The problem with your analogy is that yeast is not conscious. The tax incentives provided by the government for companies which use clean energy coupled with the good PR it generates is how we, as humans, are able to reconcile self-interest and economy. So we are making it more profitable to save the world than destroy it. Unlike the yeast we have the ability to understand and manipulate our environment in a way that prevents short-sighted self-interest from bringing down the collective interests of society and the planet. Things are deterministic for yeast but it is not so for humans.
Does it really matter whether Google or Gates has spent MORE on things which can be listed on one's taxes as "charity?" Of course Bill Gates outspends every other charity. It's no different than how Microsoft is run. Outspend everyone else because glory is more important than efficiency, market dominance is more important than shareholders. How would Bill get all the press he's so desperate for if someone else had a better charity organization. Perhaps if he didn't feel the need to call the press and be an interview whore every time his foundation spend a penny I would suspect that he may be sincere but I really don't buy it. It's not like his foundation needs press, as you pointed out, it's not funded by donations.
To paraphrase Anthony Burgess, "It's not good deeds that makes one good, but good intent."
It should also be noted that placing your money in a charity foundation makes it becomes untaxable. Whatever good the foundation does, it comes at the expense of the American government. This is an old trick. Rockefeller pulled as well. When Bill dies the foundation can be passed down to his children without any inheritance taxes.
Hell, the idea was satirized before Bill Gates was a billionaire. Read God Bless you Mr. Rosewater, by Kurt Vonnegut. Using a charity foundation to store your funds is like keeping it in a Swiss bank but it buys good PR. Then consider that a lot of the "good deeds" the Bill & Melinda Foundation does includes giving Windows PCs to developing countries in hopes that Microsoft will monopolize the region.
While I agree that guy was trolling (unintentionally), I also agree with his point. They say the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist. Well the greatest trick that Bill Gates ever pulled was convincing the world that he's a philanthropist. Ever notice how whenever MS does something particularly evil Gates makes sure to do something with the foundation that will get media buzz?
This might work if the sold the phone for significantly less than cost, as they did with the xBox. If they did, they would be the only cell phone provider who does so. If they teamed with cricket and the low end carriers they could demolish the competition.
That might work if it weren't illegal. They're allowed with the XBox because it's a loss leader. The software (theoretically) makes selling the hardware at a loss financially acceptable.
What you're proposing is outright predatory pricing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing). MS might be able to get away with it in the U.S., but the EU doesn't let that shit fly. Hell, they probably can't get away with it in the U.S.--they'd have to fight off the lawyers from the entire telecommunication industry. MS has clout, but nobody has that much bully power.
Yeah, they should have made their ebook reader a bloated $2,000 computer that's twice as thick as the model they're releasing, gets twice as hot, has half the battery life, and is 10x as complicated. Why Apple hasn't hired your genius is beyond me.
The "throw in everything and a kitchen sink" approach to engineering is lazy and stupid. There are latent effects to every "feature" that you add.
That's a poor hypothetical. As a college student I can tell you that neither a netbook or iPad are well suited for that situation. Writing papers on a little netbook screen with its little netbook keyboard is just as ridiculous as doing so on an iPad (I would actually probably prefer the iPad w/ a keyboard but there's no Word/OOo). You present a situation in which a regular laptop or desktop would be the best choice and claim the iPad will fail because its not well suited. Well no shit Sherlock. The iPad isn't supposed to replace the MacBook or iMac, but it will be popular among people like my mom who don't use a computer for anything the iPad doesn't do and like to read books.
The iPad would be a nice complementary device for my laptop if they get nice prices on textbooks. Then it would pay for itself as I spend hundreds on textbooks each semester.
Perhaps their golden rule conflicts with their "do no evil" rule. I'm not a big fan of the way copyright law is set up, but it exists for a reason: so others can't copy your work and sell it and/or give it away for free. That's precisely what Google is doing. It's called theft, which is evil.
The iPad would give me a chessboard I can carry around with me anywhere, and do other things on. The big ass table does everything the iPad does, but it's too freakin' big to take anywhere. I don't think the point of the article is "buy an iPad for a portable chessboard." But if you have an iPad, why would you take a chessboard anywhere? That's more space, pieces that can be lost, ect. The article doesn't suggest that the iPad is going to be pigeonholed into a digital board game market, but the fact that it can do those things too just adds value. It also probably has Parker Bros. et al rushing to Apple for their SDKs.
The problems with the Surface are highlighted in the video you provided. "Instead of using one of today's more compact devices to get directions where you're going, why not use a device the size of a small car, to do the same job?"
First: software document formats are so far removed from the world of Adam Smith his arguments hardly apply
Second: even governments which are based on Smith's theories, such as the U.S., state in the constitution that the government is responsible for setting standards for weights and measurements so no one can try to patent things like inches or grams. In choosing what format the government uses for software documents they should follow the same method for choosing weight and measurement standards: choose something which is not patented. When the government is dependent of patented technologies, they become a slave to the patent owners.
