You're a funny man!
Give something away for free that people will pay money for? Ha! Ha!
Well, where I'm from, this is exactly what the telcos are doing. This customer segment pays a lot due to high volume of calls. If users drop out of the high volume category, they also loose the free SMSs.
Customer percieved value/cost to give away for a telco is much higher for SMS than for phone.
They wont need to do any formal price fixing. Most market people will have read Porter's Competitive Strategy and the chapter of market communication (in an oligopolistic market).
Most times a company rep is saying on television that prices will go up due some weak/plausible/possible reason, he isn't really trying to inform the public.
He is telling his competitors that "This industry is not generating enough profits. Lets not disturb the status quo by fighting over customers. As a show of trust we will go first and raise our prices by X amount. If you follow our prices we can all get along."
Allow these water bears to reproduce, and take them back up. Rinse lather repeat, and we will have creatures capable of surviving long durations in space.
This is almost exactly how Microsoft Bob came to be.
For the record I did not say that Google must leave China. I described my take on the mechanism by which this type of market operates and why evil wins (even when there are "good guys" involved). My point was that you should not trust any corporation (in this case Google) blindly since even "good guys" help the bad.
---
I know that if Google left China, new local companies with worse moral would spring up and in a few years time, they would be Googles hungry competitors. Considering only this, I could not agree with you more that Google should cooperate with the chineese government.
On the other hand, if this was nazi Germany in 1941 (but in this strange example everything else was just like it is today) do you think Google should help hide information about the death camps from german citizens?
Now a counter argument might be that surely the chineese do not have the equivalent horror? Well, to be honest, I don't know. We are talking about a country where they managed to litteraly crush people with tanks on the largest town square in the middle of their capital and keep the full extent of it a secret for quite some time.
---
My main point of rant #2 is that this is not an easy question but I do know that somewhere you have to draw the line and say "I wont do that". I'm not sure if Google has reached this line i China, but I think that they are close.
(IBM have been critizised for selling computers to nazi-germany helping them keep track of their jewish population among other things, but I'm sure someone else would have taken their place, had they not sold those machines. Similar question, different times.)
Here in England, unions were responsible for destroying both the coal mining industry and the ship building industry
I thought it was global competition that drove this type of work to lower cost countries -> "Flock of geese". It will happend again and again to other countries/regions until an equilibrium is reached. During the transition, all types of explanations will be used to blame the opposition, but the world is changeing regardless of what anyone says.
I do trust Google not to abuse this clause because of something else that Slashdotters tend to neglect; people who want to make money today will, as a rule, want to make money tomorrow too.
I don't trust Google or any other corporation, for that same reason.
Although still hopefull that Google is better than most large corporations, look at their actions in China. Although I'm sure they are against censorship, they chose to assist the Chineese government blanking out sensitive search results.
2000 - 3000 people lost their lives on Tianamen Square 1989 thanks to the "Peoples Liberation Army" in China. There where people litteraly crushed by tanks. You can find no information about this using Google from inside the "Peoples" Republic of China. It is as if it never happened.
When it comes down to a corporation either loosing a giantic market or violating the people, you know what any corporation must choose or they will loose.
The problem lies in the mecanics of certain markets, where the one who is more of a bastard benefits. Just look at the weapons industry and them selling weapons to countries clearly in violation of human rights. Acting good is punished (no profit) and acting bad is rewarded (nice profit). There are strong incentives to turn bad.
The point of my rant is... that although I prefer Google to many other corporations (I actually like them), I would not trust them to allways "do good" if doing bad would give them a really nice long term profit.
If one or more of your tabs do crash, your tabs are automatically reloaded and you are returned to whatever page you were on before the crash.
Sounds like a loop to me, unless the crash happened due to random memory corruption in IE? I could be missing some common error that can happend to browsers so please correct me and I'll learn something.
