Once again Microsoft learns that laws are now impediment. Everyone complains about their illegal business practices, but why shouldn't they do what's illegal? It's not like they hide it. They simply say, yes we broke the law and we accept the penalty because the penalty doesn't even come close to the amount of money we've made from the illegal practice. Time and again they learn that our legal system is totaly incapable of punishment or correction for mega corporation like them. I say bravo for providing such a vivid demonstration of how broken our legal system is. If it's brokeness is not plainly revealed, it'll never get fixed.
bah... the market dictates prices, not oracle. General rule of thumb is that cutting the cost in half triples the demand. If they double their prices, they'll cut the demand for their product by 2/3rds.
You use home/end, and you call yourself a programmer?!? I get frustrated every time I'm on a windoze box and Ctrl-a/Ctrl-e don't work properly. Got used to it in emacs and it seems to work everywere, XCode, TextEdit, Stickies, Mail, bash, tcsh, Safari/Firefox... I don't even notice I'm using it until I hop on a windoze box and it stops working.
Good point. I've had atx power supplies fail in spectacular fasion. Scared the crap out of me. I bought a used one and the local computer junk store, plugged it in, turned around, and then *KABLAM*. It was loud enough to make my ears ring. Then thick black acrid smoke started pouring out the back. I took it apart to investigate what the hell happened. It was a fairly large blown capacitor. I had no idea those could explode like that until after this little episode.
never had a wall wort fail... ever. ac's gone out many times. I think the dc power supply is not the weak link in the chain unless you've got a battery backedup generator backed up ups at an earthquake/hurricane/tornado proof co-lo somewhere.
You're both wrong (both right?) The answer is yes, Liberals and Conservatives, when they get into power start passing stuff like this left and right, and then blame the other side. Homer put it best, "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!". You guys don't seriously believe that if the other side were in power that things would be significantly different do you? Quit blaming eachother and vote Libertarian.
They do this because it's the most efficient way that they know of to increase profits and get a return on their research dollars. They wouldn't spend as much on research if they couldn't also make the products derived from the research known to the public. If people are buying crap they don't need because of the advertising, then the problem is stupid buyers not freedom of speech in the form of advertising. I for one and much happier to buy some cheap generic whose effects have been well documented for the last 30 years than some hot new patented designer drug fresh out of R&D (unless the new drug really does something new or the old one has serious side effects)
That's because all the communist countries we know of *are* totalitarian. China is still totalitarian, but the improvements in their economy and standard of living are due directly to the moves they've made *away* from a communist economic system. Communism is simply the removal of individual economic freedom with the intention of improving the economic situation for the whole. If you have freedom to pursue personal economic advantage, you might produce more value (money being a representation of value) than your neighbor, and that wouldn't be fair.
one word: fashion
on
Whereables?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
pda's are horribly unfashionable, let alone headgear. You need a display that can be integrated into a pair of shades of your choice, and no antennas sticking up from behind the ears. Alternately perhaps apple could come up with something svelte and stylish that is itself a fashion statement like white ipod ear phones are now.
Good for them. They've done a good job of creating a valuable product while keeping the value they consume low. It looks like they've done this in part by getting as much valuable work from their engineers as they can while only paying them industry standard salaries. If they can find talented engineers willing to put up with this, more power to them. That's good business. I for one will probably buy their products, but not apply for any engineering positions there.
You're talking thousands of dollars per developer. Essentailly zero compared to the infrastructure cost of starting manufacturing plant or a mining operation.
I suspect EA is trying to survive. I don't know what kind of profits they're making but there is a lot of competition in the gaming space. If they set realisting deadlines and add more programmers, it could easily double their production costs. I somehow doubt they're making 50% profit margins. They're prefectly justified in reducing costs anywhere they think they can get away with it. If the programmers don't like the way things are run and think they can do a better, why doesn't a group of them get together and start a rival company. These aren't coal miners or auto workers. The infrastructure costs to get started are close to zero. If they're smart enough to be good software engineers, they're smart enough to start a software company.
Shooting down a satellite is pretty much impossible with current technology (as far as you know). It's much more likely the information would be used to decide when you should cover up your wmd's since a spy satellite is about to pass overhead. Don't you read Tom Clancy?
Here's a cringly article about building a http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020207. htmlpassive repeater for 802.11b. You could probably do something similar with a can shaped correctly for your cellphone frequency.
