I have no idea how many programmers he may or may not have asked, but it's entirely possible that the Oracle programmers were told en masse to tell him it would take two days to write this code.
Actually David Boies is considered one of the top trial lawyers in the country, and he certainly wasn't getting this grief on slashdot when he beat Microsoft during their anti-trust trial. I'm sure he asked someone at Oracle how long it would take to re-create the code and got a wrong answer.
I'll see your John Prescott Ellis, Heidi Noonan, and Tony Snow, with Al Sharpton [wikipedia.org], and Kieth Olberman and Chris Matthews [thedailybeast.com] and raise you Dave Weigel [huffingtonpost.com] of Journolist [politico.com] fame, Susan Roegen [youtube.com], and George Stephanopoulos [wikipedia.org].
No wait you are missing the point completely. I am NOT criticizing Fox News for hiring almost exclusively far-right pundits. Biased POLITICAL COMMENTARY is not the problem. I very carefully selected problems with Fox's NEWS GATHERING arm.
The head of Fox's news division (who for decades was a political operative for the Republican Party) assigned the first cousin of the Republican candidate to call the winner for each state during the 2000 election.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prescott_Ellis
A Fox News producer was caught on tape trying to whip up the crowd for Glenn Beck's "9/12" demonstration. Fox then ran full-page advertisements in the newspaper asking why the other cable news networks weren't covering such an important event (using, for some bizarre reason, a video still from CNN, which was covering the event).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzWC0GX38Mk
In 1996 Fox anchor Tony Snow endorsed Bob Dole for President. In 2000 Snow then went to purportedly cover the 2000 Republican convention as a journalist, then gave a speech to a Republican youth group when asked. Snow later went to the White House to become Bush's press secretary.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067
You do not see comparable levels of bias with MSNBC. You just don't.
"I suppose Fox News does look pretty right wing when compared to NBC's (and the rest of the press') handling of George Zimmerman. Or the WaPo splashing an unverifiable Mitt Romney high school story on their front page, while refusing to press for President Obama's college records. Or CBS' fake George Bush National Guard memos. And so on and so on."
Fox is demonstrably more biased than any of those other other stations. Only a liar would say otherwise.
"Blueseed wasn't started by VCs, but by immigrant entrepreneurs (look at the bios of the founders [blueseed.co])"
Not a single one of those bios reflect an "entrepreneur." Actually, those bios reflect an astonishing lack of practical experience running a commercial operation.
"US taxation directly fuels US military belligerence abroad, so if you're looking for a good argument against Blueseed, lack of US taxation is not a good one to suggest to foreign nationals."
Unless you're one of the many countries which benefits from US military adventurism.
"Enforce property rights. Then your neighbor has no right to pollute your air, soil, water, etc."
Typically libertarian bait-and-switch; claim your neighbor has no right to pollute in theory, but in practice deny 99% of pollution is actually pollution. "What? I can put PCBs in your drinking water, they haven't proven conclusively that PCBs are dangerous!"
In terms of government, Libertarians simply want to take over - and then leave you alone. That's the extent of it.
Most Libertarians have authoritarian tendencies. Remember when Badnarik got the Libertarian nomination for President then started talking about creating a benign dictatorship with himself in charge?
"I hear ya.....tell that to Obama...I've never seen a guy with such thin skin."
Actually, a non-biased observer would consider Obama even-tempered in the face of criticism to an unusual degree. Certainly doesn't have the kind of vitriolic defensiveness his predecessor had.
"Seems as though attributing the cause of some global phenomena on a billions-of-years-old planet with a history of radical changes to a very-recently evolved species is one HELL OF AN EXTRAORDINARY CLAIM."
Nonsense. That kind of reasoning only makes sense if you worship Zeus and worry about him striking you with a lightning bolt because of your hubris.
The age of the planet and the recentness of humankind's evolution is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. That's like arguing that a jackhammer will have absolutely no impact on a 3 billion year old stone surface because the jackhammer was only manufactured last year.
"His legal and emotional responses in this area were formed in the Apple ][ clone battles of the 70's/80's against companies like Orange who created look-alikes that used almost straight copies of the Apple ][ ROMs and motherboards."
Jobs' legal and emotional responses in this area sprung from narcissism and anger management issues that were part of his psyche, not any specific events. Considering Jobs reacted with shrieking anger to any other perceived slight, whether or not Apple had previously dealt with that issue, suggests that this is completely about neuroses and immaturity that Tim Cook lacks.
The burden of proof lies on the people making extraordinary claims. If someone is claiming that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide, an established greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere will not impact global temperatures, then it is up to them to prove such a fantastical claim.
Slashdot Mirror
http://538refugees.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/the-democratic-super-majority-myth/
I have no idea how many programmers he may or may not have asked, but it's entirely possible that the Oracle programmers were told en masse to tell him it would take two days to write this code.
Why are you assuming he was told to the contrary? Programmers do lie on occasion.
"Because obviously Oracle hired mentally challenged lawyers."
Actually David Boies is considered one of the top trial lawyers in the country, and he certainly wasn't getting this grief on slashdot when he beat Microsoft during their anti-trust trial. I'm sure he asked someone at Oracle how long it would take to re-create the code and got a wrong answer.
