Look at Slashdot. With just a few lines of elegant Perl, Taco et al have created a slick, funcational, speedy, high-reliability site that eschews beauty in favor of pure information. Take your queue from these guys, web monkey.
So? Slashdot has its needs, which are fairly simple. Allow viewing threaded discussions,
send comments, set up preferences.
Fine. That does not need necessarily need DHTML or applets.
But you are making an assumption whole web is just a big Slashdot. It is not. Companies generally love so-called web apps, which mean in generally applications (functionality) accessible for anyone with just a web browser. As the scope of things web apps are used for expands, so do the UI needs. And suddenly, your papa's submit-wait-read - cycle just doesn't cut it. Simplest examples are client-side validations. Why wait for the server to point out you typed in invalid phone number, if client side can do it? Doing it on client-side is not only faster, but much more efficient for web site (less processing, less data to transfer, no round trips).
What this all is to say, then, is just that one needs different tools for different jobs. And DHTML is very useful things when applied to right things.
Likewise, when do both IE and Opera get decent
support for debugging JavaScript? Even NS 4 has Javascript console, where one can see error messages. IE can display some error messages, but only one by one, and messes up line numbers
when including JS sources.
As to Opera, I don't know how one is supposed to find problems occuring... I don't need a JS debugger, just seeing error messages would be a good start.:-/
I tried a while ago to make a simple javascript app (spreadsheet) to work not only on NS4, Mozilla and IE4+, but also on Opera 6... but that's pretty
much impossible without getting some help from browser. Additionally, reference docs Opera has for JS/DOM compatibility were inadequate.
but if quitting is not an option, you're really at their mercy.
Meaning basically that, "hey, do whatever you can to get out of that sinking rat-ship ASAP, or prepare to swim". Obviously it's not always a viable option to leave... but it's still a decision to make, to stay or to go.
FWIW I would probably just suggest two-part strategy; part one, continue working, but on half-assed basis. Do NOT try to be a hero. Your management clearly has shown they are incompetent both ways; taking in infeasible tasks from customers, and treating employees badly enough that they have gotten demoralized. In this situation, treat them with respect you are being treated. Part two; find a new job. No matter how hard it is, start looking for one, and do not stop until you have found one. It may be difficult, but hey; without trying you'll never find one.
And finally; even if you decided to try to work it out with elbow grease, chances are that in future things just get worse. That management has screwed up situation as badly as it seems is just a sign of more of the same to come.
If I'm not mistaken, whether this is true depends on which US state company is located in (or its HQs are in, or whatever determines state laws applicable). In some states (mid-west, south), chances are it is always at-will (which basically sucks for employee, in cases where it matters); in others it can not be (northeastern states?).
I personally think it sucks that due to fears of lawsuits, employers pretty much never tell people reason for firing, since it's better to use at-will clause and avoid any possibility of getting sued based on reason. But fear of legalese is so wide-spread (not least due to companies' lawyers upgrading fears... which is currently even considered their duty, it seems), that this is not an isolated thing... plus, it's one of those things where it's usually done "just in case" (ie. telling wouldn't matter in 99% cases, but since it's easier to just weasel out and not tell... hey, "why take the chance").
My view is that Sun should focus on providing software and services for enterprise wide LAN
management and integration since this is one area where Linux needs some help.
From what I understand, many high-level Sun leaders would agree with you. Many of (somewhat hyped) latest initiatives are leading to that direction, and most of acquisitions are for companies that develop software for such system unification (not in traditional "all boxes using same OS" sense but in creating bigger virtual systems out of heterogenous actual systems). Grid (utility) computing is something related as well.
The Holy Grail here is to present unified view
of set of heterogenous systems, and to allow them to managed through that unified view, combining network storage, robustness, failover seamlessly.
As to being 100% right all the time, due to being smart, hey; one could as well claim programmers should always get 100% bug-free code done. And I'd be the first one to say that's the sort of rubbish only fools spew out their mouth (for different reasons than demanding 100% success rate from doctors, actually; read original poster's reply for very good reasonings).
Basically, if you require 100% accurate diagnosis and treatment, chances are most patients will be dead before they get treated. Using autopsies it's much easier to figure out correct diagnosis. But that's pretty futile, except for predating lawyers, that need to "prove" mistakes were made.
Fair enough. I may be mistaken but I thought some help was requested (plus some offered help accepted), although those may be related more not to rebuilding but for peacekeeping forces. I do know that some smaller allies (Poland and couple of others) have or are planning to send tropops. Not that this matters too much, being more a token of help (compared to full cost). What I wasn't
sure about, though, was if resolutions were barring foreign companies from being
considered as contractors, or barring foreign countries from financing rebuilding. Perhaps
you are right that it's blanket ban?
