If there is a problem with options, it's that they reward slightly the wrong thing. Not surprisingly, people do what you pay them to. If you pay them by the hour, they'll work a lot of hours. If you pay them by the volume of work done, they'll get a lot of work done (but only as you defined work). And if you pay them to raise the stock price, which is what options amount to, they'll raise the stock price.
But that's not quite what you want. What you want is to increase the actual value of the company, not its market cap. Over time the two inevitably meet, but not always as quickly as options vest. Which means options tempt employees, if only unconsciously, to pump and dump-- to do things that will make the company seem valuable. I found that when I was at Yahoo, I couldn't help thinking, how will this sound to investors? when I should have been thinking is this a good idea?
So maybe the standard option deal needs to be tweaked slightly. Maybe options should be replaced with something tied more directly to earnings. It's still early days.
What about good-old fashioned D_I_V_I_D_E_N_D_S ????
Assuming that an entire group of people who believe in a higher power are ignorant is perhaps the most profound form of ignorance itself. Or arrogance. Were you to do that against any other people group, you'd be labelled as racist.
But fortunately, there is no sympathy towards the bigoted backwards and hateful people that believe in a higher power, so I am not a racist. Bullshit is bullshit, and when you fall for it, you certainly deserve no sympathy.
It is just unfortunate that the level of education is not higher to insure that those bigoted people are not thrown in the trash heap of History.
"And the empire-building has been going on nicely with globalization, where other countries are forced to adopt U.S. ways..."
Really? You mean the globalization that other countries want so much more than the U.S. does? The globalization that third world countries depend upon because they cannot even consume their own products economically? That globalization?
It's not the countries people who want it, but the business elite (the bourgeois) who want to have the US business-centric way of ramming things down the people's throats, by doing away with worker and environmental protections. Or by having insane copyright terms (or software patents), for example.
Other countries adopt U.S. ways in business because they see it being the most successful, not because they're forced. Please spell out exactly the way they're forced.
It's simple: the US says: okay, let us in, or we won't buy your products. And that country's bourgeois shit in their pants and they lobby for globalization. And, too often, the cash-strapped government will surrender with the promise of less government and less public expense.
Ouch. This must be the Slashdot equivalent of going about with a KICK ME tee-shirt...
The former Soviet Union was, and China is, atheist. They are also textbook examples of authoritarian regimes. I don't see the correlation.
Okay. Read slowly then.
How about a correlation of my own? Are you familiar with the term "bread and circuses"? The Roman Empire propped up corrupt regime after insane emperor by providing the populace with the finest in debauchery and cruel diversions. They also, in a proto-socialist manner, made sure that the roman citizens (tough luck on the conquered) were provided for.
Thanks for your correlation which only strengthened my own. Bread and circuses are provided by the MPAA, the RIAA and the US TV networks. The MPAA is quite apt at providing the american public with the finest (okay, maybe not in debauchery) cruel diversions...
This is the exact sort of "empire" the left wants to build in America.
Well, so far, it's the right who has been doing exectly that (though luck on the conquered)... And the empire-building has been going on nicely with globalization, where other countries are forced to adopt U.S. ways...
Your way makes no sense unless a hereditary regime is in power.
Okay, I'll be really easy on this one: Name the son of a U.S. president who became himself president of the USA less than 40 years after his father was kicked-out of the presidency.
A classic example of someone who's never really bothered to KNOW what the creationists claim - if you're going to try to argue against the validity of their claims, AT LEAST HAVE ENOUGH BRAINS TO DO SOME RESEARCH before you claim absolute knowledge on a subject. Stop regurgitating something that you once read in high school biology...
And, I suppose that you have some master's thesis to buttress your blind acceptance of bunk concocted before there was any scientific understanding of the Universe???
In reality, what you do is simply rationalizing the acceptance of a simple explanation of the Universe for the simple-minded and trying to disguise it as a respectable scientific endeavour, in order to attract more gullllible people and manipulate them.
Dinosaur bones and other fossil evidences are probably one of the most easily explained phenomena, from the creationist point of view, as various types of fossils, sedimentary layers in the geological record etc (including different viewpoints on the various fossil dating methods) can theoretically be explained by the worldwide flood that the creationists believe in, using empirically collected data...
This is funny. If the bible was the blueprint for the Universe, it 'shirley' would have mention of all those things scientists keep discovering every day, no?
