The rule of thumb for Slander and Libel suits is basically "tread with caution".
Suing would bring the legal microscope down on all the code in question. Would you be willing to bet that there's nothing in the Linux kernel or GNU runtime that doesn't violate any Microsoft patents?
Yes, truth is a defense against slander, but you better be damned well sure you know what the "truth" is before you go to court.
I don't think that our takes on the situation are mutually exclusive.
Sony obviously didn't hit the $250 price point.
I think that long-term the value proposition is probably higher on the PS3 than the Wii due to the ability to provide these downloadable games, and that Nintendo will eventually have to either come out with a USB hard drive add-on, come out with Wii2, or miss the boat with downloadable content.
It does feel silly, but I have not purchased a single disc title for my PS3. Yet I've had as many hours enjoyment with it as I have my Wii, so I have no regrets...
Admittedly, I'd likely not have purchased the system (yet, anyway) if I didn't have an HDTV, if it didn't play BluRay movies, if there weren't any announced exclusives that I wanted, and if it didn't upscale PS2 content. However I think that Nintendo is really missing the boat. Platform specific content can be downloadable. There's no reason to make us schlep to the store and pay over $30 for what are pretty basic games. Now if only Sony can stop shooting themselves in the foot for long enough that people actually get a chance to notice the system's positives...
Dear lord, somebody call the grammar police on me. Let's try that again:
The profits belong to the shareholders. If the company doesn't pay the profits out to the investors as dividends, the investors have essentially been forced to re-invest their share of the profits into the company. Investors rightly expect a return on their additional investment, hence the expectation of continually growing profits.
That's why you invest in something, presumably... You put in money in hopes that the use of your money will increase the value of whatever it is you invested in.
Continued growth is simply a means to justify failure to return the profits of the corporation to the shareholders. The profits belong to the shareholders, and if the company doesn't pay them out, it's essentially the same as all the shareholders are pumping more cash into the company. People rightly expect a return on that additional investment, hence the expectation of continually growing profits.
If Google wanted to keep from being attacked by another party for using this idea, they could simply (and cheaply!) publish an article describing every facet of the idea the patent application covers (which, after all, is what happens when you file a patent application; when the patent is granted, the idea is published).
That's a fine theory, assuming that the patent office stops granting patents (like this one) with previously published prior art.
In reality, publishing only gives you some ground to stand on while fighting somebody else's patent on your idea down the road. Really, publishing through a patent you never enforce is probably cheaper in the long run.
They're a public company, and it is not sufficient for them to simply make profits. They must actually grow those profits.
That's not technically true. They could pay dividends on their stock to make the value of the stock the payout of dividends, rather than increasing stock price...
Or they could use their profits to gradually buy back their stock, since they have accomplished what they wanted to with the investment capital to the mutual benefit of the company and the investors.
4. After a few minutes you get randomly given some seats. If you'd prefer to have one higher up but closer around a side or down the middle, well, tough. You can try to have more tickets randomly generated but they'll tend to be in the same area time and time again.
I hate that part.
Especially for stadiums. Tickets are usually grouped by tier (hight of the seat above the field), even though within a single tier the prices may vary widely. So you can't pick an OK seat for a reasonable price, you end up having a choice between an outrageously priced seat, or crap.
For arenas the problem is similar. If the stage is at the end, you probably want seats around the side, or even behind the stage, but they sell the seats section by section, so your only hope of getting good seats is to refresh until enough chumps buy the crappy seats a mile away from the stage, and hope the vent doesn't sell out while you're waiting for the section you want to open up.
Then there's another problem that you don't even mention. They sell a huge percentage of the available tickets to corporations for promotional purposes before the tickets become available to the general public...
That's probably what they think. In reality, by the time that many years have gone by, people lose interest. I know many people, myself included, that have the first few seasons of a show on DVD, but by the time they got around to releasing the rest it just wasn't a priority anymore. They should get them all out there as quickly as possible at the peak of a show's popularity.
Hell, I won't even change the oil in the thing myself - it's just way too complicated.
Sure, modern cars have lots of complicated bits that you probably don't want to work on. (At least without a copy of the manufacturer's service manual)
But changing the oil? Please, name one reasonably mainstream car where it isn't still the same old, oil-pan plug, and screw-on filter. Changing your oil should be something they teach in high-school, right along with how to take care of yourself when you have a cold without going to the doctor and running up health care costs.