I also do agree that whoever pays the bill should be able to decide how and what will be built, for what that's worth. Any dollar US spends in there, makes sense that US also decides details. Fair and square.
In case of financing rebuilding with Iraqi oil, it's bit of a dilemma however; decider should be the owner of Iraqi oil, preferably Iraqi people. But while there is no recognized gov't in place, there is no authority that can claim it. So for practical reasons it makes sense that temporary authorities handle it... but catch is, that for long-running rebuilding projects, those authorities will actually decide far-reaching contracts.
So essentially it's still an open question of the big US oil companies should get 5 or 10-year contracts paid in full (or mostly) by Iraqi oil proceeds, without Iraqis having a say in that deal, and whether such deals can be changed at a later point. For companies the other side of the coin is, of course, that they need continuity, to start the (re)building process.
I would agree that it would make sense to continue with "easy" parts (moon) before continuing... but I can't recall too many good sensible reasons for why settling moon would be worthwhile to begin with. Like others have pointed out, mining for resources to bring back to earth is completely uneconomical, due to transport costs. And same thing would be the principal problem for most other ventures that involve traffic between earth and moon.
Some people think settling would help with overpopulation. That's bit absurd; considering how few humans moon (or Mars) could support -- compared to world population -- costs of even trying that would outweigh any nominal gains. Plus, if techniques to support humans in such hostile places are developed, they could much more easily be used here in earth, to solve / alleviate overpopulation problems.
And this all leaves us the whizzbang coolness factor. Wouldn't it be cool if there were actual human beings living in moon, Mars or perhaps Venus? Sure. It'd be cool in the same way as running a unix-system on C64 (no irony here; I think both are cool in their own ways). Nothing to argue about, but I'd prefer it being pointed out openly, as the main reason.
One thing I do not understand though; I think that perhaps US leaders are right in not rushing in to trying to establish bases in moon or Mars. Perhaps they got enough glory from visiting moon, and realized that from rational viewpoint, there isn't much point
in trying to go and habit it, at least at this point? (I'm about as sceptic about missions to Mars that involve sending humans, pretty much for the same reasons, see below)
It is pretty curious that (if?) other countries get into other conclusions. I do understand fascination with getting to other planets / moons; there is certainly coolness factor involved... but does that really make any actual _sense_? I wouldn't care one way or the other if this was a cheap thing (or just labour intensive) to achieve. People do all kinds of cool albeit unnecessary stuff, all the time. Much of that ends up on Slashdot main page. And that's fine. But moon base.... that actually requires lots of resources, much better spent on almost any other project one can think of.
I am pretty positive that these mission plans (if they exist) are based on national pride of nations involved. It's hard to justify them on any materialistic or startegic reasons, at this point. But then again, chances are that perhaps such space travel will _never_ be realistic. Laws of physics are tricky to bend, after all... so perhaps now is as good time as any.
As to private companies; it's good that they foot the bill. But assuming that's a sign of some interest based on some good reasoning is bit of fallacy. After all, some people thought Iridium made sense and had a chance to succeed. And while I never did, I think moon/Mars missions have much slimmer chances to have any economic value that might justify the costs. But that's not my money, fortunately; no tax dollars involved.
No shit. The episode with Iraq was just like from
one of tv series featuring extra-zealous cops:
Law and Order: Loose Cannon in Iraq, starring
Bush Jr, featuring other meaningless sides
as necessary.
USA: I know that scumbag over there is committing these n+1 crimes, in addition to being a total jerk. [full list of crimes, from pedophilia to
narcotic crimes follows]
World: Um, ok, yeah he is an asshole... so show us the evidence, and we'll get him convicted.
He had done some pretty bad stuff earlier... but
due to super powers not caring back then, got
away.
USA: Ok, here are the rumours I heard, which pretty much prove he's done it all. Plus I KNOW he's guilty.
World: Uh uh... err, that's not, like, evidence yet. We can't just go in like loose cannons can we?
USA: D'oh! You pussy yellow-livered liberals! I'm going in, getting the villain, then show you the #%*)$^ evidence!
USA: Come on, Tony, let's take care of
this scumbag here and now!
... police gets to guy's door, kicks it in, breaks furniture, yells at wife to find out where the villain is, scares the kid, etc. etc.
USA: Ok, here here! Listen to this; I found out the guy was a bad husband, drinking too much,
neglecting kids! Yee-haw! 1 - 0 for law and order!
World: Right, bad bad guy... but where's the evidence of crimes you listed, from making crystal meth to leading a child porn ring?
USA: Um, yeah, those things I said I knew he dun... like, who cares, he was a bad guy wasn't he?
