If it were that simple, Warren Buffett wouldn't be worth $55B.
A company's value is the discounted sum of its future cash flows, which are determined by revenues, costs, and anticipated changes in both over time.
The last part is the kicker. Today's costs and revenues tell you something, but they don't always provide great indicators of costs and revenues 1, 2, 5, 10 years down the line.
That's one reason why Buffett has historically avoided new technologies- it's too hard to predict what's going to happen.
That's a fair point, but it doesn't make Hasbro's strategy any less retarded.
Two issues:
1. Copyright law. This game has been around for over sixty years. Is society (including the owners of Scrabble as well as its enthusiasts) really best served by granting such long terms of copyright, well beyond the death of the original creator? Sure, it's great for the owners, but is it the best policy for society at large?
2. Business strategy. Hasbro could do four things that I can think of: 1. Ignore Scrabulous, 2. shut it down, 3. shut it down and harness the interest with its own version, or 4. cut a deal with Scrabulous- "hey, great job, let's work together, here's some $ to keep you going, by the way you totally infringed on our trademark, otherwise we would have paid you more" type of thing. #1 and #2 are dumb (for different reasons), #3 is expensive and tough to pull off, #4 is smart.
It absolutely matters to Hasbro if they are selling more due to Scrabulous. Hasbro is a business; they aren't interested in legal theory except in how it affects their bottom line. They are interested in selling their wares. Having millions of people thinking about Scrabble who otherwise would be thinking about something else is good for Hasbro. It's great advertising; the increase in mindshare is very likely much, much more valuable than any loss due to cannabalism (due to some choosing to play online instead of buying the board game). I think the argument put forth by warez and music sharers is usually self-serving and overstated, but it's not entirely wrong.
We actually bought a Boggle game recently because of an online boggle-like game (which I won't link to, though if you search for 'web boggle' I suspect you mind find it rather easily...).
Let me say that again: We started playing a Boggle-like game online. We loved it. But we recognized that it would also be fun to play the real game sometimes (b/c sitting around a table is more social than staring at a screen, etc.). So we bought your damn game.
Hasbro, I've got four kids under six. I am your wet dream demographic: I have both money and kids, and I love toys. Don't piss me off.
Data: x out of y brand z hard drives failed. Information: A failure rate of x of y is higher than other brands in a statistically significant way. Knowledge: FooStor hard drives suck. Wisdom: I will neither buy more FooStor drives nor invest in their stock (until over-reaction to poor quality drives the price down below the intrinsic value of the firm)
I agree. Their explanation shows that they are just taking advantage of differences in stiffness between fiber materials. Kind of like differences in thermal expansion allow a bimetallic strip to bend with temperature. It's one of those ideas that is so simple you are left wondering "why didn't I think of that?"
roll-back the industrial age because of it just yet
Is that what I was advocating? News to me. I thought I was advocating reducing exposure to risk, and possibly hastening the move to a post-fossil fuel industrial age.
Christ, if you are going to lob irrelevant factoids (I presume termite production hasn't increased by orders of magnitude recently), at least don't be so grossly wrong.
I am confident that limited warming data about other planets does not contradict the theory that human emissions are impacting our climate.
I am confident that human emissions of CO2, methane, etc. are of at least some cause for concern because the basic mechanism of warming (pdf warning) has been well understood for over 100 years (that's "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground" by Svante Arrhenius, 1896, for you pdf-phobes). All the feedbacks, etc. are complicated; some enhance the warming, some dampen, but the first-order effects are well understood.
"It's complex" => "we don't know" => "business as usual is just fine" is a weak chain of logic.
It's not that complicated. You have a directory structure on machine A with files and folders. On machine B, you have - wait for it - the same structure. SO synching is a matter of comparing file lists, hashes, last-modified timestamps, and last-synched timestamps. It only gets sticky when both files have changed since the last sync, which is an exception that usually merits human review to sort out which one to keep. If you have reasonable practices that minimize collisions, no big deal. Of course, it's also possible to merge (text-based) files automatically.
Unison is 2-way rsync. But as the poster noted, unison/rsync doesn't easily support automatic synching (that I know of)- you have to kick it off and then deal with any conflicts, etc., manually. I think the poster is looking for ideas of at least automating Unison/rsync (BTW does rsync support 2-way updating, as the poster explicitly mentions?).
As someone who relies on running unison manually (too lazy to figure out how to automate on my Windows box), I'd be interested in relevant solutions.
Assuming that your place is immune from fire, flooding and the like.
