I've always felt that they've wasted a lot of money trying to expand into new lines of businesses. Money that would have been well spent either giving it back to stockholders as dividends. But even new lines of business that are doing well (not considering the massive investment in them so the ROI may still stink) like Bing and XBox would probably benefit the stockholders as a spinoff.
If it was up to me, I would break the company apart into 3 or 4 companies and allow the non-Windows companies to develop for all sorts of platforms. But what do I know?
That said, who's going to remove him? Bill Gates? Does Paul Allen still hold a significant stake in the company? Who owns what share of the voting stock? And who makes up the board?
I don't see Ballmer leaving anytime soon unless the investors start getting upset. And if 30% of the company (and I'm pulling that number out of thin air) is held by Gates and Ballmer, that doesn't seem likely.
May I suggest the problem is trying to have massive programs done on the federal level for the entire country. You shouldn't expect to find a bunch of agreement between those diverse areas.
So if California wants to spend themselves silly and have a massive welfare state, let them. Let other states figure their own way.
Try to minimize what needs to be nationalized as much as possible.
There couldn't be high tuition without the vast amount of money given out for loans. The same was true of home prices. Cheap credit is at the core of it.
And as time goes on, not allowing students, who made a lot of these major financial decisions at 18, to discharge debt in bankruptcy seems downright wrong.
So colleges will raise tuition and we'll allow students to become bigger debt slaves because that's the compassionate thing to do.
This bubble will burst and there will be a lot of pain. It's going to happen and it's going to be ugly.
Students are given access to easy credit and can spend a lot of money on tuition without any conception of how they are going to pay it back or what they can afford. If students default, universities shouldn't get all that money since they are complicit in the process and it should help reign in the bubble.
But colleges keep raising tuition and we keep allowing students to get deeper and deeper in debt to pay the tuition. But the debt is what allows the tuition to go up beyond what people can afford in the first place. Like any bubble, there is no way to stop this.
Government exists to promote business and commerce. Commerce doesn't exist to promote government.
I like to use the following analogy. I need cholesterol to live. That doesn't mean I should eat a Big Mac every day. Governments get plenty of money to do their core responsibilities already.
Don't you understand? This is obviously a ruse to throw Slashdot commenters off the trail of their anti-science agenda. Or it could be a disagreement about priorities and funding. But I think it is more fun if I make broad, sweeping generalizations about people I don't generally talk to.
In my home state of NJ the education system is chock full of small school districts, each with their own set of administrators and highly paid superintendents. My hometown put on the ballot a tax increase to cover junior high sports, the Knowledge Bowl, and various and sundry interesting programs. It passed.
Now, if they put on the list "a secretary we don't need and a huge raise for the principal" I doubt it would get passed.
Cities also do this with threatening police and firefighters. Even the most die-hard libertarian sees the need for police and firemen. They never give you the option to cut all the waste you wouldn't mind doing without.
I happen to carpool with a gentleman who's sister was a lead engineer at Chernobyl. From what he tells me, some Communist party official's son was working on his doctoral thesis. He wanted to do an experiment. They told him it was a really, really bad idea. They were overruled by the father. And the rest as they say is history.
The son ends up dying and the dad was thrown in prison.
So even with an unsafe design, everything was working fine until all that political interference happened.
As the other commenter said, this is so simplistic.
Some psychopath writes a book or some racist writes a newspaper article inciting people to kill. Let's say there's no right to freedom of the press.
What? The First amendment. Well, there's a 10th amendment guaranteeing states rights, but that's now invalid because of a group of states were being immoral (even though let's forget that slavery was pretty prevalent throughout human history so we have the advantage of looking back at progress). So using your logic, I hereby declare there is no freedom of speech and of the press.
We all have what called basic beliefs. Beliefs that have to be assumed to function but can't be proved in the traditional sense. Think the law of non-contradiction. Induction is like that.
When we take many of those basic beliefs, we only have warrant for those assumptions when we work within a theistic framework. So induction is at home with a God who creates and sustains the laws of physics. Having laws of physics based on and hanging on nothing gives us no warrant for that assumption.
Higher Education is in a massive tuition bubble. Liberal arts, if properly taught, are very good things. But it's getting increasingly hard to justify getting a liberal arts degree for $100,000+ worth of debt. Heck, it's hard to justify any degree for that.
My kids have some ways to go before they are ready for college, but this would be my advice. Consider getting an associates degree and transferring if you are going to go for a liberal arts degree. That may be a good idea in general.
Instead of getting some unpaid internship, consider picking up a skilled trade for a summer job. There is a good bit of demand for those types of jobs, and you never know. At the very least, you may be handy around the house when you get older.
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Yes. Microsoft could get more revenues and higher stock prices if some parts were unshackled from exclusively being a part of Windows.
I've always felt that they've wasted a lot of money trying to expand into new lines of businesses. Money that would have been well spent either giving it back to stockholders as dividends. But even new lines of business that are doing well (not considering the massive investment in them so the ROI may still stink) like Bing and XBox would probably benefit the stockholders as a spinoff.
If it was up to me, I would break the company apart into 3 or 4 companies and allow the non-Windows companies to develop for all sorts of platforms. But what do I know?
That said, who's going to remove him? Bill Gates? Does Paul Allen still hold a significant stake in the company? Who owns what share of the voting stock? And who makes up the board?