USA: But enough bickering about details... now, see, the house is a mess, door broken, need to be fixed, costs money... errr... guys, let's collect some dough, don't be stingy here, help the poor people out! Seems like I forgot my checkbook,
but, hey, that's what friends are for right?
World: Did we ask you to kick door in, slap kids,
throw chairs around, piss on the porch? Did we say we'll foot the bill on this stupid cowboy stunt?
World: But ok, guess we have to help to clean up the mess. As usual. But only because
the family is ruined, and you are the big bully
that will just kick our butt too if we don't.
USA: Oh but hey, here's the solution; the dude had a car that I can sell to my friends over at Deal-a-Car, for low price... that should cover something. Then I can also take these electronics, that could pay something small... and here's something other valuable I can loot I mean use for helping these poor folks here!
I doubt they'll collect any damages. But they'll succeed in making linux look like a grey-market stolen piece of software and drive corporate adoption of it back 10 years.
I doubt latter is going to happen, either. Thing is, many of those ultra-cautious decision makers that might pay attention to SCO's claims are still concerned about "free" and "open" aspects of Linux, and haven't adopted Linux (or have done so very slowly). Thus they are hardly the driving force for corporate adoption.
As to others, unless SCO succeeds in actual legal battle, I seriously doubt will care a lot. Going back 10 years would pretty much mean "no adoption" (I started using Linux 8 years ago. Red Hat already existed, but not too much else); very unlikely outcome.
What SCO really needs is series of legal victories against actual recognized companies. Without that they are just blowing hot gas. And knowing how long legal battles go on, if they are 2 well-funded parties, by the time things are settled in (or out of) court, there's good chance SCO itself is just part of history. So, my money is on "Linux" side, strongly against SCO. And that's without any zeal.
Hmmh? Yes, companies loan to get cash, even often to just avoid using their "own" cash (raising their liquidity). But that doesn't
really contradict "cash is good" statement.:-)
But I believe I was only replying to specific "profits are overrated" comment. I do understand that sometimes (often) it makes more sense to just reinvest money straight off (writing off investments), that's obvious, especially on companies in fast-growth industry sectors.
This does not mean there are no cases where reporting straight profit is a very valid option. And like you point out, this is much more common in mature sectors, where growth opportunities are more limited.
And yes... economics (of financing) are sort of fasciniating. I guess that's why they even have degrees for people that work on those thingies!:-)
But for me, only thing close to that is just watching manager pull fakey ROI calculations out of their hineys, to prove that "their" project is the most wonderful thing since the sliced bread. And that's not very interesting, except from (socio|pshyco)logic point-of-view!
Re:This is a GOOD patent.
on
Mighty Amazon
·
· Score: 1
You *COULD* patent a METHOD for selling beer with cereal, or the METHOD of including beer in cereal to make cereal more marketable.
... something that many people think is wrong as well. Patenting business methods is a very new thing, and very unfortunate at that. When patents were originally introduced, the mere idea of concepting such things (which are little more than ideas, really) would have been considered insanely silly. And I hope Europe is not going to allow them to be patented (although, already there are probably backdoors via patenting them in US and trying to use various conventions to sneak it in), along with software patents. In fact, if anything is worse idea than patenting software (as if copyrights weren't enough), it must be business method patents.
And as to cost of implementing the idea, yeah right. Implementing method in this particular case is pretty close to being free. It's the infrastructure and concrete implementation that is (or at least may be) costly. If they had patented that system (supposing there was anything innovative there) that would be easier to argue for, than patenting couple of days of thinking. "Gee, hey, let's like, sell used items next to new ones". That's your business method.
Sure, but Jeff isn't that tall or muscular... I'm sure he can be considered "small guy" for some definition of "small"!
Re:profit.
on
Mighty Amazon
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Even outside of a big corp., profit is overrated.
I'm not sure it is all that overrated. At least up until stock market bubble, many investors thought profits to be irrelevant, and growth to be "the thing". Back then profit was severely underrated, IMO.
Profits do matter for some things, anyways; dividends can only be paid on profit, and cash companies need for high liquidity usually comes from profits. Alternative is to accumulate debt, but really, nothing beats cash without debt, no matter what size the company is.
Most investors actually put much more emphasis on cash situation of companies (including cash flow) than most people understand. Thing is, when problems occur, there's nothing as useful to have around than liquid cold cash. Nothing. No amount of revolving credit beats cash. Cash is what you can buy companies with; equity isn't always accepted. And as to takeovers; well, companies with lotsa cash are accordingly priced higher. Without that cash, they'd be much cheaper, and potentially even easier as targets.
Seems the best business decision is to abandon the state that ranks first in total population...
Your point would be valid if he was suggesting a brick-n-mortar shop closing stores and moving out, but I thought he meant just moving operations (web site & supporting infrastructure) out of state. And having all
those rich numerous californians as customers,
serving them through the very same web site, but
just having employees and servers located someplace else.