And, of course, for those who are interested in yet more alternative views, and more "fascinating information", here are some other nice links, as helpful as the above one: http://www.flat-earth.org/ www.timecube.com
From Timecube:
Humans exist as CUBICS, not entities, for the 4 corner stages of rotating human
metamorphosis do not occur at the same time
for the individual - except for family Cube.
You are educated stupid, indoctrinated evil,
and can't even acknowledge that a mother
and baby are the same age - on opposite
corners of a Cubic Creation Principle - for
Truth in Opposites contradict a god entity.
riiight... lets not let facts get in the way here. I mean the earth was OBVIOUSLY created in 7 days! God put dino bones in the ground to fool non-believers!
In those times, days lasted a billion years each...:):):)
On the contrary, there are many arguments in favour of creation or design of life. Increasing numbers of scientists are rejecting Darwinian macroevolution due to lack of evidence.
We would like a detailed run-down of scientists who do. Merely pointing out this as a fact will not stand to scientifically minded people.
You are on Slashdot, here, where people are educated and not preaching in front of an ignorant southern baptist congregation in Hicksville, Alabama.
While we have numerous examples of change inside species due to evolution, we have no real evidene to support the proposed theory that one species can evolve into another, especially on the scale of micro-organisms evolving into complex creatures such as ourselves.
If you had stopped five minutes to understand the principle behind evolution, mutations and natural selection, you would not be stating that patently sugar-coated piece of bunk.
The problem of irreducible complexity, put forward by scientists many years ago, does not any kind of satisfactory answer.
Perhaps, just as god is too complex for men to understand, Science and the scientific method are too complex for you to understand?A theory (and Darwin's THEORY of evolution) does not have to yield satisfactory answers. The theory that gives the least unsatisfactory answer is usually the winner. And in the case of Evolution, it makes far more sense if only because it was concocted by learned minds instead of the primitive minds who wrote the bible.
Darwinian macroevolution relies upon the idea that evolutionary changes that separate species occur in small, miniscule steps. "Irreducible complexity" is the discovered problem that many aspects of biology that are observed today (impossible to examine in Darwin's time) could not have been evolved in small steps due to the fact that numerous components, with no individual purpose, simultaneously would have had to appear in the correct patterns.
Many minuscule steps taken over a tremenduously long amount of time will yield quite huge results; witness the difference between a trypanosome and a racoon or a blue whale and a sequoia tree.
This is far from the only evidence that puts evolution into question; although Darwin claimed his theory's lack of evidence would change as more discoveries were made, there is now less evidence for species-to-species macroevolution now than there was when Darwin proposed the theory, due to new discoveries invalidating some of his original evidence.
Yet, no other theory has surfaced that explains evolution better than the theory of evolution.
So, for the time being, it will have to do.
On the other hand, evidence for creation, or intelligent design, or whatever you want to call it is increasing.
We would like a detailed run-down of this, too. Because on Slashdot, you can say so much bunk before being debunked...
Archaeologists are trying to determine the cause of the Cambrian explosion, or "biological big bang". Rather than fossil evidence showing slow, gradual changes, the fossils of this time period show that in an extremely short period of time, nearly all major animal body types appeared.
How about someting as silly as climate change?
If any of you are interested in science for the sake of objectively discovering the truth, get an opposing viewpoint.
An opposing viewpoint in Science has to be scientific.
It's like saying that the opposite of football is backgammon.
Try picking up a copy of Lee Strobel's "The Case For A Creator". He briefly goes through about 8 of the major arguments in favour of an intelligent creation of life. He IS biased in favour of creation, but I expect most of you are biased in favour of evolution so it'll work out:).
And what are this gentlemen's scientific credentials?
Sagan criticized the Cold War, and so he would criticize the misguided "war on terror" (which followed decades of propping up fundamentalist regimes to combat communism). The way to bring peace to the world is to lead by example, to educate, to promote free speech, to restrict the proliferation of all types of weapons, to reduce inequality, and to limit corporate meddling in other nations' affairs.
Croporations do not want educated populaces, as educated people are bound to be critical and will question endlessly public policies.
This is one reason why the USA is extremely religious, because organized ignorance is the best way of having docile populations that will not thwart the powerful people who dominate it for their own benefit. Kings have known for centuries that religion is the best way to prop-up authoritarian regimes who let a small elite rip-off the rest of the population.
As of peace, what better way than war to make people endure far more than they would consider accepting in times of peace???