---
When I made the switch to FF, initially I just prefered the look and feel of the browser. First thing I liked about it, was that the adress field was pre selected when you started it. In IE you had to use the mouse. This was just a small difference, but when you have loads of these little differences, where someone has really taken their time with the details researching what comes natural to the user, at least it was clear to me that FF was the way to go.
"...through all of history, our way of life has been under attack by enemies so vile, nefarious and larger-than-life that their very existence would make you want to upchuck in your shorts..."
Well, it is only illegal when you torture people. These are defined as "non-people" / "terrists" (which has been confirmed several times during torture).
---
Back in the day, witches where the ones who floated when tied up and dropped into the sea. The innocent ones sank and drowned. Thankfully we have gotten wiser since then.
Slashdot Mirror
They're called "day-age creationists", and they apparently think the earth was created long before the sun.
But it is true:
1. The Earth is created
2. The SUN is created
3. The JVM is created
4. ???
5. The Profit is created
Look, matey, I know a recently dead chicken when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'!
You're a funny man! Give something away for free that people will pay money for? Ha! Ha!
Well, where I'm from, this is exactly what the telcos are doing. This customer segment pays a lot due to high volume of calls. If users drop out of the high volume category, they also loose the free SMSs.
Customer percieved value/cost to give away for a telco is much higher for SMS than for phone.
They wont need to do any formal price fixing. Most market people will have read Porter's Competitive Strategy and the chapter of market communication (in an oligopolistic market).
Most times a company rep is saying on television that prices will go up due some weak/plausible/possible reason, he isn't really trying to inform the public.
He is telling his competitors that "This industry is not generating enough profits. Lets not disturb the status quo by fighting over customers. As a show of trust we will go first and raise our prices by X amount. If you follow our prices we can all get along."
Allow these water bears to reproduce, and take them back up. Rinse lather repeat, and we will have creatures capable of surviving long durations in space.
This is almost exactly how Microsoft Bob came to be.
For the record I did not say that Google must leave China. I described my take on the mechanism by which this type of market operates and why evil wins (even when there are "good guys" involved). My point was that you should not trust any corporation (in this case Google) blindly since even "good guys" help the bad.
---
I know that if Google left China, new local companies with worse moral would spring up and in a few years time, they would be Googles hungry competitors. Considering only this, I could not agree with you more that Google should cooperate with the chineese government.
On the other hand, if this was nazi Germany in 1941 (but in this strange example everything else was just like it is today) do you think Google should help hide information about the death camps from german citizens?
Now a counter argument might be that surely the chineese do not have the equivalent horror? Well, to be honest, I don't know. We are talking about a country where they managed to litteraly crush people with tanks on the largest town square in the middle of their capital and keep the full extent of it a secret for quite some time.
---
My main point of rant #2 is that this is not an easy question but I do know that somewhere you have to draw the line and say "I wont do that". I'm not sure if Google has reached this line i China, but I think that they are close.
(IBM have been critizised for selling computers to nazi-germany helping them keep track of their jewish population among other things, but I'm sure someone else would have taken their place, had they not sold those machines. Similar question, different times.)
Here in England, unions were responsible for destroying both the coal mining industry and the ship building industry
I thought it was global competition that drove this type of work to lower cost countries -> "Flock of geese". It will happend again and again to other countries/regions until an equilibrium is reached. During the transition, all types of explanations will be used to blame the opposition, but the world is changeing regardless of what anyone says.
I do trust Google not to abuse this clause because of something else that Slashdotters tend to neglect; people who want to make money today will, as a rule, want to make money tomorrow too.
I don't trust Google or any other corporation, for that same reason.
Although still hopefull that Google is better than most large corporations, look at their actions in China. Although I'm sure they are against censorship, they chose to assist the Chineese government blanking out sensitive search results.
2000 - 3000 people lost their lives on Tianamen Square 1989 thanks to the "Peoples Liberation Army" in China. There where people litteraly crushed by tanks. You can find no information about this using Google from inside the "Peoples" Republic of China. It is as if it never happened.
