That's not the point. Fighting an uphill battle and then at some point claiming to pull out due to freedom of speech issues isn't quite as believable as a world leader in search not entering a market due to freedom of speech issues.
It is exactly the opposite: claiming not to enter a market (where they would face an uphill battle to get even the tiniest marketshare) due to freedom of speech issues is much less believable than pulling out after achieving a very respectable 29%, after all the money and time invested to get to those 29%.
And you were modded "insightful"? Mods must be smoking something powerful.
As such, he and his ancestors have seen plenty of discrimination and perhaps a pogrom or two, too. They were persecuted by the Czars, they were persecuted by Stalin, and basically, none of the USSR leaders after Stalin had much sympathy for them, either. I think Brin has a sharpened and sensitive view of things related to freedom of speech and other civil liberties.
They didn't cash in - from what I understand, they filed a notice with the SEC (per one of the Insider Trading Sanctions Acts), just in case if they want to cash in a larger part of their securities.
then send a few more robots to build a permanent, self-sustaining base there. THEN we send people.
You seem to be oblivious to the fact that controlling remotely robots from Earth is terribly difficult, due to the huge time lag. It would take centuries to build a "self sustaining base", with remotely controlled robots.
Oh, you meant smart AI that needs no remote control? It will take a couple of centuries to DESIGN such robots, so all in all, we're better off sending people to Mars in the next decade or two. I'm getting tired of the ultra-cautious types like you. We'd be printing from woodcuts if things went at the pace you have in mind.
The USSR got most of its initial nuclear technology from spies. Read it here in more detail and don't holyfuck baselessly other posters that know more than you do.
That's a useful article, granted, but the issue I see is: I've never heard of any of those, and I am guessing none is any good outside the US.
Plus, I assume the kind of problems a poster at sibling level mentioned with regards to Digital River, exist with others - it's healthy to be cautious.
I suggest everyone use bank tranfers in EURO countries. IBAN/BIC payments are free if done with shared-cost.
+1 on using the Eurotransfer (I think that's the official name for this type of money wire). You need the IBAN of the recipient and the BIC of his/her bank. It's inexpensive and safe.
That said, there is a latency of 3 banking days, and the recipient is not automatically notified by e-mail, which sometimes introduces more delays. Still, it's an amazing service, and USians are really missing out on a good thing, for not having this.
Except that money from capital gains are not subject to either Social Security or Medicare. Taxes for those programs are deducted from employment income, not investment income. Furthermore, capital gains tax rates are significantly lower than those for ordinary income - currently the former is capped at 15% [wikipedia.org], while the latter is 39% [wikipedia.org]. Not a knock on the Google founders specifically, but rather on the wealthy in general - as Warren Buffet has pointed out, our tax system is skewed so that wealthy folks like himself pay an effective tax rate of 17.7% [nytimes.com], while his secretary is taxed at 30%.
Buffet has a great talent, and the courage, to point out all that is wrong in corporations, especially in USA. He is also the best executive I know - one that doesn't look just for the quick gain, the little swindle and cash-out, but with the sight firmly on long-term viability of the company and its environment (both social and natural). In my book he's one of the good guys.
So, we have a mysterious plastic cube that automatically sells itself after a week. How about, during that one week it releases a noxious chemical, or a bacterium, which then eventually kills the owner (say, after about a few months)? A chain of mysterious deaths, "untraceable" (in Hollywood movies you can have plotholes as big as goatse asshole), terrifying...
Seeing as though the Kindle is heavily DRM encumbered, and that EA games are similarly DRM-laden softwares, I guess the target audience for the Kindle would be tolerant of DRM to the extent that EA finds desirable.
I'm born raised in Iceland but currently live in Canada and I've spent a year in Finland, and I can absolutely, positively guarantee you that the tech guru population per capita in Iceland is drastically higher than in either one of those. Even though the Finns are generally geeks... and I mean that in a good way obviously.
As a Finnish geek... I don't know whether to feel insulted or flattered.
