That's not actually true - per work hour productivity has been increasing steadily in the last 20 years. Efficiency and capacity utilization has been edging up consistently too.
And what does that have to do with education?
What I was referring to is the fact that educational outcomes haven't been improving.
What has not increased in the last 10 years were wages - in the last decade the true creators of value, the 99%, got paid in "take up this cheap mortgage, it will be fine, house prices only rise" promises.
What do people's misguided and stupid real estate purchases have to do with their wages?
The government's procurement policy is internal - it only applies to government employees.
Sorry, but the analogy falls flat. Government and private purchases are legally different.
The same public interest that prevents me from nosing through all your bills and receipts. It's none of the public's damn business - just like the contract between you and your employer detailing how much money you earn.
First of all, there are free, democratic nations where salary information is public, so even that wouldn't obviously incompatible with public interest. And in some states, financial information like home purchase prices are already disclosed publicly. Given that income taxes are government records, it could well be argued that they should be public. And for many kinds of employees, you can already find out salary information.
The analogy with bills and receipts also falls flat; I wasn't suggesting to let the government rifle through your private papers. I was suggesting that if you want a particular class of contract to be enforceable through a public court, you should have to make it public. In fact, we already have such classes of contracts, we might simply want to expand them. So, nobody is compelling you to publish anything, it's just that if you want a certain service, you need to publish.
Finally, even if you think that salary falls under a "right to privacy", there is a difference between privacy for human beings and privacy for corporations.
So, you haven't presented much of an argument so far other than "that's the way it has always been done".
Modern TVs aren't influenced by magnetic fields anymore. Static magnetic fields don't cause cell phone interference. And hard drives have such high magnetization that erasing them is extremely hard.
First, this is not just a "contractual requirement"; government procurement is regulated by government regulations, not just contractual terms.
Second, your response is totally besides the point. My point was that widespread disclosure of contract terms would be a good thing. Do you disagree with that? On what grounds? What public interests are served by keeping contracts secret?
If you agree that it would be preferable to have contract terms public, then the question reduces to how to implement that. Most people negotiating with Oracle don't have the power to get those terms, so that's a non-starter.
If you want to put this into libertarian terms, then let me put it this way: Oracle and you can choose to disclose your agreement or not, but the public and the groups responsible for enforcing your contract (courts, police, etc.) can choose under what conditions to enforce your agreement, and they choose to do so only if you actually disclosed ahead of time. Simple, isn't it?
Tachyons are possible, but there isn't any evidence for them yet.
The "sucking dark" theory, however, has obvious logical problems.
And the "scientific method" isn't a con game; anything and everything is supposed to be experimentally verifiable. If you take things on faith, that's your choice, it's not the "scientific method". Of course, many scientists do take things "on faith", but many scientists just aren't very good, just like any other profession.
Nor, for that matter, does the fact that General Relativity forbids some effects mean that they can't occur. After all, it's clear that GR is wrong somehow since it is incompatible with quantum mechanics.
That's not surprising. A significant percentage of published results are wrong, even in mathematics and physics. It's not a question of "feeling", it's a fact.
It's easy to detect anything: you just always say it's there. In order for detection to be useful, it needs to be traded off against error, you need low false alarms. UBS's system must have had too many false alarms, otherwise this alarm would have been acted upon.
So, when selling to the government, Oracle is required to disclose discounts it gives to other customers. Which leaves me asking: why only the government? Seems to me markets would generally benefit from more transparency, both in terms of efficiency and legal compliance. What possible reason is there not to disclose terms of sales, discounts, etc. between any two companies? Why do we allow this information to remain proprietary? Conservatives and free market folks should be up in arms, since efficient markets require information.
And it wouldn't be hard to implement these days. If you are required to disclose a certain type of contract, you have to have done so when you conclude it in order for it to be legally enforceable.
yet, he wouldn't have made any wealth or gained any power if the public didn't find his products good.
People also find the products stolen by thieves and looted by pirates good; that doesn't mean the thieves and pirates acquired them legally.
i missed the part where generals work for the public good. i thought they ordered their soldiers to break stuff and kill people. i guess it's good if you're on the generals side.
Generals work on behalf of the public; they don't work for their personal gain and generally don't get rich (at least in the US and Europe).
Yeah, we've heard the same kind of b.s. from Apple fanboys when Android phones came out: "they aren't selling", "they will fail", etc. And now they are ahead of iPhone. The same is going to happen with tablets. Apple is just trying to delay the inevitable a little, and getting an injunction against a competitor that makes a thinner, faster, nicer product just before the Xmas season is good strategy. It also shows that they are running scared.
Asian companies rarely innovate, probably due to a rigid and hierarchical culture than discourages doing things differently
This isn't about whether Samsung innovates or not. The innovation is in Android, and Android has pulled ahead of iOS because it's better and cheaper. And companies like Samsung make better and cheaper hardware than Apple.
but holy cow people trying to defend Samsung in this situation are just blind religious fanatics.