While there are no doubt measures in there to make it more difficult (esp. for 'mixed' companies that still have physical existence) to avoid taxing, it's quite likely many pure net retailers might consider moving to another state. And considering cost of living at CA is also very high, salaries high, leading to higher personnel costs, does that sound all that unlikely? For this to work out for companies, though, they better hope neighbouring states do not follow (as then distribution centers could be located near state borders).
Note that many 'traditional' companies shuffle their HQs and operations from one state to another, sometimes due to change in leadership (CEOs want "their" company to "their" state), or due to tax incentives poorer states offer... headquarters especially are moved pretty often (even big companies like Boeing that asked for bids from 3 cities a while ago, and chose best offer, Chicago). And since for net retailers things should be even easier to move -- they usually don't have assembly plants or factories to move, at most just distribution centers -- it should be even more tempting to try doing just that.
Basically, California as a market will still be tempting; but that's different from suitability as "home state".
As for your implication that a publically-traded company is immune from this kind of nonsense: dude,
where have you been the last couple of years?
You lost me there... I must have worded something pretty badly, as I would never claim publically traded companies are immune from insanity. In fact, there are certain kinds of idiocies endemic for such companies (I should know, working for one). What I was trying to get across was just that there are lots of people who see a valuable asset (like Java) as something that has to be squeezed to produce revenue, right or wrong. The problem is, there are many valuable things that are pretty hard to force produce _any_ direct revenue. Democracy is a very valuable thing -- even in economic sense -- but there's very little entities like US govt can do to directly make money out of it. In many ways, Golden Gate bridge is invaludable (symbol, tourist site), yet how does city of SF make big bucks directly out of their ownership? (sell it? right...).
That's the way I see Sun and Java; perhaps there are no easy ways to make money with Java? But I do know there are lots of people who wouldn't take that as an answer, and that's big part of why it's unlikely to be "liberated" any time soon.
As to back-stabbing at Sun, yeah, that's the curse of too many (most? all?) big companies. But sometimes (often? every time?) efforts to try to reduce that just worsen situation. I'm afraid it may be part of character of all (too-) big companies.
That's why I personally wonder why there's almost a religion in economic circles about conglomeration of big companies to even bigger ones is supposedly always a Good Thing (tm). I can see benefits in simple manufacturing (say, bottling sugar water like what Coca-Cola does), but for things like software it just makes little sense as an axiom.
I used 2 as an example because that's minimum practical number, and number useful when doing transitioning (like what Apple, BeOS and NeXT did moving their 'primary' platform). But I didn't mean to complain about specific low limit of number of binary version you can have;
I know that even if there was a limit, that'd be just implementation limit (plus I didn't think specific implementation was limited in the first place). Problem is with significantly bigger number of distinct platforms; instead of, say, 5 or 6 (for which it's still somewhat practical to do cross-compilation etc), you end up with dozens or hundreds of platforms. For that, doing full compilation optimizing to hardware level just doesn't seem much like a solution.
I wasn't saying (or at least didn't mean to say) it was limited to just 2 architectures. That's not the point (although, if it was, that'd be even worse). Point is that explosion in number of binaries one has to compile/build, plus impossibility of solving problem of future platforms, makes this less of a solution than what Java and.NET are offering.
Yes, and Sun is a publicly traded company, that has directors that consider it (Java) an asset that should generate some revenue. Right or wrong, Java was created by Sun, and as nice as it would be for language/platform itself to be completely freed, that might not be of much use for Sun.
My point is: what is good for Java may be different from what is good for Sun. Sun is still getting most of its revenue from hardware sales and related support contracts. Getting Java to be the number one development language in general does not directly bring in any revenue. About the only revenue source is licencing costs from embedded VM, plus licencing from certification of things like app servers. There are people at Sun who would like to change that, to come up with actual significant revenues from Java.
And the dreaded step 2 between "open up java" and "profit!" is not a trivial thing to invent (believe me, lots of people have thought about that possibility as well as others... and haven't found a way).
As to IBM, it's a VERY different company from Sun, mostly due to its huge army of consultants (IBM prof. services). That's where money comes from, and Java is just a tool to arm PS with. So yes, their approach to Java would certainly be different.
Apple (well NeXT) solved that problem already. OpenStep (cant both to capitalise it correctly) ran on both 68k and x86 machines, and OpenStep software could be compiled to be 'fat', ie including both 68k and x86 machine code so it
This solved their particular problem well, but in general it's not really a complete solution. Problem is that number of completely different platforms (different ISAs for CPUs) may well be bigger than 2, and that 'minor' differences between revisions of CPUs mean that it would be really nice to have different native versions for different generations too.
