Not only that, but making the Beta copies of Windows 3.X crash simply because it detected a non MS version of DOS, and not because there was some real problem with DR-Dos, seems like a pretty heinous abuse of monopoly power.
There's a big difference.
Your point is kind of like saying.
"Person A didn't murder someone, yet you complained when they were sentenced to death.
"Yet when Person A later *did* murder another person, you didn't complain at all.
"That's inconsistant!"
Bah - It's simply logical.
One had a clear underlying abuse. The other doesn't appear to have one. Even if one exists, which I doubt, the "offenders" (Linux community) have been clamoring for months to find what's offending, so it can be remedied. if a real offense, as opposed to some delusion of McBride, actually occured.
Given the in essence "prior restraint" I don't think the trade off is reasonable.
Also, we have no idea what the software does. No-one does! It could have all sorts of purposes that we'd only eventually find out about.
Given all these potential abuses, the pay off is vanishingly small.
I'm sure some goverment goon thinks this is good. My point is that when we're expending *limited* resporces, the most productive thing to expend them on, is the most likely to produce the greatest results. Keeping PS and printers from printing money which will almost certainly be noticed as fake very quickly, is simply a stupid waste of resources.
When "the concept of the corporate veil" also shields companies from responsibility that we'd require of an actual person, then it ought to be abolished.
If value jet kills someone - what happens? Almost nothing. The company declared bankruptcy, the execs walked with their large compensation in their pockets, and no one was personally responsbile.
If I, as a person, did something so reckless, then I *personally* go to jail. But if I do it in the line of work, then basically, I get a free pass?
I think not - or certainly ought not to be.
Corp veil is really a load of crap.
If you want to run a company, as an exec, board member etc, then you ought to be *personally* responsible for the acts of your company. If you did know, or *should* have known, then act as if those acts were committed personally by the executives.
Would this scare a lot of execs? Sure! Would it make the execs and board members much more careful about the acts of their companies? Sure.
While, I doubt this is going too far, I'll concide that it might. However, in the curent climate, we're far too far over the cliff in not holding them responsbile to offer much worry about making them too responsbile. Get me somewhere close, then we can talk about moderation.
He was expected to fudge the books and then act like a total stooge about it! ( I know nothing, I hear nothing, I see nothing!) [But of course I deserved that excessive pay package and perks!]
Damn government workers - they never think up the real innovative rip off schemes like the private sector does!
I'd be willing to bet that not 1 in a 100 could tell you any specific metric on the effectiveness of SPEWS!
Frankly, what I'm saying is, the admins don't know how effective SPEWS is. They turn on a whole batch of stuff, and use it all.
SPEWS doesn't get the complaints it does, consistantly without merit. They are using very heavy handed methods to stop spam. Personally, I don't think they're justified.
But the real point, is that just because lots of admins *believe* SPEWS is useful and good doesn't mean they've done any testing to confirm that.
A) I'm a total idiot. I had no idea what my company was doing - I'm not liable for the companies misdeeds.
B) I knew exactly what was going on. That's what I'm paid for. I'm personally responsible for the acts of my company.
However, if they pick A, the shareholders, companies and entities owed funds by the company, and anyone who can show damages can sue the execs personally for fraud and deception. Clearly they got everyone to believe they had the skill to perform their jobs, but didn't. Thus, their pay and all assets resulting from that pay go directly to the company, and all who suffered from it's demise. (This should equally apply to the board positions, as they are the ones who are *supposed* to make sure the company in under good management and run properly.)
Having a trustworthy currency relies on trust of the government issuing said currency.
A much larger threat to the currency is the massive deficient and lack of action on Social security and Medicare/Medicaid. These budget/economy busters, of not addressed promptly, will cause serious concern about the viability of the US Gvmt/Economy, and will work to devalue our currency.
A few two bit counterfitters don't come even close to reaching that level of threat.
It's like worrying about the guy who's got a rubber-band and a spit ball pointed at you, when there's a known terrorist who has explosives planted under your house, and a RPG pointed at your head.
What's more likely, is that some huge faceless corp will blatantly steal your invention and then rack up millions of dollars in legal fees and crush you like an ant. When it's all over, you'll have no money, be bitter, deranged and living under a bridge.
