Android devices have walled gardens, and it is up to the customer to choose how high the walls are, and if they get a key to the gate.
Really? I'm not aware of a single Android device that gives you root access straight from the manufacturer. If you don't have root then you don't have complete choice regarding the height of the walls. If a jailbreak of the phone is ever required to do something then that is pretty much de-facto evidence that a walled garden exists.
One has to do a little bit of research buying a device. GPE (Google Play Experience) devices tend to be unlockable, and run with minimal crapware.
Minimal barriers != No barriers. You might have some extra choices available to you but let's not pretend Android is FOSS.
True you can't uninstall some of it, but you're still free to install whatever you want, and from non-Google stores with absolutely no effort what-so-ever...
If you don't have root access available to you straight out of the box and supported by the manufacturer then it is a walled garden pretty much by definition. The only question is how high the walls are. Saying the walls are lower than the one's Apple has is pretty much the definition of damning with faint praise.
True you can't uninstall some of it, but you're still free to install whatever you want, and from non-Google stores with absolutely no effort what-so-ever...
Those devices invariably come with some phone vendor version of a walled garden that is even less attractive than Google's version. See Amazon Fire for a great example.
And complaining that people have a choice in what level phone they want?
Who complained about that? I've no objection to having the option to buy a cheaper phone. That is objectively a good thing. I do object to said cheaper phone being a hot smelly barely functional mess. Cheap does not have to equate to bad quality. Fewer bells and whistles sure but there is not excuse for a cheap phone being a shitty phone.
That's not to say that the operating systems are mirror images of one another, but in terms of aesthetics and functionality, they'll be at near-parity for most users, albeit not for those users who enjoy customizing Android and hate Apple's "walled garden."
What's with the pointless troll of Apple users? If they want to compare that's fine but why be a dick about it? If you like Android then use it. If you like IOS use that. Picking one or the other doesn't make one a better person but flinging monkey poo at someone who made a different technology choice doesn't speak highly of one's character. (yeah go ahead - insert "you must be new here" comment here)
Want to talk parity? Android is a walled garden too - just with different types of walls. There are countless Android devices that are locked by the manufacturer to older versions of Android, loaded with crapware which cannot be removed and otherwise effectively turned into a walled garden. Google does little to prevent this from happening and in fact largely facilitates this abuse of users via indifference. There are some great Android devices but there is a huge amount of complete shit too. Say whatever negative you like about Apple but the IOS devices they sell are almost always pretty good or better. (they should be given the price) Can't say the same about a lot of Android devices particularly many of the cheaper ones.
Google has long been interested in using stratospheric stations to get around the last mile problem
That would not solve the last mile problem for places with existing infrastructure. Even in places without it you'd need some specialized gear and the performance wouldn't likely be amazing. Furthermore it still doesn't explain why they needed to purchase an airfield lease for 60 years for a rather substantial sum when their business is advertising.
(and probably put Comcast and Verizon out of business)
Riiiight... I wouldn't hold your breath for that to happen any time soon.
Building a Hindenberg sized drone that could stay on station 60 miles above Salt Lake City and provide Internet service to every household in the Pacific and Mountain time zones could be done today, using yesterday's technology.
I think you are grossly underestimating the technical problems involved. Such a solution has most of the same problems satellite internet has. Internet service is two way which means that devices have to transmit as well as receive. A transmitter that powerful requires quite a lot of power so you are immediately eliminating a lot of mobile devices due to battery life problems. You would have to have a LOT of transmitters so there are spectrum issues. The latency is substantial. Weather is an issue. We don't have any drones that fit your description nor any near term prospects for getting them.
Not to mention that it's unclear how Google will achieve any ROI on any of this. I honestly cannot figure out what the heck Google is doing with all this work in robotics. Their investments are all over the map and if there is a common thread it isn't readily apparent. The only explanation I can think of is that it is some sort of defense against disintermediation but that's a bit of a stretch. Google is a public company and eventually they have to justify all this to the shareholders. Perhaps they can but so far they aren't being forthcoming.
I'm sure that Google has something in mind that uses contemporary technology, and perhaps plans to develop some new airship technology, too.
Why are you so sure of that? You've taken a few research projects of Google and extrapolated. Google is an advertising company and you think they are going to start developing airships? If you can explain to me a (realistic) scenario whereby Google achieves a reasonable return on investment trying that I'll be deeply impressed.
Pumped water storage will hold gigawatt hours easily,
This does not work at scale in places without mountains and dams. It's a fine idea but geographically limited.
hydro plants can be designed to let you take their (fairly fixed) annual capacity out in bursts, if you like..