Plus, for new platforms existing applications have to be recompiled (unlike with, say, java apps, which just require JVM to be available).
Thus, instead of fat binaries, I'd like to see something like 'caching JIT', so that compilation could really be targeted for specific configuration, while not having to compile application on-the-fly each time it's run. This should be fairly easy to do, by (for example) checking timestamps of intermediate executable (bytecode) against compiled versions, and doing recompilations as necessary. Or by just performing compilation as part of installation (which is done by some linux distribution(s) isn't it?).
fools. its a 'mass-market' device. no one in the mass market even knows what ogg is.
How very true. Likewise, asking them "do you use AAC", usually gets the answer
"it's very nice during hot months of summer, so yes I'm practically relying on it!".
Once upon time this was true. For past 5 years or so, it hasn't really been. At least not regarding common features PNG and GIF have. Some of more 'advanced' features of PNG (that GIF does not have) are not fully supported by IE (at least on Windowd, Mac IE 5+ are pretty good), but basic functionality has been there for a while.
Of course, Mozilla does have superior support for all combinations of bit levels, transparency settings and gamma correction, but IE is not all _that_ bad with every day PNGs, certainly not bad enough to prevent from replacing non-animated GIFs.
More importantly it doesn't even matter. The details are subtle and...
It really depends. Details do matter when the company holding patents demand their royalties for doing MP3 encoding or even decoding, as is the case for hardware players. And sometimes for software players too, and pretty much always for encoders (most open source tools have been walking the tight rope with patents for a while).
For end users it may not be a visible difference; for manufacturers of MP3-players it may be a minor point (although, for 20$ MP3-players it would be significant cost... what was the royalty again? ~1$ / player?), but for software writers it is often an actual problem (esp. for non-profit software).
Slashdot Mirror
So? Slashdot has its needs, which are fairly simple. Allow viewing threaded discussions, send comments, set up preferences. Fine. That does not need necessarily need DHTML or applets.
But you are making an assumption whole web is just a big Slashdot. It is not. Companies generally love so-called web apps, which mean in generally applications (functionality) accessible for anyone with just a web browser. As the scope of things web apps are used for expands, so do the UI needs. And suddenly, your papa's submit-wait-read - cycle just doesn't cut it. Simplest examples are client-side validations. Why wait for the server to point out you typed in invalid phone number, if client side can do it? Doing it on client-side is not only faster, but much more efficient for web site (less processing, less data to transfer, no round trips).
What this all is to say, then, is just that one needs different tools for different jobs. And DHTML is very useful things when applied to right things.
I tried a while ago to make a simple javascript app (spreadsheet) to work not only on NS4, Mozilla and IE4+, but also on Opera 6... but that's pretty much impossible without getting some help from browser. Additionally, reference docs Opera has for JS /DOM compatibility were inadequate.
but if quitting is not an option, you're really at their mercy.
Meaning basically that, "hey, do whatever you can to get out of that sinking rat-ship ASAP, or prepare to swim". Obviously it's not always a viable option to leave... but it's still a decision to make, to stay or to go.
FWIW I would probably just suggest two-part strategy; part one, continue working, but on half-assed basis. Do NOT try to be a hero. Your management clearly has shown they are incompetent both ways; taking in infeasible tasks from customers, and treating employees badly enough that they have gotten demoralized. In this situation, treat them with respect you are being treated. Part two; find a new job. No matter how hard it is, start looking for one, and do not stop until you have found one. It may be difficult, but hey; without trying you'll never find one.
And finally; even if you decided to try to work it out with elbow grease, chances are that in future things just get worse. That management has screwed up situation as badly as it seems is just a sign of more of the same to come.
If I'm not mistaken, whether this is true depends on which US state company is located in (or its HQs are in, or whatever determines state laws applicable). In some states (mid-west, south), chances are it is always at-will (which basically sucks for employee, in cases where it matters); in others it can not be (northeastern states?).
I personally think it sucks that due to fears of lawsuits, employers pretty much never tell people reason for firing, since it's better to use at-will clause and avoid any possibility of getting sued based on reason. But fear of legalese is so wide-spread (not least due to companies' lawyers upgrading fears... which is currently even considered their duty, it seems), that this is not an isolated thing... plus, it's one of those things where it's usually done "just in case" (ie. telling wouldn't matter in 99% cases, but since it's easier to just weasel out and not tell... hey, "why take the chance").
From what I understand, many high-level Sun leaders would agree with you. Many of (somewhat hyped) latest initiatives are leading to that direction, and most of acquisitions are for companies that develop software for such system unification (not in traditional "all boxes using same OS" sense but in creating bigger virtual systems out of heterogenous actual systems). Grid (utility) computing is something related as well. The Holy Grail here is to present unified view of set of heterogenous systems, and to allow them to managed through that unified view, combining network storage, robustness, failover seamlessly.