Your best bet, is to partner with a cash rich mega corp with tons of cash, and go around either squishing peons and stealing their patents, or, as in this case, using bogus patents to extort cash from others for no purpose at all.
Finally, the reasons patents and copyright were given legal standing was that they were to enrich the public commons.
Since it's clear that copyright isn't doing that at all anymore, as virtually nothing under copyright gets released into the public commons, and patent law seems to be fashioned to make *only* lawyers loads of money, then perhaps we ought to get rid of both.
Either reform them, and do them as the framers of the constution intended, or simply scrap them. Their cost to society is huge, and IMHO, outweigh the benefits provided.
Communities beyond a pretty small size have stabaility problems both socially and physically, as in food, water etc.
Not being totally reliant on these "Services" and being able to disentagle yourself in an emergency, quickly, is important if one plans to survive when chaos comes.
That's in essence what I call self reliance. Get away from the imploding structures, make friends and your own community if required, but be able to "create" that yourself. Don't be reliant on the namelsss, faceless "services" at your own peril.
(But I can't do what you do, but understand it's importance. I couldn't live completely off the land etc for any signifiant period of time. But I'm not half badly prepared and I'm capable of learning what I don't already know. However, being married and having small children makes it a bit more difficult....)
Anyway...thanks for the post. I've taken note of the books and will see if I can find them. (Powells books [Portand OR] is great! Esp for used and out of print books.)
I recently saw an employee get fired and worse from a client of mine. The employee seemed invincible as he was a serious suck-up to the owner. He used slime tactics, and would stab anyone in the back to get ahead. I knew he would get his just reward - yet even then I dispaired that it would happen in my lifetime.
This went on for 3-4 years!
About six months ago, though, it caught up to him.
So, yes, MS isn't dead, yet. But I know that their kind of behavior eventually costs. And it will cost MS. And I think the cracks are starting to show now.
So, yes, I think "Floundering" is appropriate. Perhaps a bit visionary or ahead of it's time, but not wrong.
I'm not likely to go off grid myself, but I like the idea of being more self sufficient. (When society really goes south [ararchy, chaos, death - in essence the fabric of society breaks down] the self sufficiency can be a life saver - literally.)
One point though. Off the grid means self sufficient, or as much as practical. Being in the city makes this more of a struggle. (I understand why you recommend it to the gparent poster though.) This is related to the above. For example, when some massive disaster hits that is sufficient to break down the functioning society, and you're "off the grid" in a city, it's still probably a really bad thing. Lots of un-self-sufficient dope nearby are more than capable of screwing you over in a million different ways.
So, IMHO, living outside of a larger city (say 100K) would be very useful.
Mind you, I live in a 1M+ metro area, so I'm not exactly impressed with my ability to handle things when they do go south, but that's my theory at least.
Thanks for the books - I'm a book nut. There's nuthin' like a well written and informative book with *wisdom*, not just knowledge.
You know, that flatulance that comes from eating too much mustard.
Surely that's a WMD!
(As I've said before...) ---
Set this in context of what was accused......by the president in his State of the Union message. Anyone who listened to that speech would now reasonably expect our forces to be finding "25,000 liters" of anthrax, "38,000 liters" of botulinum toxin, "500 tons" of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent, and "29,984" munitions capable of delivering chemical agents -- along with a hidden nuclear weapons industry.
If these were "realistic" estimates of what Saddam had, and they were being honest about it, it's certainly not the kind of thing one smuggles out of the country under your shirt or hidden in your trousers. It's not the quantity that can be easily and quickly destroyed, especially without notice.
So, was the imagery intentially deceptive? Was it intended to simply have shock value?
If these weapons DID exist, which, given the other statements and the credibility of the administrations, I don't believe they did - again, if they did, where are they now?
We'd better hope either that there were NONE, of that if there were, that we find them. Because if there were and we don't, then the only answer is "we don't know who has them."
Since the war was basically conducted to prevent the transfer of WMD to "bad-guys" or terrorists, then the very objective we used to promote the war was the outcome of it.
Frankly, IMHO, the President gave the whole world a bill of goods that was a total crock. The was was not justifiable on the WMD grounds. What might be a reasonable justification was the brutal dictator himself.
Yet to play that card, one would have to account for the US's part in arming and looking the other way when he did the dirty work for us. (Like attacking Iran and using WMD, which we provided intelligence data to make it more effective.) We forget how the US encouraged the Shia and Kurds to rise up against Saddam and then let them get cut down like wheat.