It will trojan zillions of systems, leaving them open for all sorts of havoc.
Right before the US presidential election, a time where terrorists worldwide are feverishingly searching for a huge american backdoor. Expect DDOS against the most "important" croporate servers.
All this thanks to programmers fuckingly stupid enough to use a low-enough level language that is rife with buffer overflows and to their managers for allowing them to turn-out such sloppy products.
Hopefully this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and will cause massive interrogation of the "wisdom" of using Microsoft products and raise the awareness about alternatives.
The Enola Gay crew were only a part of the number of people that need to be counted that day. There were dozens of scientists and military personnel that went into that operation.
Silly me. Of course! I should have counted not only the terrorists who flew the planes into the WTC and the Pentagon, but also all the people who designed and built the planes, the guys who filled-them-up at the various airports they took-off from and, lastly, the security flunkies who let them through...
Flash mobs only pose a security risk if you are a fascist. I think with the advent of the cell phone and text messaging, the possibility of a coup d'etat in the developed world is slim to none. Before any would be junta could consolidate power there would be protests in the street, largely due to cell phones and text messaging. I think this a good thing. It safeguards our freedoms and if a few celebrities have to put up with mobs of teenage girls, then so be it.
Remember the 1991 August Coup in Mocba, where communists attempted to oust Yeltsin from power an put back the communists in power?
Ultimately it was defeated by people who phoned each other to assiege the russian parliament buildings.
About that coup, General Wojciech Jaruzelski (who declared martial law in Poland in 1981) said in an interview to the french weekly Le Nouvel Observateur that the would be putshists were amateurs, because the first thing I would have done was to cut all communications...
Originally, the RCMP's role was to prevent alcohol smuggling in canada's northwest during the Klondike gold rush. Eventually, the RCMP's principal role turned to guard Canada from bolshevik subversion, especially since socialist parties started to rise during the great depression of the 1930's.
The RCMP always had a political role and is keeping tabs on people with political affinities that purport to change the political system, no matter if it is advocated along legal channels or not.
But the RCMP has no problems in infliltrating and manipulating terrorist groups it setup. For example, 34 years ago, the RCMP arranged for a corrupt minister to be kidnapped and killed days before he was to be arraigned for being in the mob, thus not only sparing embarrassment to the government, but also giving a nice pretext to declare martial law and help eliminate the prime minister's political ennemies.
The RCMP, like all law-enforcement agencies, is notorious for going after the wrong people. For example, two years ago, it deliberately fed false information to the FBI who then deported a canadian citizen to Syria where he was tortured for a year.
My father, a notable academician, has an RCMP file because 30 years ago, he designed a poster for a russian cultural event. Thanks to this, I am barred from ever holding a security clearance. I am guilty for reason of parenthood...
More recently, I saw first-hand that the RCMP methods of investigation are horrenduously flawed. A former employer had sold computers to what turned out to be criminal telemarketing scammers, and they investigated the seized computer by mixing-up the hard-disks so much that they had to ask us to help them sort out their fuckup. They had put the servers hard disks in workstations and vice-versa... A total bunch of clueless morons.
So, compared to the RCMP, the FBI looks like a model police force.
I think the suggestion was what if among those teenage girls is someone, who's not there to gawk at Prince William, but to kill him?
With a flash mob, it's kinda hard to know who the hell is among the crowd.
Meesa guess that Oussama Bin Laden would stick out like a sore thumb if he were in a teenage girls mob...
Slashdot Mirror
Since you admit being a southern baptist, what's with them to be so hateful busybodies????
No, a Slashdot "Kick-Me" tee-shirt... :)
But fortunately, there is no sympathy towards the bigoted backwards and hateful people that believe in a higher power, so I am not a racist. Bullshit is bullshit, and when you fall for it, you certainly deserve no sympathy.
It is just unfortunate that the level of education is not higher to insure that those bigoted people are not thrown in the trash heap of History.Now, can you spell D_Y_N_A_S_T_Y ????
(And it rhymes nicely with nasty, too)...In reality, what you do is simply rationalizing the acceptance of a simple explanation of the Universe for the simple-minded and trying to disguise it as a respectable scientific endeavour, in order to attract more gullllible people and manipulate them.
This is funny. If the bible was the blueprint for the Universe, it 'shirley' would have mention of all those things scientists keep discovering every day, no?We would like a detailed run-down of scientists who do. Merely pointing out this as a fact will not stand to scientifically minded people.