Basically, if you require 100% accurate diagnosis and treatment, chances are most patients will be dead before they get treated. Using autopsies it's much easier to figure out correct diagnosis. But that's pretty futile, except for predating lawyers, that need to "prove" mistakes were made.
I also do agree that whoever pays the bill should be able to decide how and what will be built, for what that's worth. Any dollar US spends in there, makes sense that US also decides details. Fair and square.
In case of financing rebuilding with Iraqi oil, it's bit of a dilemma however; decider should be the owner of Iraqi oil, preferably Iraqi people. But while there is no recognized gov't in place, there is no authority that can claim it. So for practical reasons it makes sense that temporary authorities handle it... but catch is, that for long-running rebuilding projects, those authorities will actually decide far-reaching contracts.
So essentially it's still an open question of the big US oil companies should get 5 or 10-year contracts paid in full (or mostly) by Iraqi oil proceeds, without Iraqis having a say in that deal, and whether such deals can be changed at a later point. For companies the other side of the coin is, of course, that they need continuity, to start the (re)building process.
Some people think settling would help with overpopulation. That's bit absurd; considering how few humans moon (or Mars) could support -- compared to world population -- costs of even trying that would outweigh any nominal gains. Plus, if techniques to support humans in such hostile places are developed, they could much more easily be used here in earth, to solve / alleviate overpopulation problems.
And this all leaves us the whizzbang coolness factor. Wouldn't it be cool if there were actual human beings living in moon, Mars or perhaps Venus? Sure. It'd be cool in the same way as running a unix-system on C64 (no irony here; I think both are cool in their own ways). Nothing to argue about, but I'd prefer it being pointed out openly, as the main reason.
It is pretty curious that (if?) other countries get into other conclusions. I do understand fascination with getting to other planets / moons; there is certainly coolness factor involved... but does that really make any actual _sense_? I wouldn't care one way or the other if this was a cheap thing (or just labour intensive) to achieve. People do all kinds of cool albeit unnecessary stuff, all the time. Much of that ends up on Slashdot main page. And that's fine. But moon base.... that actually requires lots of resources, much better spent on almost any other project one can think of.
I am pretty positive that these mission plans (if they exist) are based on national pride of nations involved. It's hard to justify them on any materialistic or startegic reasons, at this point. But then again, chances are that perhaps such space travel will _never_ be realistic. Laws of physics are tricky to bend, after all... so perhaps now is as good time as any.
As to private companies; it's good that they foot the bill. But assuming that's a sign of some interest based on some good reasoning is bit of fallacy. After all, some people thought Iridium made sense and had a chance to succeed. And while I never did, I think moon/Mars missions have much slimmer chances to have any economic value that might justify the costs. But that's not my money, fortunately; no tax dollars involved.
Law and Order: Loose Cannon in Iraq, starring Bush Jr, featuring other meaningless sides as necessary.
USA: I know that scumbag over there is committing these n+1 crimes, in addition to being a total jerk. [full list of crimes, from pedophilia to narcotic crimes follows]
... police gets to guy's door, kicks it in, breaks furniture, yells at wife to find out where the villain is, scares the kid, etc. etc.
World: Um, ok, yeah he is an asshole... so show us the evidence, and we'll get him convicted. He had done some pretty bad stuff earlier... but due to super powers not caring back then, got away.
USA: Ok, here are the rumours I heard, which pretty much prove he's done it all. Plus I KNOW he's guilty.
World: Uh uh... err, that's not, like, evidence yet. We can't just go in like loose cannons can we?
USA: D'oh! You pussy yellow-livered liberals! I'm going in, getting the villain, then show you the #%*)$^ evidence!
USA: Come on, Tony, let's take care of this scumbag here and now!
USA: Ok, here here! Listen to this; I found out the guy was a bad husband, drinking too much, neglecting kids! Yee-haw! 1 - 0 for law and order!
World: Right, bad bad guy... but where's the evidence of crimes you listed, from making crystal meth to leading a child porn ring?
USA: Um, yeah, those things I said I knew he dun... like, who cares, he was a bad guy wasn't he?
USA: But enough bickering about details... now, see, the house is a mess, door broken, need to be fixed, costs money... errr... guys, let's collect some dough, don't be stingy here, help the poor people out! Seems like I forgot my checkbook, but, hey, that's what friends are for right?
World: Did we ask you to kick door in, slap kids, throw chairs around, piss on the porch? Did we say we'll foot the bill on this stupid cowboy stunt?
World: But ok, guess we have to help to clean up the mess. As usual. But only because the family is ruined, and you are the big bully that will just kick our butt too if we don't.