No, going to war against Iraq on humanitarian grounds wouldn't sell, certainly not for the hawks in this administration. And if we go to war on humanitarian grounds, then why was Bush so opposed to our involvement in Bosnia and the other conflicts around Serbia? ---
WMD, Bah! This whole revalation will disappear faster than the accusations that those mobile labs were for weapons production instead of hydrogen.
If you believe the above, then I've got beachfront property for sale in Nevada. Oh, a bridge too!
But MS has used very sharp business practices to increase their profits, and screw others - namely customers, and competitors.
But, simply because they might (in the future) make a better product, doesn't mean I'd really consider using them again.
Guido might decide he'd only break your legs instead of killing you. Does that make you think - "Oh, Guido's turned over a new leaf. I think I'll make him a majority shareholder in my company!" ? I think not. MS is a sharp dealing company who uses thuggish tactics to screw over who it wills. That isn't going to change, and simply because they make it cheaper or better isn't going to make me put the scorpion in *my* pocket when I have other options.
The real problem for Microsoft, is that much of the world feels this way, IMHO. This isn't a problem, when MS has all our balls in their iron grip. Most of us aren't willing to risk the pain, and don't have lots of options. But when those options DO appear, the whole world will line up to stick the shiv in MS's soon to be lifeless body.
People may suck up to the bully when they have to. But that doesn't mean they loose their memory when they don't have to anymore.
We'll see when and if Linux gets dominance in the PC market about security holes. But I suspect it will still be miles ahead of MS.
(BTW, you don't want people to stereotype YOU, but you say "lot of other people won't say because they blindly hate Microsoft a little too much."
That Novell, who seems to have retained the rights to the code hasn't (or doesn't in the future) grant rights to the code included in Linux. (You'd think the owner of SUSE might want to grant those rights too huh?)
SCO's position is laughable. Even if they get rights, are they eclusive rights, that prevent Novell from transferring or licensing them to the Linux community themselves. This seems to be a crux argument, and it certainly doesn't look good for SCO.
This only tells you what people are willing to pay for a stock. Enron, the day before their collapse seemed invincible. (I know, the collapse was somewhat gradual, but non-the-less.)
This was touched on by people higher in the story, but in many cases, stock prices rise, not because the company has and brings value, but simply because someone else is willing to buy the stock for more. This is how ponzi schemes work. They "work" great as long as things are going up. When the weight of the fraud crashes, though, it's murder.
IMHO, IBM has much more intrinsic value and brings said value to the shareholders and company. MS, on the other hand, has loads of people who are willing to pay inflated prices for the stock.
In short, Market Caps may be an easy metric to use, but not very valueable.
How about we just skip all that and go for instant death. Sure, it would be gratifying to torture them for a thousand years, but I'd settle for instant death.
It was true then too. And it was very nearly fatal to IBM.
Remember MCA, Token-Ring? Great technical solutions, but eschewed by the masses because of their hate for IBM. We had to wait like 10 years to get PCI instead of ISA. TR still really has no replacement in mass production, though switches make life much more bareable in a contention based network.
Anyway - point being, I think IBM had some killer products, IMHO much better than MS, and the anger over the company almost killed them. MS is headed down the same road, and I think has less room to survive.
Oh, I'd like us to treat EVERYONE the same - citizenship shouldn't matter. I don't see how we can trumpet how fair we are and how we have the best system around, when we immediately abandon that "best system" when it's some other countries citizens we're prosecuting.
Either it's the best and everyone deserves it, or it sucks and we ought to do something else - for everyone.
Oh, I'm not exactly a lefty - I'm a very conservative protestant - and I've gotten it for a long time.
(I was thinking - "Wow, a 'righty' who gets it!" *grin*)
It just seems there are a few - well, perhaps more than a few - nutcases who simply want to substitute the "Christian Right" for the Taliban. What kills me, is how they gnash their teeth about the Taliban, but work as hard as possible to introduce the same system here - just with different base values for oppression.
That's what the religious right want in our country. Somehow they can see how oppressive the Taliban were, how it produced a huge bloody mess, and how terrible it is when you start making the state an enforcer of anyone's morality.