The availability of hydro is geographically limited. It's great when it is available but it isn't available everywhere and it does have some pretty meaningful environmental consequences too.
The difficult engineering challenge in eliminating fossil fuels from the equation is how to use renewables in places where hydro or geothermal cannot provide the baseload. Out in the middle of the Great Plains or in most large cities hydro storage simply isn't a feasible solution.
By increasing prices when demand approaches the absolute maximum supply, consumers will reduce demand quickly (good, since supply can't be increased quickly). When power gets expensive enough, they will shut off rooms, wear more sweaters, turn lights off, instead of cooking a fancy dinner they will nuke something in the microwave and use disposable utensils (or, just wait to wash them until the next day), they will sit around in a single room and talk instead of playing on their computer or watching TV in individual rooms.
People will do that ONCE and then they will bitch to their local politicians. The politicians, fearing that they will be voted out of office by a bunch of pissed off cold people, will bend over backwards to ensure that power is available regardless of the environmental consequences.
Conventional power plants, operating on gas or coal or uranium, are becoming uneconomical to run.
Umm... what? The main reason we use them so much is precisely because they are economical to run, at least as long as you don't consider any of the externalities involved. We use them because they are reliable and because we can (for now) ignore externalities so they are fiscally cheap. Plenty of problems with them but calling them uneconomical isn't really true except maybe on very long time scales.
I am curious how Denmark thinks they are going to fuel aircraft and large watercraft using only renewable energy sources. As far as I can tell those are engineering challenges we haven't really cracked yet.
Just under 17 million dollars per year to rent an enormous amount of space in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the US seems like a bargain.
And why does an advertising company need to rent an airfield? There are plenty of good deals to be had but that doesn't mean Google should be chasing them all.
And if it was such a bargain then one might fairly ask why no one beat Google to it? Not like it hasn't been there for the last 30 years.
It's not irrelevant at all. It's a measure of the company's size, health, and revenue generating potential.
Wrong! Market cap is a measure of EXPECTATIONS about the company's size, health and revenue generating potential. The key word there is expectation and that word makes all the difference in the world. Market cap is in no way shape or form tied directly to the performance of the company. It is a second order characteristic of a secondary market. It is quite literally the sum of a bunch of people betting on how good they think the future prospects of the company are much like betting on a horse race. It has NOTHING inherently to do with the performance of the company and market cap can be wildly out of line with the real world performance. (See Tesla Motors for an example of inflated stock price)
So if you are a Google shareholder, go ahead and speak up at the next meeting, and see how many people stand with you. Or better yet, bring a shareholder derivative suit against the execs/board. see how far that gets you. See how far you get.
If you own just 100 shares that would be pointless. I'd either keep them or vote with my feet and sell them and let some other dummy take the risk. If I owned a substantial percentage of stock (5% plus) then I assure you that my voice would be heard.
Rightly pissed about what? You've got your dividends, and they're free to do whatever they please with what's left of their profits
Let me guess, you've never owned a company right? Because if you had you couldn't possibly say something so stupid unless you were trolling.
The shareholders own the company. All of it. Not just the dividends. If the management spends money irresponsibly then that is money that comes out of the hide of the shareholders. Sometimes people (such as yourself) forget this fact and the results are almost always bad for the company. The company isn't run for the benefit of management. The company is there first and foremost to bring a return to the shareholders.
Shareholders don't have control over all a company's doings and thanks the heavens for that.
100% incorrect. The shareholders OWN THE COMPANY. If 50%+1 shares of the company vote to do something they can do whatever they want so long as it is legal. If the shareholders cannot agree regarding what should be done then that is a separate issue. All the management reports to the board and the board reports to the shareholders. That is how it works.
Assign someone at the IRS to figure out what they should be paying, and are dodging, add the cost of doing this estimate, and a 50% penalty on top of both, and tax the portion of the company that IS HERE that amount.
The IRS cannot do anything about perfectly legal activities. While reprehensible I have very little doubt that Apple (and others like them) have an army of tax experts ensuring that everything they do is 100% legal and that the IRS cannot do a thing about it. The problem is in the tax laws have more loopholes than shotgunned swiss cheese. That is the fault of Congress and no one else.
I don't have a problem with your proposal in principle but I'm pretty sure the IRS doesn't have the authority to do what you propose either.
Well, I currently have 11 windows open with a total of about 230 tabs, Firefox was fine until it went over 3 gigs and then it just stopped, with every action taking 30+ seconds to do.