Index funds all the way, basicly 0 fees. Berkshire Hathaway's pretty consistent if you can swing it. A single share is in the neighborhood of the price of a luxury vehicle.
no no no, that's illegal. You're thinking of credit cards, not car loans. The only reason credit cards can get away with it is because they're all based in south dakoda (or was it north dakoda?). They got rid of their laws on that point specifically so they would become the credit card capital of the US, sort of like a financial version of what deleware did for incorporation.
But the 0% deals all come from the manufacturer to move product, not the dealer. Even if you get regular financing, the dealer get's the full amount up front from their parter bank. You pay the bank back with interest. They'll actually go lower if they think you're going to finance because they give a loan at a point or two higher than the bank charges and get a kickback for that amount.
?!? you're confused or misinformed. They make money by offering you inflated interest rates on car loans. If they think you're going to finance they'll go lower to make the sale if you threaten to walk away thinking they'll make it back on the loan kick back. Then once you've decided on a price a grand or two below invoice, you walk into the finance guy's office and when he says he can't do any better than 7 or 8 percent you say, well crap, I guess I'll just pay cash then. What are they going to do?
How is it cheaper to pay cash if you get 0% financing? I guess you're assuming they all have some sort of rebate offer that you can't get if you do the 0% thing? You also have to consider that you can invest the cash and pretty easily get a 10% or so return on it.
Re:Info on what exactly SHA-1 is ...
on
SHA-1 Broken
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· Score: 1
If a foreign itelligence agency is using sha-1 to authenticate communicas to their agents in the US, it might be usefull for the NSA to be able spoof a message to them ostensibly from their agency's headquarters.
Its citizens are taught that the US started the Korean war by attacking them, even though there's documents showing that the north started it by attacked the south.
In their mind, there's just one Korea and the south is occupied by the US. We started it by invading the one true Korea. Their invasion of the south was a civil war. Of course I completely support what we did. Obviously it was the right thing, but the north is not completely off base claiming we invaded *Korea* first, since north and south are both Korea.
-1 flaimbait?!? ouch. I was just pointing out that I find myself using printers less and less these days. About the only think I use it for is printing directions and usually simpler to just summarize them with pad and ink. If I had a pda or nav system I wouldn't have any use for a printer at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Once again Microsoft learns that laws are now impediment. Everyone complains about their illegal business practices, but why shouldn't they do what's illegal? It's not like they hide it. They simply say, yes we broke the law and we accept the penalty because the penalty doesn't even come close to the amount of money we've made from the illegal practice. Time and again they learn that our legal system is totaly incapable of punishment or correction for mega corporation like them. I say bravo for providing such a vivid demonstration of how broken our legal system is. If it's brokeness is not plainly revealed, it'll never get fixed.
bah... the market dictates prices, not oracle. General rule of thumb is that cutting the cost in half triples the demand. If they double their prices, they'll cut the demand for their product by 2/3rds.
You use home/end, and you call yourself a programmer?!? I get frustrated every time I'm on a windoze box and Ctrl-a/Ctrl-e don't work properly. Got used to it in emacs and it seems to work everywere, XCode, TextEdit, Stickies, Mail, bash, tcsh, Safari/Firefox... I don't even notice I'm using it until I hop on a windoze box and it stops working.
Good point. I've had atx power supplies fail in spectacular fasion. Scared the crap out of me. I bought a used one and the local computer junk store, plugged it in, turned around, and then *KABLAM*. It was loud enough to make my ears ring. Then thick black acrid smoke started pouring out the back. I took it apart to investigate what the hell happened. It was a fairly large blown capacitor. I had no idea those could explode like that until after this little episode.
never had a wall wort fail... ever. ac's gone out many times. I think the dc power supply is not the weak link in the chain unless you've got a battery backedup generator backed up ups at an earthquake/hurricane/tornado proof co-lo somewhere.
sorry, that link should be Libertarian
You're both wrong (both right?) The answer is yes, Liberals and Conservatives, when they get into power start passing stuff like this left and right, and then blame the other side. Homer put it best, "Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!". You guys don't seriously believe that if the other side were in power that things would be significantly different do you? Quit blaming eachother and vote Libertarian.