You are on Slashdot, here, where people are educated and not preaching in front of an ignorant southern baptist congregation in Hicksville, Alabama. If you had stopped five minutes to understand the principle behind evolution, mutations and natural selection, you would not be stating that patently sugar-coated piece of bunk. Perhaps, just as god is too complex for men to understand, Science and the scientific method are too complex for you to understand?A theory (and Darwin's THEORY of evolution) does not have to yield satisfactory answers. The theory that gives the least unsatisfactory answer is usually the winner. And in the case of Evolution, it makes far more sense if only because it was concocted by learned minds instead of the primitive minds who wrote the bible. Many minuscule steps taken over a tremenduously long amount of time will yield quite huge results; witness the difference between a trypanosome and a racoon or a blue whale and a sequoia tree.Yet, no other theory has surfaced that explains evolution better than the theory of evolution.
So, for the time being, it will have to do. We would like a detailed run-down of this, too. Because on Slashdot, you can say so much bunk before being debunked... How about someting as silly as climate change?An opposing viewpoint in Science has to be scientific.
It's like saying that the opposite of football is backgammon. And what are this gentlemen's scientific credentials?Croporations do not want educated populaces, as educated people are bound to be critical and will question endlessly public policies.
This is one reason why the USA is extremely religious, because organized ignorance is the best way of having docile populations that will not thwart the powerful people who dominate it for their own benefit. Kings have known for centuries that religion is the best way to prop-up authoritarian regimes who let a small elite rip-off the rest of the population.
As of peace, what better way than war to make people endure far more than they would consider accepting in times of peace???Expect the southern baptists to raise hell about it...
Er... The Panavision/Sony chip is SMALLER than the Canon SLR camera chip.
A still picture is 36mm wide by 24mm high, whereas a 35mm film picture is 24mm wide by 18mm high.Yay! Finally, a camera we can put into a Beowulf cluster!!!
Who else read this as "Moore Calls for Patent Reform" ????
It will trojan zillions of systems, leaving them open for all sorts of havoc.
Right before the US presidential election, a time where terrorists worldwide are feverishingly searching for a huge american backdoor. Expect DDOS against the most "important" croporate servers.
All this thanks to programmers fuckingly stupid enough to use a low-enough level language that is rife with buffer overflows and to their managers for allowing them to turn-out such sloppy products.
Hopefully this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and will cause massive interrogation of the "wisdom" of using Microsoft products and raise the awareness about alternatives.
You're never too careful.
Even worse: yesterday, I went to a nude beach and had sex with other people watching us!!!
This is to insure against a monoculture that is so disastrous in computer circles as demonstrated by the numerous security failings of Windows...
Remember the 1991 August Coup in Mocba, where communists attempted to oust Yeltsin from power an put back the communists in power?
Ultimately it was defeated by people who phoned each other to assiege the russian parliament buildings.
About that coup, General Wojciech Jaruzelski (who declared martial law in Poland in 1981) said in an interview to the french weekly Le Nouvel Observateur that the would be putshists were amateurs, because the first thing I would have done was to cut all communications...The RCMP always had a political role and is keeping tabs on people with political affinities that purport to change the political system, no matter if it is advocated along legal channels or not.
But the RCMP has no problems in infliltrating and manipulating terrorist groups it setup. For example, 34 years ago, the RCMP arranged for a corrupt minister to be kidnapped and killed days before he was to be arraigned for being in the mob, thus not only sparing embarrassment to the government, but also giving a nice pretext to declare martial law and help eliminate the prime minister's political ennemies.
The RCMP, like all law-enforcement agencies, is notorious for going after the wrong people. For example, two years ago, it deliberately fed false information to the FBI who then deported a canadian citizen to Syria where he was tortured for a year.
My father, a notable academician, has an RCMP file because 30 years ago, he designed a poster for a russian cultural event. Thanks to this, I am barred from ever holding a security clearance. I am guilty for reason of parenthood...
More recently, I saw first-hand that the RCMP methods of investigation are horrenduously flawed. A former employer had sold computers to what turned out to be criminal telemarketing scammers, and they investigated the seized computer by mixing-up the hard-disks so much that they had to ask us to help them sort out their fuckup. They had put the servers hard disks in workstations and vice-versa... A total bunch of clueless morons.
So, compared to the RCMP, the FBI looks like a model police force.