Even brake-jobs are simple still... It's actually easier to replace pads on disc brakes than it was on older vehicles, and unless your rotors are driven onto the hub with a press (sports cars, mostly) you can still find auto-parts shops that will turn them for you free if you buy pads there. Personally, I don't trust the dealership to change the oil properly in my car, or swap brake pads without causing squeeks (and $28 for new pads is better than a $1000 "brake job" anyway). Really, something must have changed that made you intimidated of your car. I'm guessing it was all the plastic bits they put under the hood to make the engine look fancy. Or the wires...
As for your plugs, you've probably got overhead cams, since most cars do these days. The plugs are still there. They're just at the bottom. You'll either see them way down the side of the engine, or there will be a cover and the plugs will be at the bottom of a shaft. If you've got a good long extension for your socket set you can still change those yourself too... And the wires, and the distributor, and the coil... even if the ignition is all electronic. You could probably do almost everything yourself if you were willing to shell out for a factory service manual on eBay. They design cars so that trained monkeys can fix them as long as they can read the book... Even fancy, modern, electronic cars.
The best part is that the dealerships charge so much for repairs these days that you can buy yourself every tool you need for most jobs for less than the dealer repair cost. It's like getting free tools. You can't beat free tools.
Clearly it's one or the other. There couldn't possibly be situations in which it has gone the other way...
Seriously though, plenty of men spend tens of thousands of dollars in an attempt to get custody of their children after a broken relationship, and not only don't get the kids, but end up paying alimony and child support to the mother. How is fighting to keep said kids "abandoning" them? In many states, divorce law boils down to "the woman is always right unless the cops saw her beating the kids". She gets her kids, and her lifestyle maintained by her former husband, and the guy gets the shaft.
I know two separate men who fought to get custody of their children from an unfit mother, lost, and were forced to pay child support... Then later got custody of the children when the women were committed in incidents unrelated to the divorce, and the men still had to pay these women the child support for more than two years before the courts finally fixed it.
Yes, it *can* be a way for women to screw men. It can also be a way to force men to take financial responsibility for their offspring.
he and his friends know they're in for massive electoral losses, so they know they don't need to give a shit about anything anymore.
I don't think they know that. I don't even think that's correct. They're just really bad at doing things which the public likes.
The "everybody hates the Republicans so much now, the Democrats have already won" attitude is one of the two things that will prevent exactly that from happening. The second is the pathetically low approval rating of congress.
A senator hasn't been elected president in over 30 years. It's a trend that is likely to continue.
Sounds to me like he's referring to them as a combination. OpenGL is "just another graphics API", but DirectX does a lot more. That's where the SDL + OpenGL combination come in.
But does anybody use SDL anymore? (That's a serious question. I haven't coded with SDL since the late '90s.)
but in the one I inhabit, climate researchers usually point to ozone hole shrinkage as a success story: we changed our behavior and it actually produced noticeable results in the atmosphere.
So what universe do you live in, exactly? Clearly not the one in which this article was written.
Yeah, but if they weren't carpool lanes, there'd be another open lane for everybody...
Regardless, the only city I've ever driven in where the traffic went faster in the carpool lane than on the main highway was San Jose. Everywhere else you get stuck behind a bus, or a slow guy that you can't pass. Then again, 2mph isn't all that better than 1mph, so even in San Jose they sucked.
In Connecticut it's the worst though. They widened the highways to add a carpool lane, and they separated the carpool lane from the rest of the highway by a lane's width... They could have had *two* extra lanes for everybody, instead of one carpool lane.... And there isn't even any traffic, since they raised the taxes to the point where everybody moved out.
That last comment was an aside... They only ever pulled your copper if you sign up for FiOS phone service. If you just got internet or TV, you'd still have copper for your phone... So you can get "just internet" and then sign up for VOIP... Then you get a backdoor into keeping your copper if they won't let you otherwise.... Regardless if you know enough to ask, they'll leave it.
As for being locked in, it may matter in the future, but right now there is no competition to FiOS in the areas it's installed anyway. It's cheaper, faster, and more reliable than DSL, and if you get the business version it's less restricted than any DSL too... There are worse things to be locked into.