I want companies to compete in the market, not through stupid patents. I want a choice and competition, and Apple is trying to deny me that.
And there is a long list of dirty, underhanded tricks, and a long list of features and ideas Apple has ripped off from others, so they hardly can take the moral high ground here.
The wall wart is a standard design, driven by the availability of small power supply designs. In addition, that wall wart is not what's shipping with the Galaxy Tab; the Galaxy Tab charger looks completely different from the iPad charger. Ditto for the Galaxy S II.
That kind of sync connector goes back to Sony, Palm, Compaq, Nokia, and others. In fact, the iPhone really is pretty much a rip-off of prior Palm devices, including desktop sync, charge/sync stand, connection cable, desktop interface, home screen, etc.
Many of the icons Apple ripped off as well, from third parties and other sources.
Nobody minds when companies imitate each other at that level. But it is infuriating when Apple liberally copies other companies and then goes off suing their competitors over trivialities. And it's not the first time Apple has done this.
Samsung are scared enough to not to think they can compete with it unless they resort to legal measures
Samsung obviously can't compete with Apple without resorting to legal measures because Apple is keeping their products from going to market.
Samsung would be happy to compete with Apple in the market; they have nothing to fear there because they obviously have the technically more advanced products, and at a better price.
Apple sued Samsung because Apple is scared they can't compete in the market. Samsung is suing Apple because Samsung wants to compete in the market.
How do you know what patents they are suing over? They have good lawyers. Most likely they are suing over patents that are not part of the agreement.
Even if they are, all they need to do is get an injunction to prevent Apple from selling the 4S over Xmas. Whether they prevail eventually doesn't really matter, just like it doesn't matter to Apple whether Apple eventually prevails with their stupid design patents.
Credit for what? The iPhone 4S is worse on just about every spec than the Galaxy S II, a phone that has been out for months. What's "new" in iOS 5 and iCloud is mostly rip-offs from Android and still doesn't even catch up with it.
And because Apple knows that they are way behind, they are trying to stop Samsung with bogus lawsuits.
You're making a lot of assumptions. Samsung's patents may not fall under the consortium agreements at all. And even if they do, Apple may be in violation of the consortium agreement.
Eventually, the consortium may simply decide to kick out Apple permanently if Apple isn't actually contributing anything of value, in which case Apple can forget about LTE and other new standards.
Apple is vulnerable here because they really are dependent on so many other people's technologies for their products. If they piss off enough companies, people may start playing hardball with them.
Slashdot Mirror
The EU just extended copyright terms to keep the Beatles songs from falling into the public domain. So these people obviously don't have much say.
Part of a democracy is to have meaningful, substantive discussions, something you and the GP seem incapable of.
And what does that have to do with education?
What I was referring to is the fact that educational outcomes haven't been improving.
What do people's misguided and stupid real estate purchases have to do with their wages?
Indeed. And that probably also explains why we are spending ever more money on education with nearly no marginal return.
Of course they aren't making any money. They spent all their money on the equipment that you need to be creative: MacBooks, iMacs, and all that.
Sorry, but the analogy falls flat. Government and private purchases are legally different.
First of all, there are free, democratic nations where salary information is public, so even that wouldn't obviously incompatible with public interest. And in some states, financial information like home purchase prices are already disclosed publicly. Given that income taxes are government records, it could well be argued that they should be public. And for many kinds of employees, you can already find out salary information.
The analogy with bills and receipts also falls flat; I wasn't suggesting to let the government rifle through your private papers. I was suggesting that if you want a particular class of contract to be enforceable through a public court, you should have to make it public. In fact, we already have such classes of contracts, we might simply want to expand them. So, nobody is compelling you to publish anything, it's just that if you want a certain service, you need to publish.
Finally, even if you think that salary falls under a "right to privacy", there is a difference between privacy for human beings and privacy for corporations.
So, you haven't presented much of an argument so far other than "that's the way it has always been done".
Modern TVs aren't influenced by magnetic fields anymore. Static magnetic fields don't cause cell phone interference. And hard drives have such high magnetization that erasing them is extremely hard.
First, this is not just a "contractual requirement"; government procurement is regulated by government regulations, not just contractual terms.
Second, your response is totally besides the point. My point was that widespread disclosure of contract terms would be a good thing. Do you disagree with that? On what grounds? What public interests are served by keeping contracts secret?
If you agree that it would be preferable to have contract terms public, then the question reduces to how to implement that. Most people negotiating with Oracle don't have the power to get those terms, so that's a non-starter.
If you want to put this into libertarian terms, then let me put it this way: Oracle and you can choose to disclose your agreement or not, but the public and the groups responsible for enforcing your contract (courts, police, etc.) can choose under what conditions to enforce your agreement, and they choose to do so only if you actually disclosed ahead of time. Simple, isn't it?