Not to mention the eBooks. Kindle may offer more eBooks than the iPad, this MSI product may have better graphics than the iPad - but it's not going to support Apple or Amazon's eBook stores. The eBook store is just as crucial in moving these things as iTunes is for moving iPods. Then there's the app store to keep in mind as well. iPhone users are going to default to these things b/c they don't have to rebuy their apps.
That's the next version. All the rich morons are going to buy this first version, bring down the costs for everyone else, and then some extra features will be added next January. When they add the camera I can see great possibilities for video chat (that may scare AT&T). It's just like the iPhone and iPhone 3G. The people who throw their money at anything Apple puts out will get the ball rolling for the rest of us.
I'll admit, I want one, but I certainly don't need one, so I can wait. I never buy the first version of an Apple product but I'm sure glad that people who are more frivolous with their money do.
How is it comparable if it lacks the multi-touch that makes the iPad so easy to use and the large screen which makes it such a good eBook reader? Not to mention developer support. . .
Also consider that when people buy e-books they start buying several books immediately, often stuff they already own in the regular format. It's like how when you buy a Playstation you immediately buy games for it.
Historically infanticide is pretty common. It's only with modern medicine that we've gone out of our way to keep defective babies alive. I'm not saying infanticide is right or anything, but for the primitive it's a solution.
People like you are the reason that most movies, books, a t.v. shows suck and recycle craptacular pulp plots. I didn't think Avatar was the greatest movie, not even James Cameron's best, but the themes that held it together were the best part. What's entertaining about a movie without a message?
I see you're point, and I don't consider you to be a troll, but there are some problems with your claim. The difference between white/black people is due to our proximity to the equator. It's how our bodies deal with extreme heat/cold. It's more like the difference between a long haired and short haired dog. If white people turned white as a result of civilization you may have a point, but that's just not true. In the western world Mesopotamia and Egypt developed civilizations much before the white Celts or Germans, and to the best of my knowledge it didn't drastically change their physical appearances. Civilized or not, they still lived closer to the equator so dark features and curly hair were necessary for survival. (look at the Jews - dark skinned while living in Israel, light skinned while living in Europe)
I also don't think there's any merit to your claim that white people squeal like little girls when frightened while dark skinned people "lash out." This is probably why you were labeled troll, that's pretty racist because, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence to support that claim. Even if you could support it, I'm sure a sociological explanation would be better suited than a biological one.
I think this has been fairly well known for years and everyone believes it except OCD hand-washers and nurses (seriously, I don't know what they teach in nursing school, but every nurse I've ever met was a freak about cleanliness). This is the same reason I don't take flu-vaccines because getting the flu does the same damn thing. It'll just mutate and my immune system will have to figure out a way to fight the mutated virus, so vaccines do no good (note: flu vaccines, not vaccines for polio or measles, I'm not an anti-vaccine freak, I'm just against unnecessary ones). I understand cleaning your kids, but they shouldn't be conditioned to fear dirt.
Also, on a related note, anti-bacterial soap is bad.
There may be more pirates in China than anywhere else, but there's also more people than anywhere else. Do you really think MS would give Linux/Mac OS the world's largest economy with a billion potential customers? China's economy is experiencing unprecedented growth and the U.S. is massively in debt to them, so if there's any market worth fighting for that's it. They do have massive piracy problems now, but the pirates would probably just use a free version of Linux if they were unable to get unauthorized copies of Windows. If MS pulled out of China Linux would likely become a legitimate consumer desktop OS. It would also give Blizzard an incentive to make a Linux version of WoW, and I couldn't see anything hurting Windows market share more than popular games on a free OS.
If you knew who Mark Cuban was you'd know that he's an embarrassment to everyone associated with him. He owns a decent basketball team but makes them look like whiney bitches by crying courtside and verbally assaulting the refs. He became a billionaire during the dot-com boom by selling some start-ups to mega-corporations and thinks he's a business genius because of his success. He probably likes MS because Bill Gates is the same type of opportunistic, greedy entrepreneur he is.
From wiki: "Cuban has been fined by the NBA, mostly for critical statements about the league and referees, at least $1,665,000 for 13 incidents." I would actually like the Mavs if he wasn't the owner, their players deserve better.
Then there's this: "Cuban is an admirer of individualism, claiming early inspiration from author/philosopher Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead." Yeah, he's strait cutthroat, and a jackass to boot.
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The problem with your analogy is that yeast is not conscious. The tax incentives provided by the government for companies which use clean energy coupled with the good PR it generates is how we, as humans, are able to reconcile self-interest and economy. So we are making it more profitable to save the world than destroy it. Unlike the yeast we have the ability to understand and manipulate our environment in a way that prevents short-sighted self-interest from bringing down the collective interests of society and the planet. Things are deterministic for yeast but it is not so for humans.