The other part of that story is that the the phone cables are the lowest on the poles, so something hitting the lines has to take out the high-voltage power lines, the lower voltage power lines, and the cable TV lines before the phone service is knocked out. If something takes out the whole pole, your phone goes out too, even though the telco's CO has a big battery/generator to backup the phone power.
I wonder if the tech was lying because he didn't know why he was pulling the copper, of if he was telling a partial truth and intended to personally sell the copper.
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The rule of thumb for Slander and Libel suits is basically "tread with caution".
Suing would bring the legal microscope down on all the code in question. Would you be willing to bet that there's nothing in the Linux kernel or GNU runtime that doesn't violate any Microsoft patents?
Yes, truth is a defense against slander, but you better be damned well sure you know what the "truth" is before you go to court.
I don't think that our takes on the situation are mutually exclusive.
Sony obviously didn't hit the $250 price point.
I think that long-term the value proposition is probably higher on the PS3 than the Wii due to the ability to provide these downloadable games, and that Nintendo will eventually have to either come out with a USB hard drive add-on, come out with Wii2, or miss the boat with downloadable content.
Really... I'll just wait for Ep3 then... I can get HL2 and eps1 & 2 for free when it comes out probably.
It does feel silly, but I have not purchased a single disc title for my PS3. Yet I've had as many hours enjoyment with it as I have my Wii, so I have no regrets...
Admittedly, I'd likely not have purchased the system (yet, anyway) if I didn't have an HDTV, if it didn't play BluRay movies, if there weren't any announced exclusives that I wanted, and if it didn't upscale PS2 content. However I think that Nintendo is really missing the boat. Platform specific content can be downloadable. There's no reason to make us schlep to the store and pay over $30 for what are pretty basic games. Now if only Sony can stop shooting themselves in the foot for long enough that people actually get a chance to notice the system's positives...
That's why you invest in something, presumably... You put in money in hopes that the use of your money will increase the value of whatever it is you invested in.
Continued growth is simply a means to justify failure to return the profits of the corporation to the shareholders. The profits belong to the shareholders, and if the company doesn't pay them out, it's essentially the same as all the shareholders are pumping more cash into the company. People rightly expect a return on that additional investment, hence the expectation of continually growing profits.
That's a fine theory, assuming that the patent office stops granting patents (like this one) with previously published prior art.
In reality, publishing only gives you some ground to stand on while fighting somebody else's patent on your idea down the road. Really, publishing through a patent you never enforce is probably cheaper in the long run.
That's not technically true. They could pay dividends on their stock to make the value of the stock the payout of dividends, rather than increasing stock price...
Or they could use their profits to gradually buy back their stock, since they have accomplished what they wanted to with the investment capital to the mutual benefit of the company and the investors.
Bingo.
Local radio stations get half, and corporate clients that use them as sales tools get early dibs on the rest.
I hate that part.
Especially for stadiums. Tickets are usually grouped by tier (hight of the seat above the field), even though within a single tier the prices may vary widely. So you can't pick an OK seat for a reasonable price, you end up having a choice between an outrageously priced seat, or crap.
For arenas the problem is similar. If the stage is at the end, you probably want seats around the side, or even behind the stage, but they sell the seats section by section, so your only hope of getting good seats is to refresh until enough chumps buy the crappy seats a mile away from the stage, and hope the vent doesn't sell out while you're waiting for the section you want to open up.
Then there's another problem that you don't even mention. They sell a huge percentage of the available tickets to corporations for promotional purposes before the tickets become available to the general public...
That's probably what they think. In reality, by the time that many years have gone by, people lose interest. I know many people, myself included, that have the first few seasons of a show on DVD, but by the time they got around to releasing the rest it just wasn't a priority anymore. They should get them all out there as quickly as possible at the peak of a show's popularity.
So they're making a GTK theme?
Since when is steel scratch resistant? Especially compared to glass....
Sure, modern cars have lots of complicated bits that you probably don't want to work on. (At least without a copy of the manufacturer's service manual)
But changing the oil? Please, name one reasonably mainstream car where it isn't still the same old, oil-pan plug, and screw-on filter. Changing your oil should be something they teach in high-school, right along with how to take care of yourself when you have a cold without going to the doctor and running up health care costs.