When it comes down to a corporation either loosing a giantic market or violating the people, you know what any corporation must choose or they will loose.
The problem lies in the mecanics of certain markets, where the one who is more of a bastard benefits. Just look at the weapons industry and them selling weapons to countries clearly in violation of human rights. Acting good is punished (no profit) and acting bad is rewarded (nice profit). There are strong incentives to turn bad.
The point of my rant is... that although I prefer Google to many other corporations (I actually like them), I would not trust them to allways "do good" if doing bad would give them a really nice long term profit.
No designer in their right mind would use even an nth of the shit uploaded on Facebook everyday.
Now that is what I call Intelligent Design (TM). (*)
* = Yes, this was a joke. Now, go back to the beginning of this row and start reading. (This sentence is unreachable).
... then what chances do we have of finding a solar system populated entirely by hot large-perky-breasted nymphomaniac supermodels that love nerds?
According to my simulations: 100%. These simulations are of course, more of a holodeck nature than a pure mathematical model.
If this "shows' anything, it seems more probable that this 'shows' that the simulations aren't complete enough yet.
Of course. They did not even mention Great A'Tuin, so how could their model be complete?
Are you kidding?? Did we just Slashdot Google? If not then why does it read "Not Found Error 404" on http://www.google.com/chrome?
Less surprising perhaps, I keep getting the status code 301 for www.microsoft.com/steve-ballmers-chair
Rapters are fast and intelligent, hunt in packs, and hell.. they can even open doors! Support rapter cloning!
Surely such intelligent rapters would know how to produce more rapters without cloning?
But I live in Nebraska, you insensitive clod!
In that case, why not take a stroll down I-129. I hear it is lovely this time of year.
Does this have any ramifications for carbon dating?
No, I'd say just go with the original plan of a nice dinner and a walk by the ocean and you will do just fine.
"Dear sir, your tab entitled 'Slashdot Horse Porn' has crashed, do you want me to try loading 'Slashdot Horse Porn' again?
I know the answer to that and like I said... A loop :-)
If one or more of your tabs do crash, your tabs are automatically reloaded and you are returned to whatever page you were on before the crash.
Sounds like a loop to me, unless the crash happened due to random memory corruption in IE? I could be missing some common error that can happend to browsers so please correct me and I'll learn something.
---
When I made the switch to FF, initially I just prefered the look and feel of the browser. First thing I liked about it, was that the adress field was pre selected when you started it. In IE you had to use the mouse. This was just a small difference, but when you have loads of these little differences, where someone has really taken their time with the details researching what comes natural to the user, at least it was clear to me that FF was the way to go.
How about you?
It comes in little packets which generally have "do not eat" printed on them.
No matter what solution he goes with I hope he stuffs a couple of handfuls of them in there.
At least a handfull. Why? Well, you'll know after tasting them.
I'm not sure that six tiny fuel-cell powered go-karts going around a 500 meter track is going to help the image of alternatively-powered vehicles.
Agreed, but public competition is a strong motivator for the teams to improve.
Considering how the GW administration has acted in recent years, here is a reworked meme for you
1. Create more efficient watchlist
2. Profit
3. ??????????????
4. ??????????????
5. ??????????????
Where in "for future ge[aliens]nerations" did you read "aliens"?
Its right there! In the middle.
... so why not take some steps that make that bet have [an] almost certain pay-off ?
No! Thats just what they'll be expecting!
Ha, ha, ha.
"...through all of history, our way of life has been under attack by enemies so vile, nefarious and larger-than-life that their very existence would make you want to upchuck in your shorts..."
Well, it is only illegal when you torture people. These are defined as "non-people" / "terrists" (which has been confirmed several times during torture).
---
Back in the day, witches where the ones who floated when tied up and dropped into the sea. The innocent ones sank and drowned. Thankfully we have gotten wiser since then.
Kind of like seven steps of separation? Name the person most likely to know a "terrist"?
That is almost too easy. Just look at any former head of the CIA.