Umm, why in $diety's name do you need 230 tabs open? You cannot possibly use that many efficiently. It's a scientific fact that you cannot multitask worth anything (no one can). Hell you cannot even find a particular tab efficiently with that many open. That's one of the most baffling work "flows" I've ever heard of. Just because a few tabs are good doesn't mean a huge number is better.
Business Judgment Rule + Loads of Capital (this is less than.5% of their current market cap spent over 60 years) + calling it R+D = no problem for the execs/board.
Their market cap is irrelevant here. They are spending a billion dollars (over 60 years) of CASH on this transaction. Even for a company like Google that is not a trivial amount of money. If I was a shareholder I'd definitely want some sort of explanation regarding what the heck they are up to. They've got a good track record so benefit of the doubt would likely be granted but the reason for this isn't immediately obvious to most of us.
Honestly, the biggest issue the shareholders would probably have is the museum/educational facility, but even that will probably be easily justified the same way that public outreach and charitable donations are.
The biggest issue the shareholders *should* have is how/when this will impact future company profits. If there is a good reason for the investment (even an indirect one) then fine. But if the only explanation is that it is a place for management to park their toys then I'd be rightly pissed.
When you make people 250% gains in 4yrs, you can do whatever the hell you want... they aren't taking their money out.
Maybe not over this specifically but if I'm a shareholder and I see a number of "investments" like this which aren't explained and I don't understand then I would be nuts not to reconsider whether it remains a good investment. I've seen plenty of companies get successful and then start throwing lots of money at stupid stuff just because they can. Google has had a good run but there is no guarantee that it will continue or that management won't drop the ball. Only an idiot invests their money in a company doing seemingly irresponsible things without explanation.
...how can a publicly traded company possibly justify such investments to stockholders?
They may have a good explanation but I had exactly the same question. On first pass this seems like a very irresponsible investment. If I was a significant shareholder I would definitely want an explanation why they committed tens of millions of dollars to something so far outside their core business. Might be fine but an explanation is in order at least to the board and the shareholders.
$20MM per year in rent for an airfield, golf course, and of course the hangars! Google got a steal; they likely paid more for parking rights for their planes.
Because a golf course clearly adds value to a company like Google. [/sarcasm]
I'm a little mystified by this. If I was a shareholder (I'm not) my eyebrows would have shot up hard over a purchase like this. They may have a perfectly logical explanation but whatever the reason for this transaction is needs to be explained to the board and probably the shareholders because at first glance this doesn't seem to be a responsible use of cash. "Because it's cool" isn't an adequate answer when you are committing nearly half a billion dollars over the next 50 years. Google makes their money on advertising so it's not immediately clear how this transaction furthers that business. I understand that some of what they do indirectly drives advertising traffic but an explanation is in order.
I don't vote for someone to go to D.C. and compromise.
Unless you happen to be a dictator this is a pointless and futile point of view. You cannot and will not get everything you want and if you insist on never compromising then nothing will ever happen and your government will not serve the people. If something is critically important then by all means stand your ground but very few things really fall into that category. Just because YOU voted for someone doesn't mean that the leader has no obligation to the people who didn't vote for him. Getting 51% of the vote doesn't mean the view of the remaining 49% should be trampled.
The House has passed over 400 bills that are sitting in Harry Reid's drawer never to be voted on in the Senate. Who is the obstructionist?
The House. They knew damn well that many of those bills would be dead on arrival and they made no effort to meet in the middle. They voted something like 20 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act knowing the whole time that such a vote was at most pandering to their own supporters. It certainly wasn't any sort of effort to govern responsibly.
If Obama had his way, he wouldn't go through Congress for anything.
I'm not saying he should rule by fiat or anything of the sort but I understand the frustration the guy must feel. Would you be eager to go to congress when the republicans oppose everything he does regardless of the merits of the idea? Even when the item being debated was their idea. They don't even try to compromise, they just say no, especially if they are a tea party candidate. Used to be that the two sides could at least talk to each other. Now a republican has to pass an ideological purity test and cannot ever even seem to be compromising or he doesn't even win the primary in the next election. The republicans like to bitch about the Affordable Care Act but they don't ever propose any alternatives or improvements even though there is plenty that could be improved. Instead they just waste everyone's time in futile votes trying to remove health insurance from millions of people that couldn't previously afford it.
I might be a tree hugging liberal, but the Dems have an awful record when it comes to regulating technology.
