Corporations don't just do what is profitable. They do what they THINK is profitable, which may include taking a loss now for a greater gain later on, or it may include doing something that they THINK is a net win, but really isn't.
And also, corporations are headed by human beings (well there are a couple of companies which would appear to be exceptions;). Humans can be, and often are, driven by emotion instead of reason. Motives such as revenge or feeling one is being "benevolent" can override the profit motive in some cases. Their views on what's profitiable and their motives are often colored by the world view in which they perceive things. For example, Microsoft THINKS in different terms than IBM, or an OSS programmer, and hence comes to different conclusions and actions.
Knowing the views and motives of a participant in the economy is crucial to understanding why the act as they do and trying to predict their future course of action and their responses to economic conditions and their dealings with others.
The 100% rational participant in the economy only exists in economics textbooks, not in the real world.
The human eye cannot even distinguish more than (or even equal to) 256 intensities of red, green and blue. The human eye can only see 5 million colors, not the 16777216 colors in an 8 bit each RGB system. Or so I have read.
The real problem is the green phosphor is shifted towards red (it is slightly yellowish) and thus some blue green colors (which are very pretty) can't be displayed. The "green" phosphor stimulates the red cones quite a bit in the eye in addition to the green ones. There is no way using the current "green" to stimulate the green cones and leave the red alone.
If we made an RGB system where the colors used aligned with the maximum response wavelength/frequency of each cone, and used 8 bit resolution on that - then we could make any visible color.
I'd like a system that could do cerulean blue or even a decent (non washed out) greenish blue or cyan.
In a perfect world, there would be new organs for all who needed them.
In a perfect world, there would be no need for organ transplants. Seriously though, medical science needs to do more to try to save the organs people have. But that doesn't make as much money.
Re:And someone just woke up in an icy bathtub...
on
Todd Need[ed] a Liver
·
· Score: 1
Let me guess, it happened in Las Vegas, right? That urban legend about organ stealing usually refers to my city as the place where the alleged event happened.
We don't really steal your organs here. We are happy just taking your money.
Luckily we have a court system which will decide its not a violation according to the law, despite what the SEC says.
The definition of when the quiet period begins and what is allowed to be said isn't fully codified by law. Law is required to be precise (that is one reason why it is so verbose (*) and extensive). Laws where a reasonable person (in theory) can't tell if they are violating them are unconstitutionally vague. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but if even if people or lawyers looking at the statutes can't come to a consistent opinion, then the law is vague. A law must specify what one needs to do / refrain from doing to be in compliance.
The court system does still work if the side that is legally right has a lot of money. And Google does. But they appear to be right - the SEC can't extend the restrictions of a quiet period beyond the law.
In general, an agency can't write the law, enforce things that aren't in the law, or come up with any interpretation of the law they want. Unless that agency is the DEA (and even then, they get a lot of that power because Congress wrote the Controlled Substances Act to give them that power).
I do support the SEC in general, I don't like losing money in the market, and I'd really HATE losing money due to illegal activity, but this doesn't appear to be the case here.
Of course this thread should be in "Your Rights Online". After all the Statue of Liberty is part of the net! Oh wait, it isn't, well until someone perhaps puts a WiFi hotspot there.
Fixed speed limits are a crock anyway, how does it tell the difference between driving on an icy covered road in a blizzard, and a clear day with dry roads and unlimited visibility, with no traffic? Driving 50 in the first case may be suicide, yet it is legal.
No its not (definitely not in Nevada, almost assuredly not in any other place). Here it is called "driving too fast for conditions" which is a 2 point violation. The law is NRS 484.363
Exactly. Why is everyone concerned with the business side of the SOFTWARE INDUSTRY? Most people, even in the IT field, are making money (or making their employer money) with the USE of software, not its creation. Software vendor profits, revenues, are almost NOTHING compared to those that USE software. The companies which use the software can support open source. Independent Software Vendors are not necessary, and do not make even a reasonable percentage of the profits made off of software.
Here is an example of the difference in scale:
A business pays $100K for software and makes $10M in profit on it. Or a smaller business makes $10K using a $100 software package. Or a huge business (think telecom giant) makes $10 Billion using $100M software. Those are 100:1 ratios. Those are not unreasonable.
Sometimes I think these business focused articles are written by and/or geared to software companies. There are other parts of the economy and even the IT industry.
Software companies are a small part of the IT industry and the IT industry is only a fraction of the economy as a whole. I am not saying the IT industry or the software company sector is small in and of itself, just that it is small compared to the economy as a whole.
Just compare everything to the GDP (which is huge) and you'll see. Just look at how many people and business USE software versus those that write it.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, a free firewall which breaks their own software. :)
(XP Service Pack 2)
Regaing Milton Friedman's commentary:
If that is the basis of a "free" society, we could use a little less freedom.
I like having air that is breathable, water that is clean, etc.
Without some restrictions on "freedom" people would destroy those in the name of profit.
Corporations don't just do what is profitable. They do what they THINK is profitable, which may include taking a loss now for a greater gain later on, or it may include doing something that they THINK is a net win, but really isn't.
;). Humans can be, and often are, driven by emotion instead of reason. Motives such as revenge or feeling one is being "benevolent" can override the profit motive in some cases. Their views on what's profitiable and their motives are often colored by the world view in which they perceive things. For example, Microsoft THINKS in different terms than IBM, or an OSS programmer, and hence comes to different conclusions and actions.
And also, corporations are headed by human beings (well there are a couple of companies which would appear to be exceptions
Knowing the views and motives of a participant in the economy is crucial to understanding why the act as they do and trying to predict their future course of action and their responses to economic conditions and their dealings with others.
The 100% rational participant in the economy only exists in economics textbooks, not in the real world.