I use Carbonite for an offsite backup of files I'd really hate to lose. It's pretty good. FWIW I don't participate in their referral program, so my endorsement is from the heart.
I am a reasonably satisfied with Carbonite. It's cheap and reasonably secure (data is encrypted).
However it is a pure backup service; it doesn't allow, for example, remote access to the backup from another machine, which would be useful on occasion.
I've read about such research but can't dig up a reference right now. Stay tuned. One difference is that, in instances where, say, an 18 wheeler starts to edge into your lane, your passenger will likely stop talking or otherwise react. The dude on the other end of the cellphone will not. It's a subtle difference, but not inconsequential. I'd describe it as your mind is in the car when talking to someone in the car, but it's halfway out of the car when you're on the phone.
As for your last sentence, what's up with that? Does the fact that some people drive recklessly change anything about whether driving while on the phone impacts your ability to safely drive? Or are you just looking to quantify the magnitude?
Re:Yea, We Need More Thinking Like This...
on
Steve Jobs Hates Buttons
·
· Score: 4, Informative
These data demonstrate that the phone conversation itself resulted in significant slowing in the response to simulated traffic signals, as well as an increase in the likelihood of missing these signals. Moreover, the fact that hand-held and hands-free cell phones resulted in equivalent dual-task deficits indicates that the interference was not due to peripheral factors such as holding the phone while conversing. These findings also rule out interpretations that attribute the deficits associated with a cell phone conversation to simply attending to verbal material, because dual-task deficits were not observed in the book-on-tape control. Active engagement in the cell phone conversation appears to be necessary to produce the observed dual-task interference.
The principal findings for this experiment are that: (a) SPs that engaged in cell phone conversations missed twice as many simulated traffic signals as when they were not talking on the cell phone, (b) SPs took longer to react to those signals that they did detect, and (c) these deficits were equivalent for both hand-held and hands-free cell phone users.
In sum, we found that conversing on either a hand-held or hands-free cell phone led to significant decrements in simulated driving performance. We suggest that the cellular phone use disrupts performance by diverting attention to an engaging cognitive context other than the one immediately associated with driving.
Our data suggest that legislative initiatives that restrict hand-held devices but permit hands-free devices are not likely to reduce interference from the phone conversation, because the interference is, in this case, due to central attentional processes.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair point.
Why not answer your own question by doing some homework?
In fairness, the linked article is lighter on details than it should be...
Wow, I goofed the link.
Try this
If it were that simple, Warren Buffett wouldn't be worth $55B.
A company's value is the discounted sum of its future cash flows, which are determined by revenues, costs, and anticipated changes in both over time.
The last part is the kicker. Today's costs and revenues tell you something, but they don't always provide great indicators of costs and revenues 1, 2, 5, 10 years down the line.
That's one reason why Buffett has historically avoided new technologies- it's too hard to predict what's going to happen.
Take Apple for example (it's a link to Yahoo! Finance, I promise). Go look at their 1998 10-k. Revenue had dropped from ~$10B in 1996 to ~$7B in 1997. Apple had losses in both 1996 and 1997. And yet AAPL's market cap (which is the market's aggregate opinion of Apple's value) increased 40x over the past decade.
Did you predict that? I sure as hell didn't. Good job, Steve.
That's a fair point, but it doesn't make Hasbro's strategy any less retarded.
Two issues:
1. Copyright law. This game has been around for over sixty years. Is society (including the owners of Scrabble as well as its enthusiasts) really best served by granting such long terms of copyright, well beyond the death of the original creator? Sure, it's great for the owners, but is it the best policy for society at large?
2. Business strategy. Hasbro could do four things that I can think of: 1. Ignore Scrabulous, 2. shut it down, 3. shut it down and harness the interest with its own version, or 4. cut a deal with Scrabulous- "hey, great job, let's work together, here's some $ to keep you going, by the way you totally infringed on our trademark, otherwise we would have paid you more" type of thing. #1 and #2 are dumb (for different reasons), #3 is expensive and tough to pull off, #4 is smart.
It absolutely matters to Hasbro if they are selling more due to Scrabulous. Hasbro is a business; they aren't interested in legal theory except in how it affects their bottom line. They are interested in selling their wares. Having millions of people thinking about Scrabble who otherwise would be thinking about something else is good for Hasbro. It's great advertising; the increase in mindshare is very likely much, much more valuable than any loss due to cannabalism (due to some choosing to play online instead of buying the board game). I think the argument put forth by warez and music sharers is usually self-serving and overstated, but it's not entirely wrong.