No argument but the Republicans record isn't really any better. That said, I still think the basic notion of regulating internet access is an idea with merit even if the ruling parties aren't exactly brilliant at it. Internet access is as important to modern life as telephone access was 30 years ago. It has become an integral part of our lives and the companies that provide it seem to need a bit more oversight than they presently have.
I don't see why the Republicans would be any better or worse.
Because while the Democrats tend to screw up the regulations, the Republicans like to pretend that regulations are never good even when there is are clear abuses going on that markets cannot adequately address. Sometimes bad regulations are better than no regulations at all. (and vice-versa) I'm honestly uncomfortable with the amount of power that companies like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, TWC etc have over our internet connectivity. They have effectively an almost unregulated monopoly over internet service and have shown little reluctance to abuse that position when it suits them.
President Obama Backs Regulation of Broadband As a Utility
Which means the republicans will oppose it regardless of the merit of the idea even if it was their idea in the first place.
For the record I think broadband should be regulated as utilities because they are utilities very similar to the electric company, gas company and phone company. Pretending that internet service is a luxury good is not a viewpoint which is compatible with the world we live in today.
My problem is I find exercise boring. I never get the rush after exercise.
Just going out an running or lifting weights generally is quite boring. What I do is get involved with physically demanding activities that I also enjoy. I coach a sports team that allows me to participate. I do certain outdoor activities (hiking, paddling etc) that I enjoy that also happen to be physically taxing. Relatively few people actually enjoy exercise for exercise sake. I just do things I enjoy that also help keep me fit as a second order effect.
I believe the "runners high" to be a placebo thing for the same reason, I've never felt a "rush" or "buzz" after exercise.
It exists. I've experienced it and I can introduce you to plenty of others who've experienced it during their athletic careers. You have to be quite fit for it to happen in most cases. (much more fit than I am presently) Last time I had a runners high was back when I was competing in college. (wasn't during running but the effect was the same) You just feel like you are floating and everything you do seems almost effortless. It happens rarely - I've only experienced it four times in my life but the sensation is very real.
Then again perhaps they are only felt by people who've never had an actual buzz.
Nope. I've never had a drop of alcohol or other drugs that could elicit a high in my life. The smell of alcohol makes me nauseous and I feel no need to get high. I've no problem with others getting a buzz (safely) but I've never had a chemically induced buzz.
All {calorie in minus calorie out} calculations completely ignore calories in your waste.
You should modify that a bit. It's actually non-water mass in minus non-water mass out. If I eat an orange that weights 1 pound then I've gained a pound for a short amount of time and the number of calories it has is irrelevant. It could have a million calories and I could not have gained more than 1 pound from that orange. Then once the digestive system gets to work the amount of the orange that gets converted into body mass is dependent on the percent of that mass that gets absorbed. Some will be water and the rest will be other matter. The amount of non-water mass we retain is a function of calories consumed minus our ability to digest them. A person's ability to absorb calories varies over time and different people have different ability to absorb calories.
If you have a digestive illness, you can eat lots of calories but often will not absorb many of them. If you haven't been eating much for a while and then you eat a lot more than normal, your body cannot digest it all and a higher percentage of calories than normal will pass through you undigested. Some people simply absorb more of what they consume than others. Presumably this is at least in part due to the gut bacteria. This is why simple calories eaten minus calories used in activity is not complete. The real equation excluding water is (calories eaten) - (calories not digested) - (calories used in activity) = (change in body mass). The calories not digested is only measurable by putting a calorimeter on your waste which is obviously problematic when trying to figure out how much of what you eat is actually staying with you.
In other words, he or she almost certainly doesn't need life insurance to make sure the spouse and rugrats can afford the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed when the breadwinner gets splattered all over the desert.
"Need"? Strictly speaking you are correct. But people who are rich generally actually do have life insurance policies as a part of their estate plan. Violating the terms of these policies could cause them some fiscal heartburn. These policies have a price and payout terms that are based on certain expectations of the policy holder's lifespan. Things that could radically alter this expectation may void the terms of the policy or necessitate a material change in underwriting charges. Spaceflight is one of those things that falls into the category of radically adjusting risk.
If you apply for a life insurance policy of any real value, they will ask you to take a physical and you will be asked questions like whether you have a pilot's license or have flown in a non-commercial aircraft in the last 5 years. The insurance company will adjust their price accordingly if they are willing to underwrite the policy at all. Lie about it and the policy can be null and void to the detriment of you or your family.
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Android devices have walled gardens, and it is up to the customer to choose how high the walls are, and if they get a key to the gate.