USA: Oh but hey, here's the solution; the dude had a car that I can sell to my friends over at Deal-a-Car, for low price... that should cover something. Then I can also take these electronics, that could pay something small... and here's something other valuable I can loot I mean use for helping these poor folks here!
I doubt latter is going to happen, either. Thing is, many of those ultra-cautious decision makers that might pay attention to SCO's claims are still concerned about "free" and "open" aspects of Linux, and haven't adopted Linux (or have done so very slowly). Thus they are hardly the driving force for corporate adoption. As to others, unless SCO succeeds in actual legal battle, I seriously doubt will care a lot. Going back 10 years would pretty much mean "no adoption" (I started using Linux 8 years ago. Red Hat already existed, but not too much else); very unlikely outcome.
What SCO really needs is series of legal victories against actual recognized companies. Without that they are just blowing hot gas. And knowing how long legal battles go on, if they are 2 well-funded parties, by the time things are settled in (or out of) court, there's good chance SCO itself is just part of history. So, my money is on "Linux" side, strongly against SCO. And that's without any zeal.
Hmmh? Yes, companies loan to get cash, even often to just avoid using their "own" cash (raising their liquidity). But that doesn't really contradict "cash is good" statement. :-)
But I believe I was only replying to specific "profits are overrated" comment. I do understand that sometimes (often) it makes more sense to just reinvest money straight off (writing off investments), that's obvious, especially on companies in fast-growth industry sectors. This does not mean there are no cases where reporting straight profit is a very valid option. And like you point out, this is much more common in mature sectors, where growth opportunities are more limited.
And yes... economics (of financing) are sort of fasciniating. I guess that's why they even have degrees for people that work on those thingies! :-)
But for me, only thing close to that is just watching manager pull fakey ROI calculations out of their hineys, to prove that "their" project is the most wonderful thing since the sliced bread. And that's not very interesting, except from (socio|pshyco)logic point-of-view!
And as to cost of implementing the idea, yeah right. Implementing method in this particular case is pretty close to being free. It's the infrastructure and concrete implementation that is (or at least may be) costly. If they had patented that system (supposing there was anything innovative there) that would be easier to argue for, than patenting couple of days of thinking. "Gee, hey, let's like, sell used items next to new ones". That's your business method.
Sure, but Jeff isn't that tall or muscular... I'm sure he can be considered "small guy" for some definition of "small"!
I'm not sure it is all that overrated. At least up until stock market bubble, many investors thought profits to be irrelevant, and growth to be "the thing". Back then profit was severely underrated, IMO.
Profits do matter for some things, anyways; dividends can only be paid on profit, and cash companies need for high liquidity usually comes from profits. Alternative is to accumulate debt, but really, nothing beats cash without debt, no matter what size the company is.
Most investors actually put much more emphasis on cash situation of companies (including cash flow) than most people understand. Thing is, when problems occur, there's nothing as useful to have around than liquid cold cash. Nothing. No amount of revolving credit beats cash. Cash is what you can buy companies with; equity isn't always accepted. And as to takeovers; well, companies with lotsa cash are accordingly priced higher. Without that cash, they'd be much cheaper, and potentially even easier as targets.
Your point would be valid if he was suggesting a brick-n-mortar shop closing stores and moving out, but I thought he meant just moving operations (web site & supporting infrastructure) out of state. And having all those rich numerous californians as customers, serving them through the very same web site, but just having employees and servers located someplace else. While there are no doubt measures in there to make it more difficult (esp. for 'mixed' companies that still have physical existence) to avoid taxing, it's quite likely many pure net retailers might consider moving to another state. And considering cost of living at CA is also very high, salaries high, leading to higher personnel costs, does that sound all that unlikely? For this to work out for companies, though, they better hope neighbouring states do not follow (as then distribution centers could be located near state borders).
Note that many 'traditional' companies shuffle their HQs and operations from one state to another, sometimes due to change in leadership (CEOs want "their" company to "their" state), or due to tax incentives poorer states offer... headquarters especially are moved pretty often (even big companies like Boeing that asked for bids from 3 cities a while ago, and chose best offer, Chicago). And since for net retailers things should be even easier to move -- they usually don't have assembly plants or factories to move, at most just distribution centers -- it should be even more tempting to try doing just that.
Basically, California as a market will still be tempting; but that's different from suitability as "home state".
That's funny... genuinely. I'm just afraid most readers miss it as there are no smileys involved.
