I actually had my laptop the morning before a scheduled talk, while travelling. It turned out that the motherboard gave up the gohst. Fortunately, the tech support guys were superb and put the hard drive in some other laptop (which was not trivial because of various proprietary crap that laptops have).
Now I always carry a USB stick with important files with me.
For what it's worth, I weigh in at 215, or about 30 lbs over my ideal weight. If I really cared about 8 extra ounces when traveling then I could find a lot of other places to get rid of it.:-)
I am a big guy myself and fairly strong, but a couple of extra pounds on your shoulder (as opposed to other places:) make a difference when you are lugging that piece of junk all day.
Imagine traveling to overseas and your hard drive dies. Unless you can find a repair shop that you think you can trust, you could be out of a machine for several days. RAID would help mitigate that problem.
All sorts of things can go wrong. You processor may die, you screen may. You would not suggest carrying an external screen and an extra processor when travelling?
As far as I am concerned (and I think for most people) weight is the dominant factor when travelling. RAID may have limited use in specialized applications but it is definitely not for most business tavellers.
Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., agreed earlier this northern summer to split an annual research budget of about $1.84 million over the next three years to develop a faster-than-sound plane.
What a joke. You cannot even develop a new toilet seat on that budget.
But growth is not relevant to our discussion because it is an expectation which may or may not turn out to be true.
I am not sure about your point. Growth prospects is exactly what the stock price of companies like Google is tied to. The general case is that stock offering ALWAYS dilutes ownership!
You end up owning a smaller slice of a larger pie, leaving the total amount of the pie you own the same.
All the stuff about assets and assets per share are laregely irrelevant. If what you were saying were true, why can't a company constantly keep diluting itself into the stratosphere?
Because they cannot invest large amounts of money and still grow as fast. Too much cash will slow growth.
What about a theoretical example that they double their outstanding shares through a secondary offering. Will they still be able to sell the new shares at $300?
More precisely, investors will be very skeptical that such a large amount of money can be invested by Google in a way consistent with current growth rates.
I don't know the financial definition of dilution but if you imagine a moment that the revenue of google won't drastically increase at the point of the stock issue there will be a period of time where the amount of earnings per share will sink.
You are right, althoguh the main ingerient here is not earnings/share but rather the growth potential. The underlying assumption is that they will be able to invest that money in future growth and have it grow at the same rate as expected by the market for the rest of their company. This, of course, is an idealization.
Is Google selling $4B dollars of stock, or 14M shares of stock? In other words, can they set the price of the offering, or is it subject to market price?
I believe that they have to file to sell a certain amount of shares (as the maximum). They cannot set the price any longer, of course. Presumably, they will make deals with a few large players at a discounted price who then will then resell at the retail level (although I am not sure about the exact procedure).
What about a theoretical example that they double their outstanding shares through a secondary offering. Will they still be able to sell the new shares at $300?
Theoretically -- yes. In practice the price may drop as the market will not have such a huge source of capital.
You are completely mistaken. There is no dilution.
While more shares are issued, the amount of assets Google has will increase by $4bln. Therefore the amount of assets per share remains exactly the same and the share price (at least theoretically, assuming efficient markets) is not affected.
No, you already have the hardware for something that you simple assumed would continue to exist, for free, forever. Well, that particular free ride has ended. You don't need to get a car, but you do need to switch busses, if you want to keep riding for free.
I wish you stopped using that annoying word "free". Their business model relies on showing advertisement (in rather large quantity) for revenue. They are for-profit organizations.
I agree, maintenance problem more than the service itself. I haven't found it particularly useful lately, whil Google Scholar works quite well in my opinion.
Is it a replacement for, e.g. Citeseer? No. But then it isn't intended to be.
In case you haven't noticed - Citeseer hasn't worked properly for several years! As it stands now it is completely useless - no updates, crappy search, poor
connection.
Slashdot Mirror
with the revolutions coming in genomics, perdiomics, therapeutic cloning, rational drug design, and the other biotechnology revolutions,
I could not agree more, Mr. Kurzweil.
Or no, facade is fading. But the rear is still ok.
Perhaps you are right about the diversionary tactics of GM. As the article points out it is not clear whether the new device will even be legal.
However it did not appear to me that the original poster read the article (although he may be broadly correct).
Why don't you RTFA before posting. The cruise control designed by GM can actually steer.
Nah, it would be too much to ask.
100% of what?
I have seen screens and motherboards die on laptops but have not actually seen a hard drive fail without first making funny sounds for a while.
Had my laptop die, that is.
in some other laptop (which was not trivial because of various proprietary crap that laptops have).
Now I always carry a USB stick with important files with me.
For what it's worth, I weigh in at 215, or about 30 lbs over my ideal weight. If I really cared about 8 extra ounces when traveling then I could find a lot of other places to get rid of it.
I am a big guy myself and fairly strong, but
a couple of extra pounds on your shoulder (as opposed to other places
In any case, I am in good company
All sorts of things can go wrong. You processor may die, you screen may. You would not suggest carrying an external screen and an extra processor when travelling?
As far as I am concerned (and I think for most people) weight is the dominant factor when travelling. RAID may have limited use in specialized applications but it is definitely not for most business tavellers.
And how much will that monster weigh?
What a joke. You cannot even develop a new toilet seat on that budget.
It is not so easy counting cards. You will probably end up losing in any case.
I am not sure about your point. Growth prospects is exactly what the stock price of companies like Google is tied to.
The general case is that stock offering ALWAYS dilutes ownership!
You end up owning a smaller slice of a larger pie, leaving the total amount of the pie you own the same.
Because they cannot invest large amounts of money and still grow as fast. Too much cash will slow growth.
What about a theoretical example that they double their outstanding shares through a secondary offering. Will they still be able to sell the new shares at $300?
More precisely, investors will be very skeptical
that such a large amount of money can be invested by Google in a way consistent with current growth rates.
I don't know the financial definition of dilution but if you imagine a moment that the revenue of google won't drastically increase at the point of the stock issue there will be a period of time where the amount of earnings per share will sink.
You are right, althoguh the main ingerient here is not earnings/share but rather the growth potential. The underlying assumption is that they will be able to invest that money in future growth and have it grow at the same rate as expected by the market for the rest of their company. This, of course, is an idealization.
Is Google selling $4B dollars of stock, or 14M shares of stock? In other words, can they set the price of the offering, or is it subject to market price?
I believe that they have to file to sell a certain amount of shares (as the maximum). They cannot set the price any longer, of course. Presumably, they will make deals with a few large players at a discounted price who then will then resell at the retail level (although I am not sure about the exact procedure).
What about a theoretical example that they double their outstanding shares through a secondary offering. Will they still be able to sell the new shares at $300?
Theoretically -- yes. In practice the price may drop as the market will not have such a huge source of capital.
You are completely mistaken. There is no dilution.
While more shares are issued, the amount of assets Google has will increase by $4bln. Therefore the amount of assets per share remains exactly the same
and the share price (at least theoretically, assuming efficient markets) is not affected.
Copernicus thought you were not atypical? How interesting.
Simple -- run them into the ground first.
I wish you stopped using that annoying word "free". Their business model relies on showing advertisement (in rather large quantity) for revenue. They are for-profit organizations.
It is a do-it-yourself kit.
I agree, maintenance problem more than the service itself. I haven't found it particularly useful lately, whil Google Scholar works quite well in my opinion.
They've got to be kidding.
In case you haven't noticed - Citeseer hasn't worked properly for several years! As it stands now it is completely useless - no updates, crappy search, poor connection.