It was since 9/11 that it struck me: the US secret services, intelligence and security communities are... well, a bit dumb. The measures taken on planes after 9/11 should have been there before. Plain-clothes officers on planes were introduced only AFTER the fact. In Israel that has been common practice since the 70's. I don't even need to mention security theater at the airports in the US. And then the more recent Jordanian double-agent that kills 7 CIA officers in Afghanistan. Then there's the ridiculous list of no-fly passengers that is checked against a name!? Really? Now that's really hard to defeat. And it aggravates everybody who happens to have the same name. These just from the top off my head, but there are much more such stupendously silly things.
Beyond drastic, strategic changes in philosophy, the intelligence community in the US should be more imaginative, more broad-minded, more alert. Basically, more intelligent.
I guess there's a difference in degrees, stemming from cultural differences. There are countries/cultures, where people, for whatever reason, tend to care more about the general well-being. I would like to draw parallels with game theory, but I have no time at the moment.
I don't quite understand how the Chrome guys do the updates, but it seems like dark magic: I never noticed ever needing a restart, but still, the executable is being updated, too. I have no clue how that is achieved.
After all the adulterated, poisonous food, even baby formulas, manufactured by chinese companies - after dozens were poisoned and died, you're still surprised? They will sell you anything they can get away with.
Keep buying "Made in China", fuck off and die. At this point, that's really all one can say.
I don't really know how the W3C is organized, but shouldn't there be some protection against allowing organizations who are openly hostile toward a technology from sitting on the committee? Isn't this just common sense?
Who do they think they are? The UN?
For those who don't get the UN reference: the OP is referring to the UN commission for human rights, regularly filled and chaired by countries that shit all over human rights.
Iran very much does NOT allow Baha'is freedom of worship. Not only are they forbidden free spiritual activities or roganization of any kind, but members of the Baha'i faith are systematically oppressed: forbidden from higher education, fired and shut-out of jobs, especially at universities, dislodged from their homes and imprisoned. Many have been executed after mock trials or even without any trials. Same with the Zoroastrians/Zarathustrians. The Baha'is are a substantial community, with about 300.000 followers.
Copyright on scientific articles is the most evil of all, in my opinion as a researcher. I, and most other fellow scientists don't get paid by the publisher for our works. In fact, the salary of a scientist in general is meager. But we find pleasure in what we do, and in sharing our science with humankind. What we do is intended for everybody, and not to perpetually keep money flowing into the coffins of the Elseviers, the IOPs, Wileys of this world. I am astonished sometimes, to see that a lot of fundamental articles, published decades ago (in the 60's, or even earlier) is still not freely accessible by the public. I can't help but think "what douchebags, profiting like leeches from the work of scientists, many now defunct, whereas the work was intended for the whole world".
Using salt is boneheaded. In Finland, that has just as much (if not more) snow and cold as Moscow, they don't use salt atall, just gravel, combined with an effective road and street cleaning schedule.
To the mods who gave this clown +5, Informative: did you really think Nokia has only such mickey mouse patents to go to war with? here is a list of patents (I don't have the patent numbers, just the names):
Data Transmission in a Radio Telephone Network Data Transfer in a Mobile Telephone Network Measurement Report Transmission in a Telecommunications System Access Channel for Reduced Access Delay in a Telecommunications System Reporting Cal Measurement Results in a Cellular Communication System Method and Apparatus for Speech Transmission in a Mobile Communication System Speech Synthesizer Employing Post-Processing for Enhancing the Quality of the Synthesized Speech Method of Ciphering Data Transmission in a Radio System Integrity Check in a Communication System System for Ensuring Encrypted Communication After handover
There is a difference between outsourcing cheap toys and souvenirs and outsourcing "technology." You claim the latter and then proceeded to talk only about the former, which is something we all know about. Not that outsourcing manufacturing is ideal, but "technology" at least is still something that is largely created in Western countries and Japan.