You lost me there... I must have worded something pretty badly, as I would never claim publically traded companies are immune from insanity. In fact, there are certain kinds of idiocies endemic for such companies (I should know, working for one). What I was trying to get across was just that there are lots of people who see a valuable asset (like Java) as something that has to be squeezed to produce revenue, right or wrong. The problem is, there are many valuable things that are pretty hard to force produce _any_ direct revenue. Democracy is a very valuable thing -- even in economic sense -- but there's very little entities like US govt can do to directly make money out of it. In many ways, Golden Gate bridge is invaludable (symbol, tourist site), yet how does city of SF make big bucks directly out of their ownership? (sell it? right...). That's the way I see Sun and Java; perhaps there are no easy ways to make money with Java? But I do know there are lots of people who wouldn't take that as an answer, and that's big part of why it's unlikely to be "liberated" any time soon.
As to back-stabbing at Sun, yeah, that's the curse of too many (most? all?) big companies. But sometimes (often? every time?) efforts to try to reduce that just worsen situation. I'm afraid it may be part of character of all (too-) big companies. That's why I personally wonder why there's almost a religion in economic circles about conglomeration of big companies to even bigger ones is supposedly always a Good Thing (tm). I can see benefits in simple manufacturing (say, bottling sugar water like what Coca-Cola does), but for things like software it just makes little sense as an axiom.
I used 2 as an example because that's minimum practical number, and number useful when doing transitioning (like what Apple, BeOS and NeXT did moving their 'primary' platform). But I didn't mean to complain about specific low limit of number of binary version you can have; I know that even if there was a limit, that'd be just implementation limit (plus I didn't think specific implementation was limited in the first place). Problem is with significantly bigger number of distinct platforms; instead of, say, 5 or 6 (for which it's still somewhat practical to do cross-compilation etc), you end up with dozens or hundreds of platforms. For that, doing full compilation optimizing to hardware level just doesn't seem much like a solution.
I wasn't saying (or at least didn't mean to say) it was limited to just 2 architectures. That's not the point (although, if it was, that'd be even worse). Point is that explosion in number of binaries one has to compile/build, plus impossibility of solving problem of future platforms, makes this less of a solution than what Java and .NET are offering.
Yes, and Sun is a publicly traded company, that has directors that consider it (Java) an asset that should generate some revenue. Right or wrong, Java was created by Sun, and as nice as it would be for language/platform itself to be completely freed, that might not be of much use for Sun.
My point is: what is good for Java may be different from what is good for Sun. Sun is still getting most of its revenue from hardware sales and related support contracts. Getting Java to be the number one development language in general does not directly bring in any revenue. About the only revenue source is licencing costs from embedded VM, plus licencing from certification of things like app servers. There are people at Sun who would like to change that, to come up with actual significant revenues from Java. And the dreaded step 2 between "open up java" and "profit!" is not a trivial thing to invent (believe me, lots of people have thought about that possibility as well as others... and haven't found a way).
As to IBM, it's a VERY different company from Sun, mostly due to its huge army of consultants (IBM prof. services). That's where money comes from, and Java is just a tool to arm PS with. So yes, their approach to Java would certainly be different.
This solved their particular problem well, but in general it's not really a complete solution. Problem is that number of completely different platforms (different ISAs for CPUs) may well be bigger than 2, and that 'minor' differences between revisions of CPUs mean that it would be really nice to have different native versions for different generations too. Plus, for new platforms existing applications have to be recompiled (unlike with, say, java apps, which just require JVM to be available).
Thus, instead of fat binaries, I'd like to see something like 'caching JIT', so that compilation could really be targeted for specific configuration, while not having to compile application on-the-fly each time it's run. This should be fairly easy to do, by (for example) checking timestamps of intermediate executable (bytecode) against compiled versions, and doing recompilations as necessary. Or by just performing compilation as part of installation (which is done by some linux distribution(s) isn't it?).
How very true. Likewise, asking them "do you use AAC", usually gets the answer "it's very nice during hot months of summer, so yes I'm practically relying on it!".
Once upon time this was true. For past 5 years or so, it hasn't really been. At least not regarding common features PNG and GIF have. Some of more 'advanced' features of PNG (that GIF does not have) are not fully supported by IE (at least on Windowd, Mac IE 5+ are pretty good), but basic functionality has been there for a while.
Of course, Mozilla does have superior support for all combinations of bit levels, transparency settings and gamma correction, but IE is not all _that_ bad with every day PNGs, certainly not bad enough to prevent from replacing non-animated GIFs.
It really depends. Details do matter when the company holding patents demand their royalties for doing MP3 encoding or even decoding, as is the case for hardware players. And sometimes for software players too, and pretty much always for encoders (most open source tools have been walking the tight rope with patents for a while).
For end users it may not be a visible difference; for manufacturers of MP3-players it may be a minor point (although, for 20$ MP3-players it would be significant cost... what was the royalty again? ~1$ / player?), but for software writers it is often an actual problem (esp. for non-profit software).