But they can't see they simply want to substitute Protestant Christian beliefs for those of the Taliban. (And goodness, being Protestant, one would think they could remember how unfair they felt the political involvement of the Catholic Church was in political affairs.)
(This is coming from someone who is dramatically more conservative than most of the espoused Christian conservatives - I'm protestant Christian myself. So, no flaming about how I'm just some atheist pig or something...)
So, you'd rather PAY MORE for the Slacker dude to simply go the ER for healthcare. Where charges can be thousands of dollars a day?
You know what he'll do don't you. As you said, he's a "slacker" so he doesn't have any assets or income. He'll just welch on the debt. You don't think the Hospital CEO takes it out of his paycheck do you? Well, what he does, is charge the people who can pay more - so everyone gets hit with higher bills.
Way to go - you really stopped those lousy slackers in their tracks.
Next Lesson: How to teach flies a real lesson when they land on your foot. Now you've got a use for that 0.357 magnum!
Because I don't think end users are liable for the torts of a vendor with which they negoitiated with in good faith.
Offering this "protection" is simply a snake oil. Anyone offering this, and touting it as a remedy ought to be seen as not terribly interested in the truth and reality.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only that, but making the Beta copies of Windows 3.X crash simply because it detected a non MS version of DOS, and not because there was some real problem with DR-Dos, seems like a pretty heinous abuse of monopoly power.
There's a big difference.
Your point is kind of like saying.
"Person A didn't murder someone, yet you complained when they were sentenced to death.
"Yet when Person A later *did* murder another person, you didn't complain at all.
"That's inconsistant!"
Bah - It's simply logical.
One had a clear underlying abuse. The other doesn't appear to have one. Even if one exists, which I doubt, the "offenders" (Linux community) have been clamoring for months to find what's offending, so it can be remedied. if a real offense, as opposed to some delusion of McBride, actually occured.
Cheers,
Greg
Given the in essence "prior restraint" I don't think the trade off is reasonable.
Also, we have no idea what the software does. No-one does! It could have all sorts of purposes that we'd only eventually find out about.
Given all these potential abuses, the pay off is vanishingly small.
I'm sure some goverment goon thinks this is good. My point is that when we're expending *limited* resporces, the most productive thing to expend them on, is the most likely to produce the greatest results. Keeping PS and printers from printing money which will almost certainly be noticed as fake very quickly, is simply a stupid waste of resources.
Greg
When "the concept of the corporate veil" also shields companies from responsibility that we'd require of an actual person, then it ought to be abolished.
If value jet kills someone - what happens? Almost nothing. The company declared bankruptcy, the execs walked with their large compensation in their pockets, and no one was personally responsbile.
If I, as a person, did something so reckless, then I *personally* go to jail. But if I do it in the line of work, then basically, I get a free pass?
I think not - or certainly ought not to be.
Corp veil is really a load of crap.
If you want to run a company, as an exec, board member etc, then you ought to be *personally* responsible for the acts of your company. If you did know, or *should* have known, then act as if those acts were committed personally by the executives.
Would this scare a lot of execs? Sure! Would it make the execs and board members much more careful about the acts of their companies? Sure.
While, I doubt this is going too far, I'll concide that it might. However, in the curent climate, we're far too far over the cliff in not holding them responsbile to offer much worry about making them too responsbile. Get me somewhere close, then we can talk about moderation.
Cheers,
Greg
Yup, like Ken Lay.
He was expected to fudge the books and then act like a total stooge about it! ( I know nothing, I hear nothing, I see nothing!) [But of course I deserved that excessive pay package and perks!]
Damn government workers - they never think up the real innovative rip off schemes like the private sector does!
Damn slackers!
I'd be willing to bet that not 1 in a 100 could tell you any specific metric on the effectiveness of SPEWS!
Frankly, what I'm saying is, the admins don't know how effective SPEWS is. They turn on a whole batch of stuff, and use it all.
SPEWS doesn't get the complaints it does, consistantly without merit. They are using very heavy handed methods to stop spam. Personally, I don't think they're justified.
But the real point, is that just because lots of admins *believe* SPEWS is useful and good doesn't mean they've done any testing to confirm that.
Cheers,
Greg
What ought to happen is this:
The Executives get to pick *ONE*
A) I'm a total idiot. I had no idea what my company was doing - I'm not liable for the companies misdeeds.