And they handle heat so very well.
The human eye cannot even distinguish more than (or even equal to) 256 intensities of red, green and blue. The human eye can only see 5 million colors, not the 16777216 colors in an 8 bit each RGB system. Or so I have read.
The real problem is the green phosphor is shifted towards red (it is slightly yellowish) and thus some blue green colors (which are very pretty) can't be displayed. The "green" phosphor stimulates the red cones quite a bit in the eye in addition to the green ones. There is no way using the current "green" to stimulate the green cones and leave the red alone.
If we made an RGB system where the colors used aligned with the maximum response wavelength/frequency of each cone, and used 8 bit resolution on that - then we could make any visible color.
I'd like a system that could do cerulean blue or even a decent (non washed out) greenish blue or cyan.
In a perfect world, there would be new organs for all who needed them.
In a perfect world, there would be no need for organ transplants. Seriously though, medical science needs to do more to try to save the organs people have. But that doesn't make as much money.
Let me guess, it happened in Las Vegas, right? That urban legend about organ stealing usually refers to my city as the place where the alleged event happened.
We don't really steal your organs here. We are happy just taking your money.
Luckily we have a court system which will decide its not a violation according to the law, despite what the SEC says.
The definition of when the quiet period begins and what is allowed to be said isn't fully codified by law. Law is required to be precise (that is one reason why it is so verbose (*) and extensive). Laws where a reasonable person (in theory) can't tell if they are violating them are unconstitutionally vague. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but if even if people or lawyers looking at the statutes can't come to a consistent opinion, then the law is vague. A law must specify what one needs to do / refrain from doing to be in compliance.
The court system does still work if the side that is legally right has a lot of money. And Google does. But they appear to be right - the SEC can't extend the restrictions of a quiet period beyond the law.
In general, an agency can't write the law, enforce things that aren't in the law, or come up with any interpretation of the law they want. Unless that agency is the DEA (and even then, they get a lot of that power because Congress wrote the Controlled Substances Act to give them that power).
I do support the SEC in general, I don't like losing money in the market, and I'd really HATE losing money due to illegal activity, but this doesn't appear to be the case here.
(*) Here is an example of how verbose law needs to be. This is the law that says one must drive on the right in Nevada.
What if the admin hasn't installed any remote desktop software, perhaps for (ironically enough) security reasons?
Of course this thread should be in "Your Rights Online". After all the Statue of Liberty is part of the net! Oh wait, it isn't, well until someone perhaps puts a WiFi hotspot there.
The admin could use the VNC server to install a patch to close the vulnerability.
Checking for exploits and fixing them could be done as part of one operation.
Thus making things easier for the admins.
And apparently they are working on the HURD. :)
Don't worry, Alan Greenspan (Federal Reserve Board Chairperson) wouldn't allow it.
:)
Can't let the economy get too healthy.
Can we just force the HURD development team to take this pill?
Wouldn't blocking access to Slashdot be cheaper and simpler than changing someone's genes? :)
Many more geeks are on the software use side than the software creation side.
And many geeks the create software do so for in house projects, much more than that work for ISVs.
And then there are the open source geeks.
ISV geeks are here, but they are a small percentage. It appears their perspective is over represented in many of Slashdot's business articles.
And if speed is that important to you then you will be using top of the line hardware and/or using Oracle as your database.
Fixed speed limits are a crock anyway, how does it tell the difference between driving on an icy covered road in a blizzard, and a clear day with dry roads and unlimited visibility, with no traffic? Driving 50 in the first case may be suicide, yet it is legal.
No its not (definitely not in Nevada, almost assuredly not in any other place). Here it is called "driving too fast for conditions" which is a 2 point violation. The law is NRS 484.363
And for the next 3 centuries:
;)
2100 Nanotechnology software, Home genetic engineering software, HURD
2200 Warp engine controller software, HURD
2300 Mental telepathy software, HURD
And HURD will still be in development and "almost ready".
Exactly. Why is everyone concerned with the business side of the SOFTWARE INDUSTRY? Most people, even in the IT field, are making money (or making their employer money) with the USE of software, not its creation. Software vendor profits, revenues, are almost NOTHING compared to those that USE software. The companies which use the software can support open source. Independent Software Vendors are not necessary, and do not make even a reasonable percentage of the profits made off of software.
Here is an example of the difference in scale:
A business pays $100K for software and makes $10M in profit on it. Or a smaller business makes $10K using a $100 software package. Or a huge business (think telecom giant) makes $10 Billion using $100M software. Those are 100:1 ratios. Those are not unreasonable.
Sometimes I think these business focused articles are written by and/or geared to software companies. There are other parts of the economy and even the IT industry.
Software companies are a small part of the IT industry and the IT industry is only a fraction of the economy as a whole. I am not saying the IT industry or the software company sector is small in and of itself, just that it is small compared to the economy as a whole.
Just compare everything to the GDP (which is huge) and you'll see. Just look at how many people and business USE software versus those that write it.
Our focus should be on those.
They're not making much money now, but there is a STRONG upward trend. At that rate, they will be making a strong profit fairly soon.
Trends aren't everything, but look at the history. That is what the market does. It is always better to be on the way UP rather than the way DOWN.
Driving -- for the safety of the road. Those drivers who prove themselves unsafe are removed.
Guess you haven't been to Nevada lately. :)
We had a TV repairman say the whole chassis was hosed and it would cost $200 to replace.
We got another TV repairman who replaced the dead diode. Parts cost was under $1!
7. Slashdot - reducing productivity in the IT industry worldwide.
I will just choose to not buy any book published by Penguin, it is the least I can do.
Any true geek already won't buy any book from anyone other than Oreilly. ;)