I don't see Ballmer leaving anytime soon unless the investors start getting upset. And if 30% of the company (and I'm pulling that number out of thin air) is held by Gates and Ballmer, that doesn't seem likely.
Just because I need cholesterol to live doesn't mean I'm in favor of buying a Big Mac every day.
May I suggest the problem is trying to have massive programs done on the federal level for the entire country. You shouldn't expect to find a bunch of agreement between those diverse areas.
So if California wants to spend themselves silly and have a massive welfare state, let them. Let other states figure their own way.
Try to minimize what needs to be nationalized as much as possible.
There couldn't be high tuition without the vast amount of money given out for loans. The same was true of home prices. Cheap credit is at the core of it.
And as time goes on, not allowing students, who made a lot of these major financial decisions at 18, to discharge debt in bankruptcy seems downright wrong.
So colleges will raise tuition and we'll allow students to become bigger debt slaves because that's the compassionate thing to do.
This bubble will burst and there will be a lot of pain. It's going to happen and it's going to be ugly.
Students are given access to easy credit and can spend a lot of money on tuition without any conception of how they are going to pay it back or what they can afford. If students default, universities shouldn't get all that money since they are complicit in the process and it should help reign in the bubble.
But colleges keep raising tuition and we keep allowing students to get deeper and deeper in debt to pay the tuition. But the debt is what allows the tuition to go up beyond what people can afford in the first place. Like any bubble, there is no way to stop this.
From what I've read they do the following:
They'll give a company a bunch of cash to start building a new chip. They then get that chip exclusively for a period of time at a discount.
They may design some chips but they aren't building any of their own.
The only thing is that there were plenty of first class men who gave up their spot. Yes, losses were heavier in the steerage class.
For all of the classism of the era, there was also a "women and children first" ethic.
How much money is needed to sustain the country? 40% of GDP? 50%? What's the number?
Government exists to promote business and commerce. Commerce doesn't exist to promote government.
I like to use the following analogy. I need cholesterol to live. That doesn't mean I should eat a Big Mac every day. Governments get plenty of money to do their core responsibilities already.
They'll pay US taxes. But you will never, ever see their overseas revenue.
Don't you understand? This is obviously a ruse to throw Slashdot commenters off the trail of their anti-science agenda. Or it could be a disagreement about priorities and funding. But I think it is more fun if I make broad, sweeping generalizations about people I don't generally talk to.
Apparently the $30K was too much for the MPAA.
This happens all the time imho.
In my home state of NJ the education system is chock full of small school districts, each with their own set of administrators and highly paid superintendents. My hometown put on the ballot a tax increase to cover junior high sports, the Knowledge Bowl, and various and sundry interesting programs. It passed.
Now, if they put on the list "a secretary we don't need and a huge raise for the principal" I doubt it would get passed.
Cities also do this with threatening police and firefighters. Even the most die-hard libertarian sees the need for police and firemen. They never give you the option to cut all the waste you wouldn't mind doing without.
He didn't violate the CFAA. I'm sure he violated a ton of other laws.
Apple seems to make a lot of money making hardware. Isn't that their goal? Use software to sell their hardware.
I could ask. His sister died of cancer in the 90s and she would be the one to definitely know the name.
I happen to carpool with a gentleman who's sister was a lead engineer at Chernobyl. From what he tells me, some Communist party official's son was working on his doctoral thesis. He wanted to do an experiment. They told him it was a really, really bad idea. They were overruled by the father. And the rest as they say is history.
The son ends up dying and the dad was thrown in prison.
So even with an unsafe design, everything was working fine until all that political interference happened.
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27720/?p1=blogs
I would expect to find life on Mars.
Whatever happened to advertising a product? Spend money to make money and all that jazz.
As the other commenter said, this is so simplistic.
Some psychopath writes a book or some racist writes a newspaper article inciting people to kill. Let's say there's no right to freedom of the press.
What? The First amendment. Well, there's a 10th amendment guaranteeing states rights, but that's now invalid because of a group of states were being immoral (even though let's forget that slavery was pretty prevalent throughout human history so we have the advantage of looking back at progress). So using your logic, I hereby declare there is no freedom of speech and of the press.
We all have what called basic beliefs. Beliefs that have to be assumed to function but can't be proved in the traditional sense. Think the law of non-contradiction. Induction is like that.
When we take many of those basic beliefs, we only have warrant for those assumptions when we work within a theistic framework. So induction is at home with a God who creates and sustains the laws of physics. Having laws of physics based on and hanging on nothing gives us no warrant for that assumption.
This would require the government understanding their own rules.
Higher Education is in a massive tuition bubble. Liberal arts, if properly taught, are very good things. But it's getting increasingly hard to justify getting a liberal arts degree for $100,000+ worth of debt. Heck, it's hard to justify any degree for that.
My kids have some ways to go before they are ready for college, but this would be my advice. Consider getting an associates degree and transferring if you are going to go for a liberal arts degree. That may be a good idea in general.
Instead of getting some unpaid internship, consider picking up a skilled trade for a summer job. There is a good bit of demand for those types of jobs, and you never know. At the very least, you may be handy around the house when you get older.
If you have a bunch of talented, smart workers around with skills, there's no shortage of things to work on. The economy isn't a zero-sum game.