Really? I'm not aware of a single Android device that gives you root access straight from the manufacturer. If you don't have root then you don't have complete choice regarding the height of the walls. If a jailbreak of the phone is ever required to do something then that is pretty much de-facto evidence that a walled garden exists.
One has to do a little bit of research buying a device. GPE (Google Play Experience) devices tend to be unlockable, and run with minimal crapware.
Minimal barriers != No barriers. You might have some extra choices available to you but let's not pretend Android is FOSS.
True you can't uninstall some of it, but you're still free to install whatever you want, and from non-Google stores with absolutely no effort what-so-ever...
If you don't have root access available to you straight out of the box and supported by the manufacturer then it is a walled garden pretty much by definition. The only question is how high the walls are. Saying the walls are lower than the one's Apple has is pretty much the definition of damning with faint praise.
True you can't uninstall some of it, but you're still free to install whatever you want, and from non-Google stores with absolutely no effort what-so-ever...
Those devices invariably come with some phone vendor version of a walled garden that is even less attractive than Google's version. See Amazon Fire for a great example.
And complaining that people have a choice in what level phone they want?
Who complained about that? I've no objection to having the option to buy a cheaper phone. That is objectively a good thing. I do object to said cheaper phone being a hot smelly barely functional mess. Cheap does not have to equate to bad quality. Fewer bells and whistles sure but there is not excuse for a cheap phone being a shitty phone.
That's not to say that the operating systems are mirror images of one another, but in terms of aesthetics and functionality, they'll be at near-parity for most users, albeit not for those users who enjoy customizing Android and hate Apple's "walled garden."
What's with the pointless troll of Apple users? If they want to compare that's fine but why be a dick about it? If you like Android then use it. If you like IOS use that. Picking one or the other doesn't make one a better person but flinging monkey poo at someone who made a different technology choice doesn't speak highly of one's character. (yeah go ahead - insert "you must be new here" comment here)
Want to talk parity? Android is a walled garden too - just with different types of walls. There are countless Android devices that are locked by the manufacturer to older versions of Android, loaded with crapware which cannot be removed and otherwise effectively turned into a walled garden. Google does little to prevent this from happening and in fact largely facilitates this abuse of users via indifference. There are some great Android devices but there is a huge amount of complete shit too. Say whatever negative you like about Apple but the IOS devices they sell are almost always pretty good or better. (they should be given the price) Can't say the same about a lot of Android devices particularly many of the cheaper ones.
Google has long been interested in using stratospheric stations to get around the last mile problem
That would not solve the last mile problem for places with existing infrastructure. Even in places without it you'd need some specialized gear and the performance wouldn't likely be amazing. Furthermore it still doesn't explain why they needed to purchase an airfield lease for 60 years for a rather substantial sum when their business is advertising.
(and probably put Comcast and Verizon out of business)
Riiiight... I wouldn't hold your breath for that to happen any time soon.
Building a Hindenberg sized drone that could stay on station 60 miles above Salt Lake City and provide Internet service to every household in the Pacific and Mountain time zones could be done today, using yesterday's technology.
I think you are grossly underestimating the technical problems involved. Such a solution has most of the same problems satellite internet has. Internet service is two way which means that devices have to transmit as well as receive. A transmitter that powerful requires quite a lot of power so you are immediately eliminating a lot of mobile devices due to battery life problems. You would have to have a LOT of transmitters so there are spectrum issues. The latency is substantial. Weather is an issue. We don't have any drones that fit your description nor any near term prospects for getting them.
Not to mention that it's unclear how Google will achieve any ROI on any of this. I honestly cannot figure out what the heck Google is doing with all this work in robotics. Their investments are all over the map and if there is a common thread it isn't readily apparent. The only explanation I can think of is that it is some sort of defense against disintermediation but that's a bit of a stretch. Google is a public company and eventually they have to justify all this to the shareholders. Perhaps they can but so far they aren't being forthcoming.
I'm sure that Google has something in mind that uses contemporary technology, and perhaps plans to develop some new airship technology, too.
Why are you so sure of that? You've taken a few research projects of Google and extrapolated. Google is an advertising company and you think they are going to start developing airships? If you can explain to me a (realistic) scenario whereby Google achieves a reasonable return on investment trying that I'll be deeply impressed.
Pumped water storage will hold gigawatt hours easily,
This does not work at scale in places without mountains and dams. It's a fine idea but geographically limited.
hydro plants can be designed to let you take their (fairly fixed) annual capacity out in bursts, if you like..