Does it really matter whether Google or Gates has spent MORE on things which can be listed on one's taxes as "charity?" Of course Bill Gates outspends every other charity. It's no different than how Microsoft is run. Outspend everyone else because glory is more important than efficiency, market dominance is more important than shareholders. How would Bill get all the press he's so desperate for if someone else had a better charity organization. Perhaps if he didn't feel the need to call the press and be an interview whore every time his foundation spend a penny I would suspect that he may be sincere but I really don't buy it. It's not like his foundation needs press, as you pointed out, it's not funded by donations.
To paraphrase Anthony Burgess, "It's not good deeds that makes one good, but good intent."
It should also be noted that placing your money in a charity foundation makes it becomes untaxable. Whatever good the foundation does, it comes at the expense of the American government. This is an old trick. Rockefeller pulled as well. When Bill dies the foundation can be passed down to his children without any inheritance taxes.
Hell, the idea was satirized before Bill Gates was a billionaire. Read God Bless you Mr. Rosewater, by Kurt Vonnegut. Using a charity foundation to store your funds is like keeping it in a Swiss bank but it buys good PR. Then consider that a lot of the "good deeds" the Bill & Melinda Foundation does includes giving Windows PCs to developing countries in hopes that Microsoft will monopolize the region.
While I agree that guy was trolling (unintentionally), I also agree with his point. They say the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist. Well the greatest trick that Bill Gates ever pulled was convincing the world that he's a philanthropist. Ever notice how whenever MS does something particularly evil Gates makes sure to do something with the foundation that will get media buzz?
This might work if the sold the phone for significantly less than cost, as they did with the xBox. If they did, they would be the only cell phone provider who does so. If they teamed with cricket and the low end carriers they could demolish the competition.
That might work if it weren't illegal. They're allowed with the XBox because it's a loss leader. The software (theoretically) makes selling the hardware at a loss financially acceptable.
What you're proposing is outright predatory pricing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing). MS might be able to get away with it in the U.S., but the EU doesn't let that shit fly. Hell, they probably can't get away with it in the U.S.--they'd have to fight off the lawyers from the entire telecommunication industry. MS has clout, but nobody has that much bully power.
Yeah, they should have made their ebook reader a bloated $2,000 computer that's twice as thick as the model they're releasing, gets twice as hot, has half the battery life, and is 10x as complicated. Why Apple hasn't hired your genius is beyond me.
The "throw in everything and a kitchen sink" approach to engineering is lazy and stupid. There are latent effects to every "feature" that you add.
That's a poor hypothetical. As a college student I can tell you that neither a netbook or iPad are well suited for that situation. Writing papers on a little netbook screen with its little netbook keyboard is just as ridiculous as doing so on an iPad (I would actually probably prefer the iPad w/ a keyboard but there's no Word/OOo). You present a situation in which a regular laptop or desktop would be the best choice and claim the iPad will fail because its not well suited. Well no shit Sherlock. The iPad isn't supposed to replace the MacBook or iMac, but it will be popular among people like my mom who don't use a computer for anything the iPad doesn't do and like to read books.
The iPad would be a nice complementary device for my laptop if they get nice prices on textbooks. Then it would pay for itself as I spend hundreds on textbooks each semester.
Perhaps their golden rule conflicts with their "do no evil" rule. I'm not a big fan of the way copyright law is set up, but it exists for a reason: so others can't copy your work and sell it and/or give it away for free. That's precisely what Google is doing. It's called theft, which is evil.
The iPad would give me a chessboard I can carry around with me anywhere, and do other things on. The big ass table does everything the iPad does, but it's too freakin' big to take anywhere. I don't think the point of the article is "buy an iPad for a portable chessboard." But if you have an iPad, why would you take a chessboard anywhere? That's more space, pieces that can be lost, ect. The article doesn't suggest that the iPad is going to be pigeonholed into a digital board game market, but the fact that it can do those things too just adds value. It also probably has Parker Bros. et al rushing to Apple for their SDKs.
The problems with the Surface are highlighted in the video you provided. "Instead of using one of today's more compact devices to get directions where you're going, why not use a device the size of a small car, to do the same job?"
In all fairness, Clinton was the first black president.
First: software document formats are so far removed from the world of Adam Smith his arguments hardly apply
Second: even governments which are based on Smith's theories, such as the U.S., state in the constitution that the government is responsible for setting standards for weights and measurements so no one can try to patent things like inches or grams. In choosing what format the government uses for software documents they should follow the same method for choosing weight and measurement standards: choose something which is not patented. When the government is dependent of patented technologies, they become a slave to the patent owners.