Even brake-jobs are simple still... It's actually easier to replace pads on disc brakes than it was on older vehicles, and unless your rotors are driven onto the hub with a press (sports cars, mostly) you can still find auto-parts shops that will turn them for you free if you buy pads there. Personally, I don't trust the dealership to change the oil properly in my car, or swap brake pads without causing squeeks (and $28 for new pads is better than a $1000 "brake job" anyway). Really, something must have changed that made you intimidated of your car. I'm guessing it was all the plastic bits they put under the hood to make the engine look fancy. Or the wires...
As for your plugs, you've probably got overhead cams, since most cars do these days. The plugs are still there. They're just at the bottom. You'll either see them way down the side of the engine, or there will be a cover and the plugs will be at the bottom of a shaft. If you've got a good long extension for your socket set you can still change those yourself too... And the wires, and the distributor, and the coil... even if the ignition is all electronic. You could probably do almost everything yourself if you were willing to shell out for a factory service manual on eBay. They design cars so that trained monkeys can fix them as long as they can read the book... Even fancy, modern, electronic cars.
The best part is that the dealerships charge so much for repairs these days that you can buy yourself every tool you need for most jobs for less than the dealer repair cost. It's like getting free tools. You can't beat free tools.
Clearly it's one or the other. There couldn't possibly be situations in which it has gone the other way...
Seriously though, plenty of men spend tens of thousands of dollars in an attempt to get custody of their children after a broken relationship, and not only don't get the kids, but end up paying alimony and child support to the mother. How is fighting to keep said kids "abandoning" them? In many states, divorce law boils down to "the woman is always right unless the cops saw her beating the kids". She gets her kids, and her lifestyle maintained by her former husband, and the guy gets the shaft.
I know two separate men who fought to get custody of their children from an unfit mother, lost, and were forced to pay child support... Then later got custody of the children when the women were committed in incidents unrelated to the divorce, and the men still had to pay these women the child support for more than two years before the courts finally fixed it.
Yes, it *can* be a way for women to screw men. It can also be a way to force men to take financial responsibility for their offspring.
I don't think they know that. I don't even think that's correct. They're just really bad at doing things which the public likes.
The "everybody hates the Republicans so much now, the Democrats have already won" attitude is one of the two things that will prevent exactly that from happening. The second is the pathetically low approval rating of congress.
A senator hasn't been elected president in over 30 years. It's a trend that is likely to continue.
One must wonder why you think you'll like the next one any better.
Sounds to me like he's referring to them as a combination. OpenGL is "just another graphics API", but DirectX does a lot more. That's where the SDL + OpenGL combination come in.
But does anybody use SDL anymore? (That's a serious question. I haven't coded with SDL since the late '90s.)
So what universe do you live in, exactly? Clearly not the one in which this article was written.
Tell them you're interested in something that's on a really high shelf that isn't eligible for an extended warranty. You'll never see them again ever.
Yeah, but if they weren't carpool lanes, there'd be another open lane for everybody...
Regardless, the only city I've ever driven in where the traffic went faster in the carpool lane than on the main highway was San Jose. Everywhere else you get stuck behind a bus, or a slow guy that you can't pass. Then again, 2mph isn't all that better than 1mph, so even in San Jose they sucked.
In Connecticut it's the worst though. They widened the highways to add a carpool lane, and they separated the carpool lane from the rest of the highway by a lane's width... They could have had *two* extra lanes for everybody, instead of one carpool lane.... And there isn't even any traffic, since they raised the taxes to the point where everybody moved out.
Dude, it's a Gibson. The $3k is for the guitar. The tuning system costs $800.
That last comment was an aside... They only ever pulled your copper if you sign up for FiOS phone service. If you just got internet or TV, you'd still have copper for your phone... So you can get "just internet" and then sign up for VOIP... Then you get a backdoor into keeping your copper if they won't let you otherwise.... Regardless if you know enough to ask, they'll leave it.
As for being locked in, it may matter in the future, but right now there is no competition to FiOS in the areas it's installed anyway. It's cheaper, faster, and more reliable than DSL, and if you get the business version it's less restricted than any DSL too... There are worse things to be locked into.
The other part of that story is that the the phone cables are the lowest on the poles, so something hitting the lines has to take out the high-voltage power lines, the lower voltage power lines, and the cable TV lines before the phone service is knocked out. If something takes out the whole pole, your phone goes out too, even though the telco's CO has a big battery/generator to backup the phone power.
I wonder if the tech was lying because he didn't know why he was pulling the copper, of if he was telling a partial truth and intended to personally sell the copper.