They do this because it's the most efficient way that they know of to increase profits and get a return on their research dollars. They wouldn't spend as much on research if they couldn't also make the products derived from the research known to the public. If people are buying crap they don't need because of the advertising, then the problem is stupid buyers not freedom of speech in the form of advertising. I for one and much happier to buy some cheap generic whose effects have been well documented for the last 30 years than some hot new patented designer drug fresh out of R&D (unless the new drug really does something new or the old one has serious side effects)
That's because all the communist countries we know of *are* totalitarian. China is still totalitarian, but the improvements in their economy and standard of living are due directly to the moves they've made *away* from a communist economic system. Communism is simply the removal of individual economic freedom with the intention of improving the economic situation for the whole. If you have freedom to pursue personal economic advantage, you might produce more value (money being a representation of value) than your neighbor, and that wouldn't be fair.
pda's are horribly unfashionable, let alone headgear. You need a display that can be integrated into a pair of shades of your choice, and no antennas sticking up from behind the ears. Alternately perhaps apple could come up with something svelte and stylish that is itself a fashion statement like white ipod ear phones are now.
Good for them. They've done a good job of creating a valuable product while keeping the value they consume low. It looks like they've done this in part by getting as much valuable work from their engineers as they can while only paying them industry standard salaries. If they can find talented engineers willing to put up with this, more power to them. That's good business. I for one will probably buy their products, but not apply for any engineering positions there.
You're talking thousands of dollars per developer. Essentailly zero compared to the infrastructure cost of starting manufacturing plant or a mining operation.
I suspect EA is trying to survive. I don't know what kind of profits they're making but there is a lot of competition in the gaming space. If they set realisting deadlines and add more programmers, it could easily double their production costs. I somehow doubt they're making 50% profit margins. They're prefectly justified in reducing costs anywhere they think they can get away with it. If the programmers don't like the way things are run and think they can do a better, why doesn't a group of them get together and start a rival company. These aren't coal miners or auto workers. The infrastructure costs to get started are close to zero. If they're smart enough to be good software engineers, they're smart enough to start a software company.
From the link:
The first stage was intended to be completed by 2000 at a cost of around $125 billion.
However, research in the US and Russia was proving that the requirements were, with available technology, close to impossible.
Shooting down a satellite is pretty much impossible with current technology (as far as you know). It's much more likely the information would be used to decide when you should cover up your wmd's since a spy satellite is about to pass overhead. Don't you read Tom Clancy?
Here's a cringly article about building a http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020207. htmlpassive repeater for 802.11b. You could probably do something similar with a can shaped correctly for your cellphone frequency.
Index funds all the way, basicly 0 fees. Berkshire Hathaway's pretty consistent if you can swing it. A single share is in the neighborhood of the price of a luxury vehicle.
no no no, that's illegal. You're thinking of credit cards, not car loans. The only reason credit cards can get away with it is because they're all based in south dakoda (or was it north dakoda?). They got rid of their laws on that point specifically so they would become the credit card capital of the US, sort of like a financial version of what deleware did for incorporation.
But the 0% deals all come from the manufacturer to move product, not the dealer. Even if you get regular financing, the dealer get's the full amount up front from their parter bank. You pay the bank back with interest. They'll actually go lower if they think you're going to finance because they give a loan at a point or two higher than the bank charges and get a kickback for that amount.
?!? you're confused or misinformed. They make money by offering you inflated interest rates on car loans. If they think you're going to finance they'll go lower to make the sale if you threaten to walk away thinking they'll make it back on the loan kick back. Then once you've decided on a price a grand or two below invoice, you walk into the finance guy's office and when he says he can't do any better than 7 or 8 percent you say, well crap, I guess I'll just pay cash then. What are they going to do?
How is it cheaper to pay cash if you get 0% financing? I guess you're assuming they all have some sort of rebate offer that you can't get if you do the 0% thing? You also have to consider that you can invest the cash and pretty easily get a 10% or so return on it.
If a foreign itelligence agency is using sha-1 to authenticate communicas to their agents in the US, it might be usefull for the NSA to be able spoof a message to them ostensibly from their agency's headquarters.
It's an LED projector. It doesn't use a incadescent lamp with a white hot burning filament. It's posted on slashdot for reason. It's damn cool!
-1 flaimbait?!? ouch. I was just pointing out that I find myself using printers less and less these days. About the only think I use it for is printing directions and usually simpler to just summarize them with pad and ink. If I had a pda or nav system I wouldn't have any use for a printer at all.