Maybe because I work as a researcher, I have a somewhat bird's view on the situation, I am not sure, but I know that you're overlooking the megatrend: China is investing a lot of money into high-tech and research institutions. They're building research cleanrooms at a breakneck pace. Not all of them are of the highest standard, but al of them are put to good use, by students and faculty, and more and more interesting papers are coming out from China. Yes, they are not at the same level as the US and Europe - yet - but the question is not where are you now, but where are you going, and where will you be tomorrow. Just two random facts to illustrate the milestones they achieved: China is the largest manufacturer, by far, of carbon nanotubes, almost a monopoly. And China is the largest producer of crystalline silicon solar cells (though not by as big a margin as with CNTs).
The 386SX was a 32 bit processor internally but had a 16 bit data bus. The 386DX was a straight 32bit processor all the way through. There was a third flawed varient that had a problem switching between real and protected mode that could lock up the system. Those chips would be stamped that they were only certified for 16 bit apps. The ones that tested good had a double sigma stamp on them. Neither the 386sx nor 386dx had math coprocessors. The 486 however was a different story. The 486DX had a coprocessor but the 486SX did not.
And let's not relent in confusing the audience: both 486SX and 486DX had a 32 bit data bus:) And then came the 486DX2 which ran at 66 MHz instead of the 486DX's 33. The 486DX4, unlike what you'd expect, didn't have a 4x33 MHz clock speed, but a 100 MHz one. If you're not confused by now, you're not human.
The US and the whole western world have almost completely outsourced their whole production and with it, the technology, to China. When I visited the various Smithsonian museums, just for shits and giggles I asked at the souvenir shops if they had a single item that wasn't made in China. I repeated this little game in various museums. Try as they may, the shopkeepers weren't able to find a single fucking item that wasn't Made in China. Not one. This just to illustrate you the magnitude of production in China, and the magnitude of how much the west has given up. The Chinese aren't idiots; they learn and are about to surpass the west in many technological areas.
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That's not the point. Fighting an uphill battle and then at some point claiming to pull out due to freedom of speech issues isn't quite as believable as a world leader in search not entering a market due to freedom of speech issues.
It is exactly the opposite: claiming not to enter a market (where they would face an uphill battle to get even the tiniest marketshare) due to freedom of speech issues is much less believable than pulling out after achieving a very respectable 29%, after all the money and time invested to get to those 29%.
And you were modded "insightful"? Mods must be smoking something powerful.
As such, he and his ancestors have seen plenty of discrimination and perhaps a pogrom or two, too. They were persecuted by the Czars, they were persecuted by Stalin, and basically, none of the USSR leaders after Stalin had much sympathy for them, either. I think Brin has a sharpened and sensitive view of things related to freedom of speech and other civil liberties.
They didn't cash in - from what I understand, they filed a notice with the SEC (per one of the Insider Trading Sanctions Acts), just in case if they want to cash in a larger part of their securities.
That said, yes, Brin seems a nice guy through and through
Yet again, in the USA the more money buys the "better justice".
And the Co$ has gobs of money.
then send a few more robots to build a permanent, self-sustaining base there. THEN we send people.
You seem to be oblivious to the fact that controlling remotely robots from Earth is terribly difficult, due to the huge time lag. It would take centuries to build a "self sustaining base", with remotely controlled robots.
Oh, you meant smart AI that needs no remote control? It will take a couple of centuries to DESIGN such robots, so all in all, we're better off sending people to Mars in the next decade or two. I'm getting tired of the ultra-cautious types like you. We'd be printing from woodcuts if things went at the pace you have in mind.
The USSR got most of its initial nuclear technology from spies. Read it here in more detail and don't holyfuck baselessly other posters that know more than you do.
That's a useful article, granted, but the issue I see is: I've never heard of any of those, and I am guessing none is any good outside the US.
Plus, I assume the kind of problems a poster at sibling level mentioned with regards to Digital River, exist with others - it's healthy to be cautious.
I suggest everyone use bank tranfers in EURO countries. IBAN/BIC payments are free if done with shared-cost.