The availability of hydro is geographically limited. It's great when it is available but it isn't available everywhere and it does have some pretty meaningful environmental consequences too.
The difficult engineering challenge in eliminating fossil fuels from the equation is how to use renewables in places where hydro or geothermal cannot provide the baseload. Out in the middle of the Great Plains or in most large cities hydro storage simply isn't a feasible solution.
By increasing prices when demand approaches the absolute maximum supply, consumers will reduce demand quickly (good, since supply can't be increased quickly). When power gets expensive enough, they will shut off rooms, wear more sweaters, turn lights off, instead of cooking a fancy dinner they will nuke something in the microwave and use disposable utensils (or, just wait to wash them until the next day), they will sit around in a single room and talk instead of playing on their computer or watching TV in individual rooms.
People will do that ONCE and then they will bitch to their local politicians. The politicians, fearing that they will be voted out of office by a bunch of pissed off cold people, will bend over backwards to ensure that power is available regardless of the environmental consequences.
From TFS:
Conventional power plants, operating on gas or coal or uranium, are becoming uneconomical to run.
Umm... what? The main reason we use them so much is precisely because they are economical to run, at least as long as you don't consider any of the externalities involved. We use them because they are reliable and because we can (for now) ignore externalities so they are fiscally cheap. Plenty of problems with them but calling them uneconomical isn't really true except maybe on very long time scales.
I am curious how Denmark thinks they are going to fuel aircraft and large watercraft using only renewable energy sources. As far as I can tell those are engineering challenges we haven't really cracked yet.
Just under 17 million dollars per year to rent an enormous amount of space in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the US seems like a bargain.
And why does an advertising company need to rent an airfield? There are plenty of good deals to be had but that doesn't mean Google should be chasing them all.
And if it was such a bargain then one might fairly ask why no one beat Google to it? Not like it hasn't been there for the last 30 years.
It's not irrelevant at all. It's a measure of the company's size, health, and revenue generating potential.
Wrong! Market cap is a measure of EXPECTATIONS about the company's size, health and revenue generating potential. The key word there is expectation and that word makes all the difference in the world. Market cap is in no way shape or form tied directly to the performance of the company. It is a second order characteristic of a secondary market. It is quite literally the sum of a bunch of people betting on how good they think the future prospects of the company are much like betting on a horse race. It has NOTHING inherently to do with the performance of the company and market cap can be wildly out of line with the real world performance. (See Tesla Motors for an example of inflated stock price)
So if you are a Google shareholder, go ahead and speak up at the next meeting, and see how many people stand with you. Or better yet, bring a shareholder derivative suit against the execs/board. see how far that gets you. See how far you get.
If you own just 100 shares that would be pointless. I'd either keep them or vote with my feet and sell them and let some other dummy take the risk. If I owned a substantial percentage of stock (5% plus) then I assure you that my voice would be heard.
Rightly pissed about what? You've got your dividends, and they're free to do whatever they please with what's left of their profits
Let me guess, you've never owned a company right? Because if you had you couldn't possibly say something so stupid unless you were trolling.
The shareholders own the company. All of it. Not just the dividends. If the management spends money irresponsibly then that is money that comes out of the hide of the shareholders. Sometimes people (such as yourself) forget this fact and the results are almost always bad for the company. The company isn't run for the benefit of management. The company is there first and foremost to bring a return to the shareholders.
Shareholders don't have control over all a company's doings and thanks the heavens for that.
100% incorrect. The shareholders OWN THE COMPANY. If 50%+1 shares of the company vote to do something they can do whatever they want so long as it is legal. If the shareholders cannot agree regarding what should be done then that is a separate issue. All the management reports to the board and the board reports to the shareholders. That is how it works.
Assign someone at the IRS to figure out what they should be paying, and are dodging, add the cost of doing this estimate, and a 50% penalty on top of both, and tax the portion of the company that IS HERE that amount.
The IRS cannot do anything about perfectly legal activities. While reprehensible I have very little doubt that Apple (and others like them) have an army of tax experts ensuring that everything they do is 100% legal and that the IRS cannot do a thing about it. The problem is in the tax laws have more loopholes than shotgunned swiss cheese. That is the fault of Congress and no one else.
I don't have a problem with your proposal in principle but I'm pretty sure the IRS doesn't have the authority to do what you propose either.
Well, I currently have 11 windows open with a total of about 230 tabs, Firefox was fine until it went over 3 gigs and then it just stopped, with every action taking 30+ seconds to do.
