... the most interesting thing is that #1 is a guy from the BBC. As they look to digitise their content, the BBC is carving itself a really nice niche on the Web -- a World Service for the 21 century.
Except everyone knows who the US spammers are. Drug importation is a massive business, employing millions of people worldwide. There are only a dozen US spammers individually responsible for nearly all the western world's spam. Your analogy is idiotic.
Well, thats the headline figure. Something tells me the contract is long term, and more subtle than "here's a big pile of cash", giving all concerned plenty of wiggle room...
Besides "millions" is not all that much to the Virgin Group. Branson probably spent than on his various aborted balloon trips.
he has deliberately targeted markets dominated by one or two corporate bohemoths who really need a kick in the ass
That sounds like Coke and Pepsi to me, and doesn't sound like space/sub-orbital travel. Given there have only been a handful of space tourists, to which corporate behemoths are you referring here?
He's also a successful entrepreneur to the tune of billions, so I wouldn't write him off that quickly.
I'm not writing him off... but... Branson's money has been made very shrewdly, and almost exclusively by entering mature markets and undercutting them. Good for him. I respect him : as beared twats go, he's one of my favourites. And his record label released some excellent prog rock in the 70s, and the Pistols after EMI dropped them, so respect is due.
But this isn't like any of those other cases. This is not just a new market, and its not even a market thats going to be viable for a decade or longer. He's quite possibly interested in it, but why the widely reported press release now?
Because he's a smart man, and he recognises a chance to leverage a relatively moderate investment into a massive PR and publicity coup.
Naive spin-master or visionary benefactor? I think Branson's record speaks for itself.
You're probably right. There has, however, been a fairly serious relaunch in progress, since April '04, when Branson's Virgin Group bought out Virgin Money, previously half owned by HHG.
Theres a fairly high profile set of TV commercials in heavy rotation at the moment, too.
Well, the recent delay on the Pendolino is nothing to do with the trains, and everything to do with the fact that the West Coast Mainline tracks themselves hadn't been maintained sufficiently well to allow the trains to run on them.
"Our press release was covered by Slashdot today! Perfect!"
Actually, you can stop there. Branson is a master of PR, and I wouldn't be remotely surprised if this venture gets quietly binned, once its provided its much needed channels to allow Branson time to plug his newly launched credit card.
The "dominos" of marriage are not subjective political concerns but concrete realities: love and procreation, and the logical necessities that each of these aspects entail. The most obvious concern with gay "marriage" is that same sex couple don't have the biological ability to reproduce.
And yet President Bush seems strangely reticent about proposing a constitutional amendment barring any marriage in which one of the partners is infertile. Which would suggest the "legal marriage => procreation" argument is bollocks.
The primary reason for goverment recognition of family to to encourage children and a stable social environment for future citizens.
Lets suppose that were the real reason. Help me out here: that tould mean that stable, gay couples who adopt abandoned children are a credit to the nation. Conversely, childless heterosexuals are a drain on resources. Right?
By allowing gay marriage, what you are doing is throwing morality...
No. No. No. No. Not morality. Judeo Christian teaching, sure, but not morality. Morality is not so clearly pinned down. Until you can tell me, without reference to religion, why polygamy is immoral and monogamy moral, this is utterly spurious.
And if you can't do it without reference to religion, then the separation of Church and State says its none of the government's business.
(Of course, what you'd have to do is define objective morality. And its hard to make a good case for objective morality. Murder's pretty easy. Anything that directly affects people who are non-consensual to the act... you can make a case for that. Consensual gay marriage? Good luck with that.)
Interestingly enough, Ayn Rand merely preached monogamy, fidelity and loyalty. In fact, she was busy shagging everything and everyone in her little circle of admirers/idolators.
A right wing intellectual saying one thing and doing another? Inconceivable.
(And remember kids : if you do cocaine, you'll go to prison. If W did drugs, thats just "youthful indiscretion".)