+1 on using the Eurotransfer (I think that's the official name for this type of money wire). You need the IBAN of the recipient and the BIC of his/her bank. It's inexpensive and safe.
That said, there is a latency of 3 banking days, and the recipient is not automatically notified by e-mail, which sometimes introduces more delays. Still, it's an amazing service, and USians are really missing out on a good thing, for not having this.
Except that money from capital gains are not subject to either Social Security or Medicare. Taxes for those programs are deducted from employment income, not investment income. Furthermore, capital gains tax rates are significantly lower than those for ordinary income - currently the former is capped at 15% [wikipedia.org], while the latter is 39% [wikipedia.org]. Not a knock on the Google founders specifically, but rather on the wealthy in general - as Warren Buffet has pointed out, our tax system is skewed so that wealthy folks like himself pay an effective tax rate of 17.7% [nytimes.com], while his secretary is taxed at 30%.
Buffet has a great talent, and the courage, to point out all that is wrong in corporations, especially in USA. He is also the best executive I know - one that doesn't look just for the quick gain, the little swindle and cash-out, but with the sight firmly on long-term viability of the company and its environment (both social and natural). In my book he's one of the good guys.
So, we have a mysterious plastic cube that automatically sells itself after a week. How about, during that one week it releases a noxious chemical, or a bacterium, which then eventually kills the owner (say, after about a few months)? A chain of mysterious deaths, "untraceable" (in Hollywood movies you can have plotholes as big as goatse asshole), terrifying...
Seeing as though the Kindle is heavily DRM encumbered, and that EA games are similarly DRM-laden softwares, I guess the target audience for the Kindle would be tolerant of DRM to the extent that EA finds desirable.
I am not a customer of either Kindle or EA games.
I'm born raised in Iceland but currently live in Canada and I've spent a year in Finland, and I can absolutely, positively guarantee you that the tech guru population per capita in Iceland is drastically higher than in either one of those. Even though the Finns are generally geeks... and I mean that in a good way obviously.
As a Finnish geek... I don't know whether to feel insulted or flattered.
It was since 9/11 that it struck me: the US secret services, intelligence and security communities are... well, a bit dumb. The measures taken on planes after 9/11 should have been there before. Plain-clothes officers on planes were introduced only AFTER the fact. In Israel that has been common practice since the 70's. I don't even need to mention security theater at the airports in the US. And then the more recent Jordanian double-agent that kills 7 CIA officers in Afghanistan. Then there's the ridiculous list of no-fly passengers that is checked against a name!? Really? Now that's really hard to defeat. And it aggravates everybody who happens to have the same name. These just from the top off my head, but there are much more such stupendously silly things.
Beyond drastic, strategic changes in philosophy, the intelligence community in the US should be more imaginative, more broad-minded, more alert. Basically, more intelligent.
I guess there's a difference in degrees, stemming from cultural differences. There are countries/cultures, where people, for whatever reason, tend to care more about the general well-being. I would like to draw parallels with game theory, but I have no time at the moment.
I don't quite understand how the Chrome guys do the updates, but it seems like dark magic: I never noticed ever needing a restart, but still, the executable is being updated, too. I have no clue how that is achieved.
After all the adulterated, poisonous food, even baby formulas, manufactured by chinese companies - after dozens were poisoned and died, you're still surprised? They will sell you anything they can get away with.
Keep buying "Made in China", fuck off and die. At this point, that's really all one can say.
One guess, which type of phone does Nancy own? i...
Yeah, it rhymes with "You insensitive clod!"
I don't really know how the W3C is organized, but shouldn't there be some protection against allowing organizations who are openly hostile toward a technology from sitting on the committee? Isn't this just common sense?
Who do they think they are? The UN?
For those who don't get the UN reference: the OP is referring to the UN commission for human rights, regularly filled and chaired by countries that shit all over human rights.