Umm, why in $diety's name do you need 230 tabs open? You cannot possibly use that many efficiently. It's a scientific fact that you cannot multitask worth anything (no one can). Hell you cannot even find a particular tab efficiently with that many open. That's one of the most baffling work "flows" I've ever heard of. Just because a few tabs are good doesn't mean a huge number is better.
64bit... again, bragging points about how many bits you use, no functional difference to anyone.
Unless of course you want to address more than 4GB of memory.
Business Judgment Rule + Loads of Capital (this is less than .5% of their current market cap spent over 60 years) + calling it R+D = no problem for the execs/board.
Their market cap is irrelevant here. They are spending a billion dollars (over 60 years) of CASH on this transaction. Even for a company like Google that is not a trivial amount of money. If I was a shareholder I'd definitely want some sort of explanation regarding what the heck they are up to. They've got a good track record so benefit of the doubt would likely be granted but the reason for this isn't immediately obvious to most of us.
Honestly, the biggest issue the shareholders would probably have is the museum/educational facility, but even that will probably be easily justified the same way that public outreach and charitable donations are.
The biggest issue the shareholders *should* have is how/when this will impact future company profits. If there is a good reason for the investment (even an indirect one) then fine. But if the only explanation is that it is a place for management to park their toys then I'd be rightly pissed.
When you make people 250% gains in 4yrs, you can do whatever the hell you want... they aren't taking their money out.
Maybe not over this specifically but if I'm a shareholder and I see a number of "investments" like this which aren't explained and I don't understand then I would be nuts not to reconsider whether it remains a good investment. I've seen plenty of companies get successful and then start throwing lots of money at stupid stuff just because they can. Google has had a good run but there is no guarantee that it will continue or that management won't drop the ball. Only an idiot invests their money in a company doing seemingly irresponsible things without explanation.
...how can a publicly traded company possibly justify such investments to stockholders?
They may have a good explanation but I had exactly the same question. On first pass this seems like a very irresponsible investment. If I was a significant shareholder I would definitely want an explanation why they committed tens of millions of dollars to something so far outside their core business. Might be fine but an explanation is in order at least to the board and the shareholders.
$20MM per year in rent for an airfield, golf course, and of course the hangars! Google got a steal; they likely paid more for parking rights for their planes.
Because a golf course clearly adds value to a company like Google. [/sarcasm]
I'm a little mystified by this. If I was a shareholder (I'm not) my eyebrows would have shot up hard over a purchase like this. They may have a perfectly logical explanation but whatever the reason for this transaction is needs to be explained to the board and probably the shareholders because at first glance this doesn't seem to be a responsible use of cash. "Because it's cool" isn't an adequate answer when you are committing nearly half a billion dollars over the next 50 years. Google makes their money on advertising so it's not immediately clear how this transaction furthers that business. I understand that some of what they do indirectly drives advertising traffic but an explanation is in order.
I don't vote for someone to go to D.C. and compromise.
Unless you happen to be a dictator this is a pointless and futile point of view. You cannot and will not get everything you want and if you insist on never compromising then nothing will ever happen and your government will not serve the people. If something is critically important then by all means stand your ground but very few things really fall into that category. Just because YOU voted for someone doesn't mean that the leader has no obligation to the people who didn't vote for him. Getting 51% of the vote doesn't mean the view of the remaining 49% should be trampled.
The House has passed over 400 bills that are sitting in Harry Reid's drawer never to be voted on in the Senate. Who is the obstructionist?
The House. They knew damn well that many of those bills would be dead on arrival and they made no effort to meet in the middle. They voted something like 20 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act knowing the whole time that such a vote was at most pandering to their own supporters. It certainly wasn't any sort of effort to govern responsibly.
If Obama had his way, he wouldn't go through Congress for anything.
I'm not saying he should rule by fiat or anything of the sort but I understand the frustration the guy must feel. Would you be eager to go to congress when the republicans oppose everything he does regardless of the merits of the idea? Even when the item being debated was their idea. They don't even try to compromise, they just say no, especially if they are a tea party candidate. Used to be that the two sides could at least talk to each other. Now a republican has to pass an ideological purity test and cannot ever even seem to be compromising or he doesn't even win the primary in the next election. The republicans like to bitch about the Affordable Care Act but they don't ever propose any alternatives or improvements even though there is plenty that could be improved. Instead they just waste everyone's time in futile votes trying to remove health insurance from millions of people that couldn't previously afford it.
I might be a tree hugging liberal, but the Dems have an awful record when it comes to regulating technology.
