Well a recognizable grave from 9000 years ago was probably well build. If people put in effort to build the grave well they were probably well off. If they were well off, they could afford to put artifacts in those graves. Those artifacts might enable us to learn something about their culture, about their skills, about their beliefs.
It comes down to whether we care about knowledge of ancient cultures or not. Some of us do, others don't.
And that's a fair rationale... we need this cash to make the company better, and you the investor will hold a larger more valuable company as a result. However, that only works in the short / medium term... when that becomes a perpetual promise, then it never pays.
No, because of two points:
you can sell the stock and get your money with interest in exchange
the company is actually worth more, and could at some point dissolve, sell the assets and pay out the owners.
This second theoretical point is what makes it different from a Ponzi scheme which would never be able to do that. The second point also enables the first point - again that's where a Ponzi scheme would break down, as potential buyers would eventual realize that problem. The company stock is backed by the assets of the company, the Ponzi scheme is backed by investors not realizing there aren't any.
No more crappy consumer laptops with incredibly bad keyboards, super-glossy screens and mediocre battery life.
Well, an on-screen keyboard on a touch screen makes even the crappiest laptop-keyboard look good. And as far as glossy screens go... at least the iPad is pretty horrible in that respect.
Well, that's a matter of definition then. A tablet with a keyboard and a stand for the screen - that has the same potential as a laptop, I'd agree with that. On the other hand - you could also call this a laptop.
And having several separate pieces isn't necessarily a gain in convenience. Maybe in the near future we'll see pads with slide-out keyboards - essentially convertible computers.
Hmmm - does this effectively abolish prior art? If I file a patent on what my competitor has been doing for years, then I'll get the patent award.
Sounds dangerous - everybody would have to file everything unless they want to be deprived of using their own ideas. It's a tax on innovation - no wonder Microsoft likes it.
Well it seems Apple gets their 30% cut for implementing the billing and subscription service as well as the content delivery. That's probably a sensible decision - rather than building such a system themselves they outsourced it to a company which has a lot of experience in that field. Also since Apple is paid by getting a cut, they pass part of the risk of the project to them.
The price point of 99 cent / week might be the right range as well. It's something you might spend just for the coolness of it - and it does look cool, though not revolutionary. Personally I just don't see myself buying an iPad or reading a Murdoch rag, though.
Tell you what, I'll tell them to go ahead---- And send the bill to you.
Cute - you want a public service, but payment should be provided only by those who admit that it's necessary. Just pretending you don't need it - but happily benefiting from it - means you get to leach of other people who are more honest. Is that the idea?
That's good advice to implement, but that can't be a basis for a legal position. It's sensible to use a high-quality lock on your front door, but if you use a cheap easy to break lock, the cops still need a search warrant.
If the content is set to private, then it's sufficiently protected so that a court order should be required.
I don't think that "social" is by definition part of the public, no. "Social" could refer to communication within a group of friends, in which case it should be protected. On the other hand it's quite possible to post something on social networks so that it's accessible by all - that must be deemed public.
Obviously, when investigating criminal matters and with reasonable suspicion, the police have the right to investigate private communication as well. Just as they'd be able to get a search warrant to search a person's private papers. Normal evidence gathering rules should apply.
If science isn't taught because of someone's pet beliefs, then that's a matter of interest. It has an impact on the future of the country. It also has an impact on children who are not taught properly because someone else would prefer to pretend their was a scientific debate about a topic where there isn't one.
Scientists who see that should feel a moral obligation to point out what's happening. It's good to see that some do.
Seriously, are all those thousands of vacation pictures worth storing?
No, but it's a lot cheaper to find storage space for pictures which you may or may not look again instead of going through all of them and sort out the ones you will never look at again. (Of course "cheaper" in this case assumes that you assign some non-zero value to your time.)
They want a way to obsolete phones. Users might want to have a new Android version, and Motorola wants to be able to force a new sale. Maybe not every time, but whenever they choose to. That's also something ordinary users can understand, even though they might not care about installing some custom version of the OS: this phone may not be upgradable, a phone from another company would be.
Most people who say "the Bible has been changed" are speaking out of ignorance.
Well, today the catholic church is quite clear on which gospels of the new testament belong to canon. That wasn't the case in the first 300 years of Christianity - there weren't any in the beginning, and then there was a period where you had quite a lot of them. Which of those should be believed was a matter of considerable debate. After those 300 years of changes, you could say the text became stable, that's true - that's a fair amount of change though.
He shouldn't, but it's a ridiculously harsh sentence. Community service would have been appropriate. 366 days of prison? That would seem excessive even for a first time DUI conviction.
Fair point. On the other hand, going head to head with the US is not the immediate goal. They want to be able to take Taiwan before the US even has a chance to intervene. The problem is that the US has this strange attitude towards Taiwan - on the one hand they feel obligated to defend Taiwan, on the other hand they don't even maintain an embassy there, much less a permanent military presence. With over 1500 missiles, anti-carrier weapons and a carrier on their own, China has the advantage. This buildup continues unhindered despite the current Taiwanese president's eagerness to appease China. If the US wants to actually stick to defending Taiwan they need to do something to counter that, failure to do that could well be interpreted as a sign that the US will do nothing. That interpretation could set of a war.
It's kind of telling that his only strategy for dealing with disgruntled employees is "holding the bus". Essentially that means you put up with disruptive behavior, but don't do anything to fix the underlying causes.
So you have a brilliant employee who is unhappy because he sees how things go wrong and is disempowered. If you really want to keep him, then maybe it would be better to cut down on micromanagement and enable employees to make decisions. Or you have someone whose abilities you are not using fully - well that could be seen as an opportunity rather than a problem.