B) I knew exactly what was going on. That's what I'm paid for. I'm personally responsible for the acts of my company.
However, if they pick A, the shareholders, companies and entities owed funds by the company, and anyone who can show damages can sue the execs personally for fraud and deception. Clearly they got everyone to believe they had the skill to perform their jobs, but didn't. Thus, their pay and all assets resulting from that pay go directly to the company, and all who suffered from it's demise. (This should equally apply to the board positions, as they are the ones who are *supposed* to make sure the company in under good management and run properly.)
Cheers,
Greg
Having a trustworthy currency relies on trust of the government issuing said currency.
A much larger threat to the currency is the massive deficient and lack of action on Social security and Medicare/Medicaid. These budget/economy busters, of not addressed promptly, will cause serious concern about the viability of the US Gvmt/Economy, and will work to devalue our currency.
A few two bit counterfitters don't come even close to reaching that level of threat.
It's like worrying about the guy who's got a rubber-band and a spit ball pointed at you, when there's a known terrorist who has explosives planted under your house, and a RPG pointed at your head.
Sheesh,
Greg
That's the idealist take on "how it ought to be."
What's more likely, is that some huge faceless corp will blatantly steal your invention and then rack up millions of dollars in legal fees and crush you like an ant. When it's all over, you'll have no money, be bitter, deranged and living under a bridge.
Your best bet, is to partner with a cash rich mega corp with tons of cash, and go around either squishing peons and stealing their patents, or, as in this case, using bogus patents to extort cash from others for no purpose at all.
Finally, the reasons patents and copyright were given legal standing was that they were to enrich the public commons.
Since it's clear that copyright isn't doing that at all anymore, as virtually nothing under copyright gets released into the public commons, and patent law seems to be fashioned to make *only* lawyers loads of money, then perhaps we ought to get rid of both.
Either reform them, and do them as the framers of the constution intended, or simply scrap them. Their cost to society is huge, and IMHO, outweigh the benefits provided.
Cheers,
Greg
Thanks for the reply...
What I mean about cities, you already understand.
Communities beyond a pretty small size have stabaility problems both socially and physically, as in food, water etc.
Not being totally reliant on these "Services" and being able to disentagle yourself in an emergency, quickly, is important if one plans to survive when chaos comes.
That's in essence what I call self reliance. Get away from the imploding structures, make friends and your own community if required, but be able to "create" that yourself. Don't be reliant on the namelsss, faceless "services" at your own peril.
(But I can't do what you do, but understand it's importance. I couldn't live completely off the land etc for any signifiant period of time. But I'm not half badly prepared and I'm capable of learning what I don't already know. However, being married and having small children makes it a bit more difficult....)
Anyway...thanks for the post. I've taken note of the books and will see if I can find them. (Powells books [Portand OR] is great! Esp for used and out of print books.)
Cheers,
Greg
Just like Saddam?
Just like Bin Laden?
Just like Noriega?
Just like Ferdinand Marcos?
Just like Pinochet?
(Man, that "Proverb" must have come from the inverse of Solomon.)
Cheers,
Greg
I'll pick a nit or two...
Floundering may seem like a premature word.
I recently saw an employee get fired and worse from a client of mine. The employee seemed invincible as he was a serious suck-up to the owner. He used slime tactics, and would stab anyone in the back to get ahead. I knew he would get his just reward - yet even then I dispaired that it would happen in my lifetime.
This went on for 3-4 years!
About six months ago, though, it caught up to him.
So, yes, MS isn't dead, yet. But I know that their kind of behavior eventually costs. And it will cost MS. And I think the cracks are starting to show now.
So, yes, I think "Floundering" is appropriate. Perhaps a bit visionary or ahead of it's time, but not wrong.
Cheers,
Greg
Killer post! Thanks.
I'm not likely to go off grid myself, but I like the idea of being more self sufficient. (When society really goes south [ararchy, chaos, death - in essence the fabric of society breaks down] the self sufficiency can be a life saver - literally.)
One point though. Off the grid means self sufficient, or as much as practical. Being in the city makes this more of a struggle. (I understand why you recommend it to the gparent poster though.) This is related to the above. For example, when some massive disaster hits that is sufficient to break down the functioning society, and you're "off the grid" in a city, it's still probably a really bad thing. Lots of un-self-sufficient dope nearby are more than capable of screwing you over in a million different ways.