Thanks-
We actually bought a Boggle game recently because of an online boggle-like game (which I won't link to, though if you search for 'web boggle' I suspect you mind find it rather easily...).
Let me say that again: We started playing a Boggle-like game online. We loved it. But we recognized that it would also be fun to play the real game sometimes (b/c sitting around a table is more social than staring at a screen, etc.). So we bought your damn game.
Hasbro, I've got four kids under six. I am your wet dream demographic: I have both money and kids, and I love toys. Don't piss me off.
Try a different strategy.
It's called "the Senate."
It goes like this:
Data -> Information -> Knowledge -> Wisdom
Data: x out of y brand z hard drives failed.
Information: A failure rate of x of y is higher than other brands in a statistically significant way.
Knowledge: FooStor hard drives suck.
Wisdom: I will neither buy more FooStor drives nor invest in their stock (until over-reaction to poor quality drives the price down below the intrinsic value of the firm)
I agree. Their explanation shows that they are just taking advantage of differences in stiffness between fiber materials. Kind of like differences in thermal expansion allow a bimetallic strip to bend with temperature. It's one of those ideas that is so simple you are left wondering "why didn't I think of that?"
Well done.
I had no idea. I am so nailed.
Mod parent up for best new
The most ridiculous part of that tasing video was that goddamn line. If you are truly scared, you don't use dude-speak.
roll-back the industrial age because of it just yet
Is that what I was advocating? News to me. I thought I was advocating reducing exposure to risk, and possibly hastening the move to a post-fossil fuel industrial age.
By the way, the biggest natural emitters of methane on earth are wetlands, and termites aren't even close to being the #1 emitters if you include human-related activities (see same link).
Christ, if you are going to lob irrelevant factoids (I presume termite production hasn't increased by orders of magnitude recently), at least don't be so grossly wrong.
Makes you look bad.
I am confident that limited warming data about other planets does not contradict the theory that human emissions are impacting our climate.
I am confident that human emissions of CO2, methane, etc. are of at least some cause for concern because the basic mechanism of warming (pdf warning) has been well understood for over 100 years (that's "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground" by Svante Arrhenius, 1896, for you pdf-phobes). All the feedbacks, etc. are complicated; some enhance the warming, some dampen, but the first-order effects are well understood.
"It's complex" => "we don't know" => "business as usual is just fine" is a weak chain of logic.
Here's a better reference
And what part of "The Sun's energy output has not increased since direct measurements began in 1978" did you not understand?
It would clearly interfere with your valuable
Zonbu
Yes, there's a subscription fee, but if you compare it to the price of off-site storage (which it is, plus more), you'll see it's quite reasonable.
It's not that complicated. You have a directory structure on machine A with files and folders. On machine B, you have - wait for it - the same structure. SO synching is a matter of comparing file lists, hashes, last-modified timestamps, and last-synched timestamps. It only gets sticky when both files have changed since the last sync, which is an exception that usually merits human review to sort out which one to keep. If you have reasonable practices that minimize collisions, no big deal. Of course, it's also possible to merge (text-based) files automatically.
Unison is 2-way rsync. But as the poster noted, unison/rsync doesn't easily support automatic synching (that I know of)- you have to kick it off and then deal with any conflicts, etc., manually. I think the poster is looking for ideas of at least automating Unison/rsync (BTW does rsync support 2-way updating, as the poster explicitly mentions?).
As someone who relies on running unison manually (too lazy to figure out how to automate on my Windows box), I'd be interested in relevant solutions.
I thought it was HEAD! PAPER! NOW!
(and some more text to get around the caps filter)
Assuming that your place is immune from fire, flooding and the like.
I use Carbonite for an offsite backup of files I'd really hate to lose. It's pretty good. FWIW I don't participate in their referral program, so my endorsement is from the heart.
I am a reasonably satisfied with Carbonite. It's cheap and reasonably secure (data is encrypted).
However it is a pure backup service; it doesn't allow, for example, remote access to the backup from another machine, which would be useful on occasion.
I've read about such research but can't dig up a reference right now. Stay tuned. One difference is that, in instances where, say, an 18 wheeler starts to edge into your lane, your passenger will likely stop talking or otherwise react. The dude on the other end of the cellphone will not. It's a subtle difference, but not inconsequential. I'd describe it as your mind is in the car when talking to someone in the car, but it's halfway out of the car when you're on the phone.
As for your last sentence, what's up with that? Does the fact that some people drive recklessly change anything about whether driving while on the phone impacts your ability to safely drive? Or are you just looking to quantify the magnitude?