Tachyons are possible, but there isn't any evidence for them yet.
The "sucking dark" theory, however, has obvious logical problems.
And the "scientific method" isn't a con game; anything and everything is supposed to be experimentally verifiable. If you take things on faith, that's your choice, it's not the "scientific method". Of course, many scientists do take things "on faith", but many scientists just aren't very good, just like any other profession.
Nor, for that matter, does the fact that General Relativity forbids some effects mean that they can't occur. After all, it's clear that GR is wrong somehow since it is incompatible with quantum mechanics.
That's not surprising. A significant percentage of published results are wrong, even in mathematics and physics. It's not a question of "feeling", it's a fact.
It's easy to detect anything: you just always say it's there. In order for detection to be useful, it needs to be traded off against error, you need low false alarms. UBS's system must have had too many false alarms, otherwise this alarm would have been acted upon.
So, when selling to the government, Oracle is required to disclose discounts it gives to other customers. Which leaves me asking: why only the government? Seems to me markets would generally benefit from more transparency, both in terms of efficiency and legal compliance. What possible reason is there not to disclose terms of sales, discounts, etc. between any two companies? Why do we allow this information to remain proprietary? Conservatives and free market folks should be up in arms, since efficient markets require information.
And it wouldn't be hard to implement these days. If you are required to disclose a certain type of contract, you have to have done so when you conclude it in order for it to be legally enforceable.
People also find the products stolen by thieves and looted by pirates good; that doesn't mean the thieves and pirates acquired them legally.
Generals work on behalf of the public; they don't work for their personal gain and generally don't get rich (at least in the US and Europe).
Yes, there is: the rest of the universe.
Yeah, we've heard the same kind of b.s. from Apple fanboys when Android phones came out: "they aren't selling", "they will fail", etc. And now they are ahead of iPhone. The same is going to happen with tablets. Apple is just trying to delay the inevitable a little, and getting an injunction against a competitor that makes a thinner, faster, nicer product just before the Xmas season is good strategy. It also shows that they are running scared.
This isn't about whether Samsung innovates or not. The innovation is in Android, and Android has pulled ahead of iOS because it's better and cheaper. And companies like Samsung make better and cheaper hardware than Apple.
I want companies to compete in the market, not through stupid patents. I want a choice and competition, and Apple is trying to deny me that.
And there is a long list of dirty, underhanded tricks, and a long list of features and ideas Apple has ripped off from others, so they hardly can take the moral high ground here.
The wall wart is a standard design, driven by the availability of small power supply designs. In addition, that wall wart is not what's shipping with the Galaxy Tab; the Galaxy Tab charger looks completely different from the iPad charger. Ditto for the Galaxy S II.
That kind of sync connector goes back to Sony, Palm, Compaq, Nokia, and others. In fact, the iPhone really is pretty much a rip-off of prior Palm devices, including desktop sync, charge/sync stand, connection cable, desktop interface, home screen, etc.
Many of the icons Apple ripped off as well, from third parties and other sources.
Nobody minds when companies imitate each other at that level. But it is infuriating when Apple liberally copies other companies and then goes off suing their competitors over trivialities. And it's not the first time Apple has done this.
Samsung obviously can't compete with Apple without resorting to legal measures because Apple is keeping their products from going to market.
Samsung would be happy to compete with Apple in the market; they have nothing to fear there because they obviously have the technically more advanced products, and at a better price.
Apple sued Samsung because Apple is scared they can't compete in the market. Samsung is suing Apple because Samsung wants to compete in the market.
How do you know what patents they are suing over? They have good lawyers. Most likely they are suing over patents that are not part of the agreement.
Even if they are, all they need to do is get an injunction to prevent Apple from selling the 4S over Xmas. Whether they prevail eventually doesn't really matter, just like it doesn't matter to Apple whether Apple eventually prevails with their stupid design patents.
Credit for what? The iPhone 4S is worse on just about every spec than the Galaxy S II, a phone that has been out for months. What's "new" in iOS 5 and iCloud is mostly rip-offs from Android and still doesn't even catch up with it.
And because Apple knows that they are way behind, they are trying to stop Samsung with bogus lawsuits.
You're making a lot of assumptions. Samsung's patents may not fall under the consortium agreements at all. And even if they do, Apple may be in violation of the consortium agreement.
Eventually, the consortium may simply decide to kick out Apple permanently if Apple isn't actually contributing anything of value, in which case Apple can forget about LTE and other new standards.
Apple is vulnerable here because they really are dependent on so many other people's technologies for their products. If they piss off enough companies, people may start playing hardball with them.
By that token, none of Apple's products should be allowed to sell: iPhone, iPod, and iPad are rip-offs of other people's designs and products.
They don't actually need to prevail, just block Apple for the Xmas season. Tit-for-tat.
And god, I hope Java is next because it is yet another proprietary platform and the crappiest of the bunch.