So, IMHO, living outside of a larger city (say 100K) would be very useful.
Mind you, I live in a 1M+ metro area, so I'm not exactly impressed with my ability to handle things when they do go south, but that's my theory at least.
Thanks for the books - I'm a book nut. There's nuthin' like a well written and informative book with *wisdom*, not just knowledge.
Thanks again,
Greg
Yes, they had mustard gas...
...by the president in his State of the Union message. Anyone who listened to that speech would now reasonably expect our forces to be finding "25,000 liters" of anthrax, "38,000 liters" of botulinum toxin, "500 tons" of sarin,
You know, that flatulance that comes from eating too much mustard.
Surely that's a WMD!
(As I've said before...)
---
Set this in context of what was accused...
mustard and VX nerve agent, and "29,984" munitions capable of delivering chemical agents -- along with a hidden nuclear weapons industry.
If these were "realistic" estimates of what Saddam had, and they were being honest about it, it's certainly not the kind of thing one smuggles out of the country under your shirt or hidden in your trousers. It's not the quantity that can be easily and quickly destroyed, especially without
notice.
So, was the imagery intentially deceptive? Was it intended to simply have shock value?
If these weapons DID exist, which, given the other statements and the credibility of the administrations, I don't believe they did - again, if they did, where are they now?
We'd better hope either that there were NONE, of that if there were, that we find them. Because if there were and we don't, then the only answer is "we don't know who has them."
Since the war was basically conducted to prevent the transfer of WMD to "bad-guys" or terrorists, then the very objective we used to promote the war was the outcome of it.
Frankly, IMHO, the President gave the whole world a bill of goods that was a total crock. The was was not justifiable on the WMD grounds. What might be a reasonable justification was the brutal dictator himself.
Yet to play that card, one would have to account for the US's part in arming and looking the other way when he did the dirty work for us. (Like attacking Iran and using WMD, which we provided intelligence data to make it more effective.) We forget how the US encouraged the Shia and Kurds to rise up against Saddam and then let them get cut down like wheat.
No, going to war against Iraq on humanitarian grounds wouldn't sell, certainly not for the hawks in this administration. And if we go to war on humanitarian grounds, then why was Bush so opposed to our involvement in Bosnia and the other conflicts around Serbia?
---
WMD, Bah! This whole revalation will disappear faster than the accusations that those mobile labs were for weapons production instead of hydrogen.
If you believe the above, then I've got beachfront property for sale in Nevada. Oh, a bridge too!
Cheers,
Greg
You make a very *few* good points....
But MS has used very sharp business practices to increase their profits, and screw others - namely customers, and competitors.
But, simply because they might (in the future) make a better product, doesn't mean I'd really consider using them again.
Guido might decide he'd only break your legs instead of killing you. Does that make you think - "Oh, Guido's turned over a new leaf. I think I'll make him a majority shareholder in my company!" ? I think not. MS is a sharp dealing company who uses thuggish tactics to screw over who it wills. That isn't going to change, and simply because they make it cheaper or better isn't going to make me put the scorpion in *my* pocket when I have other options.
The real problem for Microsoft, is that much of the world feels this way, IMHO. This isn't a problem, when MS has all our balls in their iron grip. Most of us aren't willing to risk the pain, and don't have lots of options. But when those options DO appear, the whole world will line up to stick the shiv in MS's soon to be lifeless body.
People may suck up to the bully when they have to. But that doesn't mean they loose their memory when they don't have to anymore.
We'll see when and if Linux gets dominance in the PC market about security holes. But I suspect it will still be miles ahead of MS.
(BTW, you don't want people to stereotype YOU, but you say "lot of other people won't say because they blindly hate Microsoft a little too much."
Pot, meet kettle.
Sheesh.
Cheers,
Greg
You forgot point #4:
That Novell, who seems to have retained the rights to the code hasn't (or doesn't in the future) grant rights to the code included in Linux. (You'd think the owner of SUSE might want to grant those rights too huh?)
SCO's position is laughable. Even if they get rights, are they eclusive rights, that prevent Novell from transferring or licensing them to the Linux community themselves. This seems to be a crux argument, and it certainly doesn't look good for SCO.
Cheers,
Greg
More to the point, market caps are misleading.