Really? It's the government's job to tell me where I can and consensually cannot stick my dick. I bet they had fun writing those bits of the Constitution. Where do you stand on the penis going into the mouth? Do you intend to lecture us on the fundamental wrongness of the blow job? Does the gender of the blower matter?
So I replace www.mlb.com by a search for mlb. That works well in that one case. But suppose I'm looking for a replacement to www.slashdot.org? Not exactly helpful, is it?
Peridot could lead to a world where there are no more broken links,
... just links that don't got where the author intended. Gee, thats... just great.
Hang on. On similar lines, I've a great idea. Suppose I type a nonexistent hostname into my browser. Wouldn't it be good if the DNS server just gave me its best guess instead of an error message. Or some kind of Site Finding search engine. That'd be even better than...:)
The British did much of the preliminary work in computing (Alan Turing built the first stored-program computer in Manchester University in 1948) but really have done little since of any real note.
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That's nothing. When I first used Unix to run Fortran codes solve Schroedinger's equation to simulate quantum mechanical systems, we never knew whether cat would work on our system. It seemed about a 50-50 chance as to whether there was a live cat or not.
Slashdot Mirror
... the most interesting thing is that #1 is a guy from the BBC. As they look to digitise their content, the BBC is carving itself a really nice niche on the Web -- a World Service for the 21 century.
Except everyone knows who the US spammers are. Drug importation is a massive business, employing millions of people worldwide. There are only a dozen US spammers individually responsible for nearly all the western world's spam. Your analogy is idiotic.
Arresting these people wouldn't solve the problem overnight, but by christ it'd be a bloody good start.
Dude, like, y'know, American college students *are* like totally a non-English speaking workforce.
Well, thats the headline figure. Something tells me the contract is long term, and more subtle than "here's a big pile of cash", giving all concerned plenty of wiggle room...
Besides "millions" is not all that much to the Virgin Group. Branson probably spent than on his various aborted balloon trips.
But this isn't like any of those other cases. This is not just a new market, and its not even a market thats going to be viable for a decade or longer. He's quite possibly interested in it, but why the widely reported press release now?
Because he's a smart man, and he recognises a chance to leverage a relatively moderate investment into a massive PR and publicity coup.
So do I.
And you should've answered the question : Do you support marriage of permanently sterile people, even when they are of different sexes?
You're probably right. There has, however, been a fairly serious relaunch in progress, since April '04, when Branson's Virgin Group bought out Virgin Money, previously half owned by HHG.
Theres a fairly high profile set of TV commercials in heavy rotation at the moment, too.
Well, the recent delay on the Pendolino is nothing to do with the trains, and everything to do with the fact that the West Coast Mainline tracks themselves hadn't been maintained sufficiently well to allow the trains to run on them.
And if you can't do it without reference to religion, then the separation of Church and State says its none of the government's business.
(Of course, what you'd have to do is define objective morality. And its hard to make a good case for objective morality. Murder's pretty easy. Anything that directly affects people who are non-consensual to the act... you can make a case for that. Consensual gay marriage? Good luck with that.)
Interestingly enough, Ayn Rand merely preached monogamy, fidelity and loyalty. In fact, she was busy shagging everything and everyone in her little circle of admirers/idolators.
A right wing intellectual saying one thing and doing another? Inconceivable.
(And remember kids : if you do cocaine, you'll go to prison. If W did drugs, thats just "youthful indiscretion".)
So I replace www.mlb.com by a search for mlb. That works well in that one case. But suppose I'm looking for a replacement to www.slashdot.org? Not exactly helpful, is it?
Hang on. On similar lines, I've a great idea. Suppose I type a nonexistent hostname into my browser. Wouldn't it be good if the DNS server just gave me its best guess instead of an error message. Or some kind of Site Finding search engine. That'd be even better than
Yeah well, this post is just my post from a few days ago having been sucked through a Total Perspective Vortex...
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