No wait you are missing the point completely. I am NOT criticizing Fox News for hiring almost exclusively far-right pundits. Biased POLITICAL COMMENTARY is not the problem. I very carefully selected problems with Fox's NEWS GATHERING arm.
The head of Fox's news division (who for decades was a political operative for the Republican Party) assigned the first cousin of the Republican candidate to call the winner for each state during the 2000 election. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prescott_Ellis
A Fox News producer was caught on tape trying to whip up the crowd for Glenn Beck's "9/12" demonstration. Fox then ran full-page advertisements in the newspaper asking why the other cable news networks weren't covering such an important event (using, for some bizarre reason, a video still from CNN, which was covering the event). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzWC0GX38Mk
In 1996 Fox anchor Tony Snow endorsed Bob Dole for President. In 2000 Snow then went to purportedly cover the 2000 Republican convention as a journalist, then gave a speech to a Republican youth group when asked. Snow later went to the White House to become Bush's press secretary. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067
You do not see comparable levels of bias with MSNBC. You just don't.
"I suppose Fox News does look pretty right wing when compared to NBC's (and the rest of the press') handling of George Zimmerman. Or the WaPo splashing an unverifiable Mitt Romney high school story on their front page, while refusing to press for President Obama's college records. Or CBS' fake George Bush National Guard memos. And so on and so on."
Fox is demonstrably more biased than any of those other other stations. Only a liar would say otherwise.
True, Windows 7 is the first operating system Microsoft has ever gotten mostly right.
Actually, the gender studies majors subsidize the engineering majors; they don't need the fancy equipment or laboratories.
"Because it makes you poorer in real terms? Your debt falls in value in real terms, but so does the purchasing power of the dollar in your pocket. "
So if my debt vastly outstrips the dollars in my pocket, you agree inflation is a good thing?
"it should be noted that Libertarians are NOT "pro-corporation", since a corporation is a government-created entity"
Nope.
"because they want less government spending "
For other people. Their own medicare, social security, and farm subsidies should stay, of course.
"Blueseed wasn't started by VCs, but by immigrant entrepreneurs (look at the bios of the founders [blueseed.co])"
Not a single one of those bios reflect an "entrepreneur." Actually, those bios reflect an astonishing lack of practical experience running a commercial operation.
"US taxation directly fuels US military belligerence abroad, so if you're looking for a good argument against Blueseed, lack of US taxation is not a good one to suggest to foreign nationals."
Unless you're one of the many countries which benefits from US military adventurism.
"Enforce property rights. Then your neighbor has no right to pollute your air, soil, water, etc."
Typically libertarian bait-and-switch; claim your neighbor has no right to pollute in theory, but in practice deny 99% of pollution is actually pollution. "What? I can put PCBs in your drinking water, they haven't proven conclusively that PCBs are dangerous!"
In terms of government, Libertarians simply want to take over - and then leave you alone. That's the extent of it.
Most Libertarians have authoritarian tendencies. Remember when Badnarik got the Libertarian nomination for President then started talking about creating a benign dictatorship with himself in charge?
"I hear ya.....tell that to Obama...I've never seen a guy with such thin skin."
Actually, a non-biased observer would consider Obama even-tempered in the face of criticism to an unusual degree. Certainly doesn't have the kind of vitriolic defensiveness his predecessor had.
"Seems as though attributing the cause of some global phenomena on a billions-of-years-old planet with a history of radical changes to a very-recently evolved species is one HELL OF AN EXTRAORDINARY CLAIM."
Nonsense. That kind of reasoning only makes sense if you worship Zeus and worry about him striking you with a lightning bolt because of your hubris.
The age of the planet and the recentness of humankind's evolution is completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. That's like arguing that a jackhammer will have absolutely no impact on a 3 billion year old stone surface because the jackhammer was only manufactured last year.
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-05-19/tech/apple.religion_1_apple-store-apple-employees-brains?_s=PM:TECH
"His legal and emotional responses in this area were formed in the Apple ][ clone battles of the 70's/80's against companies like Orange who created look-alikes that used almost straight copies of the Apple ][ ROMs and motherboards."
Jobs' legal and emotional responses in this area sprung from narcissism and anger management issues that were part of his psyche, not any specific events. Considering Jobs reacted with shrieking anger to any other perceived slight, whether or not Apple had previously dealt with that issue, suggests that this is completely about neuroses and immaturity that Tim Cook lacks.
The burden of proof lies on the people making extraordinary claims. If someone is claiming that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide, an established greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere will not impact global temperatures, then it is up to them to prove such a fantastical claim.
"the usual statist stuff"
Thank you for using the term "statist" so early in your post so I could stop reading it early on and automatically dismiss you as a crackpot.
"Waaah, anthropogenic global warming would be inconvenient for me financially, I think, so obviously it cannot really exist!"
"if it is it ain't happening at anything like the rate that would justify dismantling civilization"
And this is where anti-AGW is at its most dishonest.
Probably the best PS2 game ever made. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ico