Not to mention the eBooks. Kindle may offer more eBooks than the iPad, this MSI product may have better graphics than the iPad - but it's not going to support Apple or Amazon's eBook stores. The eBook store is just as crucial in moving these things as iTunes is for moving iPods. Then there's the app store to keep in mind as well. iPhone users are going to default to these things b/c they don't have to rebuy their apps.
That's the next version. All the rich morons are going to buy this first version, bring down the costs for everyone else, and then some extra features will be added next January. When they add the camera I can see great possibilities for video chat (that may scare AT&T). It's just like the iPhone and iPhone 3G. The people who throw their money at anything Apple puts out will get the ball rolling for the rest of us.
I'll admit, I want one, but I certainly don't need one, so I can wait. I never buy the first version of an Apple product but I'm sure glad that people who are more frivolous with their money do.
Yeah, it's one of those special touch screens that only reacts to fingers. It's programmed to reject little plastic sticks.
How is it comparable if it lacks the multi-touch that makes the iPad so easy to use and the large screen which makes it such a good eBook reader? Not to mention developer support. . .
Exactly. It's not like you hear about Yahoo doing this kind of thing.
BING forms exclusive partnership with Chinese government.
Okay, maybe not now that Google has got the Secretary of State in on this debacle, but I wouldn't put it past 'em.
Also consider that when people buy e-books they start buying several books immediately, often stuff they already own in the regular format. It's like how when you buy a Playstation you immediately buy games for it.
Historically infanticide is pretty common. It's only with modern medicine that we've gone out of our way to keep defective babies alive. I'm not saying infanticide is right or anything, but for the primitive it's a solution.
People like you are the reason that most movies, books, a t.v. shows suck and recycle craptacular pulp plots. I didn't think Avatar was the greatest movie, not even James Cameron's best, but the themes that held it together were the best part. What's entertaining about a movie without a message?
I see you're point, and I don't consider you to be a troll, but there are some problems with your claim. The difference between white/black people is due to our proximity to the equator. It's how our bodies deal with extreme heat/cold. It's more like the difference between a long haired and short haired dog. If white people turned white as a result of civilization you may have a point, but that's just not true. In the western world Mesopotamia and Egypt developed civilizations much before the white Celts or Germans, and to the best of my knowledge it didn't drastically change their physical appearances. Civilized or not, they still lived closer to the equator so dark features and curly hair were necessary for survival. (look at the Jews - dark skinned while living in Israel, light skinned while living in Europe)
I also don't think there's any merit to your claim that white people squeal like little girls when frightened while dark skinned people "lash out." This is probably why you were labeled troll, that's pretty racist because, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence to support that claim. Even if you could support it, I'm sure a sociological explanation would be better suited than a biological one.
I think this has been fairly well known for years and everyone believes it except OCD hand-washers and nurses (seriously, I don't know what they teach in nursing school, but every nurse I've ever met was a freak about cleanliness). This is the same reason I don't take flu-vaccines because getting the flu does the same damn thing. It'll just mutate and my immune system will have to figure out a way to fight the mutated virus, so vaccines do no good (note: flu vaccines, not vaccines for polio or measles, I'm not an anti-vaccine freak, I'm just against unnecessary ones). I understand cleaning your kids, but they shouldn't be conditioned to fear dirt.
Also, on a related note, anti-bacterial soap is bad.
terrible towels? A 5-10% excise tax on terrible towels would probably bring in millions.
I don't think the Chinese have a problem with being hypocrites as long as it suits their needs. Look at what they do with exchange rates. Doublethink.
There may be more pirates in China than anywhere else, but there's also more people than anywhere else. Do you really think MS would give Linux/Mac OS the world's largest economy with a billion potential customers? China's economy is experiencing unprecedented growth and the U.S. is massively in debt to them, so if there's any market worth fighting for that's it. They do have massive piracy problems now, but the pirates would probably just use a free version of Linux if they were unable to get unauthorized copies of Windows. If MS pulled out of China Linux would likely become a legitimate consumer desktop OS. It would also give Blizzard an incentive to make a Linux version of WoW, and I couldn't see anything hurting Windows market share more than popular games on a free OS.
"If this Mark Cuban person. . ."
If you knew who Mark Cuban was you'd know that he's an embarrassment to everyone associated with him. He owns a decent basketball team but makes them look like whiney bitches by crying courtside and verbally assaulting the refs. He became a billionaire during the dot-com boom by selling some start-ups to mega-corporations and thinks he's a business genius because of his success. He probably likes MS because Bill Gates is the same type of opportunistic, greedy entrepreneur he is.
From wiki: "Cuban has been fined by the NBA, mostly for critical statements about the league and referees, at least $1,665,000 for 13 incidents." I would actually like the Mavs if he wasn't the owner, their players deserve better.
Then there's this: "Cuban is an admirer of individualism, claiming early inspiration from author/philosopher Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead." Yeah, he's strait cutthroat, and a jackass to boot.