god has sent me to punish them and our beloved prophet said No, Maybe some day they will realize their mistake and accept the right path therefore I forgive them

When the prophet was not angry of attacks against him why should we act in Anger

I conclude with a saying from the Quran

O you who believe seek help through perseverance and Prayer; surely, ALLAH is with those who patiently persevere.” [Quran 02:153]

Lets be patient and Allah is surely with those who are patient as mentioned in above verse of the Quran and we should not worry about their plans against Islam, we all should pray and Ask Allah to save us from their evil plans against Islam

BOTH articles (last year and this year) put GE as #4 American company. Check again.

Good try though.

Market Cap has little to do with the size of a company ("4th largest in the US", in your words).

Want to say "4th most valuable", that might be an argument (although sources say that Apple is not the 4th largest market cap US company either).

Good job citing an article that has nothing to do with Market Cap.

Saw Douglas Crockford's talk about the history of programming languages and development a week or so ago, and I came to the conclusion that largely, yes, programmers need to be told how to do their jobs and with what tools otherwise you wind up with crap like Windows and x86.

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/theater/video.php?v=crockonjs-1

Word for word troll : http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100515073624AANPXoV

So does this mean if I accidentally leave our apartment unlocked one morning, someone breaks in, steals one of our daggers or guns, and commits a crime...that we could be charged for aiding a criminal?

Germans will actually fine you for just being stupid. You can actually get fined for running out of gas.

Legal at least in California, thanks to 30 seconds on Google:

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060720210018AAWfCCp

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/liensale.htm