Iran very much does NOT allow Baha'is freedom of worship. Not only are they forbidden free spiritual activities or roganization of any kind, but members of the Baha'i faith are systematically oppressed: forbidden from higher education, fired and shut-out of jobs, especially at universities, dislodged from their homes and imprisoned. Many have been executed after mock trials or even without any trials. Same with the Zoroastrians/Zarathustrians. The Baha'is are a substantial community, with about 300.000 followers.
Copyright on scientific articles is the most evil of all, in my opinion as a researcher. I, and most other fellow scientists don't get paid by the publisher for our works. In fact, the salary of a scientist in general is meager. But we find pleasure in what we do, and in sharing our science with humankind. What we do is intended for everybody, and not to perpetually keep money flowing into the coffins of the Elseviers, the IOPs, Wileys of this world. I am astonished sometimes, to see that a lot of fundamental articles, published decades ago (in the 60's, or even earlier) is still not freely accessible by the public. I can't help but think "what douchebags, profiting like leeches from the work of scientists, many now defunct, whereas the work was intended for the whole world".
Using salt is boneheaded. In Finland, that has just as much (if not more) snow and cold as Moscow, they don't use salt atall, just gravel, combined with an effective road and street cleaning schedule.
To the mods who gave this clown +5, Informative: did you really think Nokia has only such mickey mouse patents to go to war with? here is a list of patents (I don't have the patent numbers, just the names):
Data Transmission in a Radio Telephone Network
Data Transfer in a Mobile Telephone Network
Measurement Report Transmission in a Telecommunications System
Access Channel for Reduced Access Delay in a Telecommunications System
Reporting Cal Measurement Results in a Cellular Communication System
Method and Apparatus for Speech Transmission in a Mobile Communication System
Speech Synthesizer Employing Post-Processing for Enhancing the Quality of the Synthesized Speech
Method of Ciphering Data Transmission in a Radio System
Integrity Check in a Communication System
System for Ensuring Encrypted Communication After handover
There is a difference between outsourcing cheap toys and souvenirs and outsourcing "technology." You claim the latter and then proceeded to talk only about the former, which is something we all know about. Not that outsourcing manufacturing is ideal, but "technology" at least is still something that is largely created in Western countries and Japan.
Maybe because I work as a researcher, I have a somewhat bird's view on the situation, I am not sure, but I know that you're overlooking the megatrend: China is investing a lot of money into high-tech and research institutions. They're building research cleanrooms at a breakneck pace. Not all of them are of the highest standard, but al of them are put to good use, by students and faculty, and more and more interesting papers are coming out from China. Yes, they are not at the same level as the US and Europe - yet - but the question is not where are you now, but where are you going, and where will you be tomorrow. Just two random facts to illustrate the milestones they achieved: China is the largest manufacturer, by far, of carbon nanotubes, almost a monopoly. And China is the largest producer of crystalline silicon solar cells (though not by as big a margin as with CNTs).
The 386SX was a 32 bit processor internally but had a 16 bit data bus. The 386DX was a straight 32bit processor all the way through. There was a third flawed varient that had a problem switching between real and protected mode that could lock up the system. Those chips would be stamped that they were only certified for 16 bit apps. The ones that tested good had a double sigma stamp on them. Neither the 386sx nor 386dx had math coprocessors. The 486 however was a different story. The 486DX had a coprocessor but the 486SX did not.
And let's not relent in confusing the audience: both 486SX and 486DX had a 32 bit data bus :) And then came the 486DX2 which ran at 66 MHz instead of the 486DX's 33. The 486DX4, unlike what you'd expect, didn't have a 4x33 MHz clock speed, but a 100 MHz one. If you're not confused by now, you're not human.
The US and the whole western world have almost completely outsourced their whole production and with it, the technology, to China. When I visited the various Smithsonian museums, just for shits and giggles I asked at the souvenir shops if they had a single item that wasn't made in China. I repeated this little game in various museums. Try as they may, the shopkeepers weren't able to find a single fucking item that wasn't Made in China. Not one. This just to illustrate you the magnitude of production in China, and the magnitude of how much the west has given up. The Chinese aren't idiots; they learn and are about to surpass the west in many technological areas.