This only tells you what people are willing to pay for a stock. Enron, the day before their collapse seemed invincible. (I know, the collapse was somewhat gradual, but non-the-less.)
This was touched on by people higher in the story, but in many cases, stock prices rise, not because the company has and brings value, but simply because someone else is willing to buy the stock for more. This is how ponzi schemes work. They "work" great as long as things are going up. When the weight of the fraud crashes, though, it's murder.
IMHO, IBM has much more intrinsic value and brings said value to the shareholders and company. MS, on the other hand, has loads of people who are willing to pay inflated prices for the stock.
In short, Market Caps may be an easy metric to use, but not very valueable.
Cheers,
Greg
How about we just skip all that and go for instant death. Sure, it would be gratifying to torture them for a thousand years, but I'd settle for instant death.
*grin*
Cheers,
Greg
It was true then too. And it was very nearly fatal to IBM.
Remember MCA, Token-Ring? Great technical solutions, but eschewed by the masses because of their hate for IBM. We had to wait like 10 years to get PCI instead of ISA. TR still really has no replacement in mass production, though switches make life much more bareable in a contention based network.
Anyway - point being, I think IBM had some killer products, IMHO much better than MS, and the anger over the company almost killed them. MS is headed down the same road, and I think has less room to survive.
Cheers,
Greg
Even this isn't a good example.
More like a Jag at 80K
The cost to replace the engine is $28K.
The Archos is more like the Corolla. The IPOD is more like a the Jag - pretty and mechanically, a piece of trash.
Cheers,
Greg
Ok, you buy a Corolla. When you run it 100K, the engine dies.
Sure, they say, we can fix it. It will cost $5000. The total cost of the car was $15,000.
Seems a little outrageous doesn't it.
A thousand or two, that would be reasonable.
20-40 would be reasonable for Apple.
This isn't. But then again, when people are stupid enough to keep buying them - what the heck - "Charge up the backside I say..."
Sheesh,
Greg
Oh, I'd like us to treat EVERYONE the same - citizenship shouldn't matter. I don't see how we can trumpet how fair we are and how we have the best system around, when we immediately abandon that "best system" when it's some other countries citizens we're prosecuting.
Either it's the best and everyone deserves it, or it sucks and we ought to do something else - for everyone.
Oh, I'm not exactly a lefty - I'm a very conservative protestant - and I've gotten it for a long time.
(I was thinking - "Wow, a 'righty' who gets it!" *grin*)
It just seems there are a few - well, perhaps more than a few - nutcases who simply want to substitute the "Christian Right" for the Taliban. What kills me, is how they gnash their teeth about the Taliban, but work as hard as possible to introduce the same system here - just with different base values for oppression.
Sheesh.
Kudo's to you sir!
Greg
He'd have loved it under the Taliban.
That's what the religious right want in our country. Somehow they can see how oppressive the Taliban were, how it produced a huge bloody mess, and how terrible it is when you start making the state an enforcer of anyone's morality.
But they can't see they simply want to substitute Protestant Christian beliefs for those of the Taliban. (And goodness, being Protestant, one would think they could remember how unfair they felt the political involvement of the Catholic Church was in political affairs.)
(This is coming from someone who is dramatically more conservative than most of the espoused Christian conservatives - I'm protestant Christian myself. So, no flaming about how I'm just some atheist pig or something...)
Cheers,
Greg
So, you'd rather PAY MORE for the Slacker dude to simply go the ER for healthcare. Where charges can be thousands of dollars a day?
You know what he'll do don't you. As you said, he's a "slacker" so he doesn't have any assets or income. He'll just welch on the debt. You don't think the Hospital CEO takes it out of his paycheck do you? Well, what he does, is charge the people who can pay more - so everyone gets hit with higher bills.
Way to go - you really stopped those lousy slackers in their tracks.
Next Lesson: How to teach flies a real lesson when they land on your foot. Now you've got a use for that 0.357 magnum!
Sheesh.
Cheers,
Greg
Because I don't think end users are liable for the torts of a vendor with which they negoitiated with in good faith.
Offering this "protection" is simply a snake oil. Anyone offering this, and touting it as a remedy ought to be seen as not terribly interested in the truth and reality.
It's an illusion. Smoke and mirrors. FUD.
Microsoft? FUD?
Same story, different day.
Cheers,
Greg