No argument but the Republicans record isn't really any better. That said, I still think the basic notion of regulating internet access is an idea with merit even if the ruling parties aren't exactly brilliant at it. Internet access is as important to modern life as telephone access was 30 years ago. It has become an integral part of our lives and the companies that provide it seem to need a bit more oversight than they presently have.
I don't see why the Republicans would be any better or worse.
Because while the Democrats tend to screw up the regulations, the Republicans like to pretend that regulations are never good even when there is are clear abuses going on that markets cannot adequately address. Sometimes bad regulations are better than no regulations at all. (and vice-versa) I'm honestly uncomfortable with the amount of power that companies like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, TWC etc have over our internet connectivity. They have effectively an almost unregulated monopoly over internet service and have shown little reluctance to abuse that position when it suits them.
President Obama Backs Regulation of Broadband As a Utility
Which means the republicans will oppose it regardless of the merit of the idea even if it was their idea in the first place.
For the record I think broadband should be regulated as utilities because they are utilities very similar to the electric company, gas company and phone company. Pretending that internet service is a luxury good is not a viewpoint which is compatible with the world we live in today.
My problem is I find exercise boring. I never get the rush after exercise.
Just going out an running or lifting weights generally is quite boring. What I do is get involved with physically demanding activities that I also enjoy. I coach a sports team that allows me to participate. I do certain outdoor activities (hiking, paddling etc) that I enjoy that also happen to be physically taxing. Relatively few people actually enjoy exercise for exercise sake. I just do things I enjoy that also help keep me fit as a second order effect.
I believe the "runners high" to be a placebo thing for the same reason, I've never felt a "rush" or "buzz" after exercise.
It exists. I've experienced it and I can introduce you to plenty of others who've experienced it during their athletic careers. You have to be quite fit for it to happen in most cases. (much more fit than I am presently) Last time I had a runners high was back when I was competing in college. (wasn't during running but the effect was the same) You just feel like you are floating and everything you do seems almost effortless. It happens rarely - I've only experienced it four times in my life but the sensation is very real.
Then again perhaps they are only felt by people who've never had an actual buzz.
Nope. I've never had a drop of alcohol or other drugs that could elicit a high in my life. The smell of alcohol makes me nauseous and I feel no need to get high. I've no problem with others getting a buzz (safely) but I've never had a chemically induced buzz.
All {calorie in minus calorie out} calculations completely ignore calories in your waste.
You should modify that a bit. It's actually non-water mass in minus non-water mass out. If I eat an orange that weights 1 pound then I've gained a pound for a short amount of time and the number of calories it has is irrelevant. It could have a million calories and I could not have gained more than 1 pound from that orange. Then once the digestive system gets to work the amount of the orange that gets converted into body mass is dependent on the percent of that mass that gets absorbed. Some will be water and the rest will be other matter. The amount of non-water mass we retain is a function of calories consumed minus our ability to digest them. A person's ability to absorb calories varies over time and different people have different ability to absorb calories.
If you have a digestive illness, you can eat lots of calories but often will not absorb many of them. If you haven't been eating much for a while and then you eat a lot more than normal, your body cannot digest it all and a higher percentage of calories than normal will pass through you undigested. Some people simply absorb more of what they consume than others. Presumably this is at least in part due to the gut bacteria. This is why simple calories eaten minus calories used in activity is not complete. The real equation excluding water is (calories eaten) - (calories not digested) - (calories used in activity) = (change in body mass). The calories not digested is only measurable by putting a calorimeter on your waste which is obviously problematic when trying to figure out how much of what you eat is actually staying with you.
In other words, he or she almost certainly doesn't need life insurance to make sure the spouse and rugrats can afford the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed when the breadwinner gets splattered all over the desert.
"Need"? Strictly speaking you are correct. But people who are rich generally actually do have life insurance policies as a part of their estate plan. Violating the terms of these policies could cause them some fiscal heartburn. These policies have a price and payout terms that are based on certain expectations of the policy holder's lifespan. Things that could radically alter this expectation may void the terms of the policy or necessitate a material change in underwriting charges. Spaceflight is one of those things that falls into the category of radically adjusting risk.
If you apply for a life insurance policy of any real value, they will ask you to take a physical and you will be asked questions like whether you have a pilot's license or have flown in a non-commercial aircraft in the last 5 years. The insurance company will adjust their price accordingly if they are willing to underwrite the policy at all. Lie about it and the policy can be null and void to the detriment of you or your family.