He's right, that once the employee has shared his unhappiness with 50 friends he's not likely to change his mind anymore. You shouldn't let that happen in the first place - listen to complaints and fix problems. Having the mindset that any employee issue can only be dealt with as a personnel matter - that's a good way to create problem employees.
That's pretty cool, and the idea is certainly fascinating. I can't see how it would be workable though.
Sure you can put those houses on rails, but now you have tiny houses and no access roads. Or - as in the cartoon you mentioned - they'd have to essentially move the houses all the time in a loop - you get off somewhere and wait as your destination comes along. That would make for very slow access, since each time someone needs to get to the platform or into a house, the whole movement would have to stop. Also very expensive since the whole mass of the town needs to be moved over it's rail system.
Anyway, they really where thinking more along the lines of a winter/summer movement, having more hotels and shopping in town in summer and "indoor activities" (which?) and "climate shelters" (don't know what that means?) in winter. It seems easier to have multi-purpose buildings - like a mall which sets-up an ice-rink in winter. There are probably nightclubs and pubs which do less business in winter (due to lack of tourists) but it doesn't really bring an advantage to move these houses out of the town. Questionable if a nightclub would fit on rails anyway.
historically the organization most likely to reduce the freedom of individuals is [...]
The church, sorry. Corporations don't have a very long history yet, so that's probably not the best method of analysis.
I guess you misunderstood the example. I'll try to do better: you could e.g. pass a law to stop workers from being prevented to vote by their employers. Historically companies have sometimes been in a position to exercise extreme control of their employer's life. Imagine a small mining town where everything is owned by the mining company - employees need to buy at the company store, housing is only available in company accommodation etc. A bit like in many Chinese companies today. A company in such a position could easily control how their workers vote. (Not in China, that's unnecessary there.)
In the case of net neutrality you have corporations trying to exert control over freedom of expression on the internet and the government ought to stop that.
As for governments being more powerful than corporations... that's somewhat doubtful - by now some corporate funding is pretty much required to even run for election, and there are many other ways to bribe elected representatives as well - which corporations regularly do. On top of that - corporations are transnational by now - they are no longer easily controlled by governments.
How does regulating the company that provides you with access to the Internet differ from regulating the Internet?
In differs in the same way as: ensuring that all citizens have the opportunity to vote, versus forbidding certain groups of citizens to vote.
You guys in the US usually don't like to hear this, but large powerful organizations (though useful) have this tendency to reduce the freedom of individuals - it matters not in the slightest if that organization is a government, a corporation or a church.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't tell from the article itself, but apparently that's from the newspaper's archives and the piece was written in 2006. Here is basically the same story from a different paper: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/3340027/US-scientists-back-autism-link-to-MMR.html - this one has a time stamp.
Dr Stephen Walker seems not to have published on the issue. Five years later that probably means he didn't get any results worth publishing.
Well a recognizable grave from 9000 years ago was probably well build. If people put in effort to build the grave well they were probably well off. If they were well off, they could afford to put artifacts in those graves. Those artifacts might enable us to learn something about their culture, about their skills, about their beliefs.
It comes down to whether we care about knowledge of ancient cultures or not. Some of us do, others don't.
You are free to say anything you want, and free to feel the consequences.
How does this differ from not being free to say anything you want?
And that's a fair rationale... we need this cash to make the company better, and you the investor will hold a larger more valuable company as a result. However, that only works in the short / medium term... when that becomes a perpetual promise, then it never pays.
No, because of two points:
This second theoretical point is what makes it different from a Ponzi scheme which would never be able to do that. The second point also enables the first point - again that's where a Ponzi scheme would break down, as potential buyers would eventual realize that problem. The company stock is backed by the assets of the company, the Ponzi scheme is backed by investors not realizing there aren't any.
No more crappy consumer laptops with incredibly bad keyboards, super-glossy screens and mediocre battery life.
Well, an on-screen keyboard on a touch screen makes even the crappiest laptop-keyboard look good. And as far as glossy screens go ... at least the iPad is pretty horrible in that respect.
Well, that's a matter of definition then. A tablet with a keyboard and a stand for the screen - that has the same potential as a laptop, I'd agree with that. On the other hand - you could also call this a laptop.
And having several separate pieces isn't necessarily a gain in convenience. Maybe in the near future we'll see pads with slide-out keyboards - essentially convertible computers.
Hmmm - does this effectively abolish prior art? If I file a patent on what my competitor has been doing for years, then I'll get the patent award.
Sounds dangerous - everybody would have to file everything unless they want to be deprived of using their own ideas. It's a tax on innovation - no wonder Microsoft likes it.
Well it seems Apple gets their 30% cut for implementing the billing and subscription service as well as the content delivery. That's probably a sensible decision - rather than building such a system themselves they outsourced it to a company which has a lot of experience in that field. Also since Apple is paid by getting a cut, they pass part of the risk of the project to them.
The price point of 99 cent / week might be the right range as well. It's something you might spend just for the coolness of it - and it does look cool, though not revolutionary. Personally I just don't see myself buying an iPad or reading a Murdoch rag, though.
Tell you what, I'll tell them to go ahead---- And send the bill to you.
Cute - you want a public service, but payment should be provided only by those who admit that it's necessary. Just pretending you don't need it - but happily benefiting from it - means you get to leach of other people who are more honest. Is that the idea?
If the content is set to private, then it's sufficiently protected so that a court order should be required.
Obviously, when investigating criminal matters and with reasonable suspicion, the police have the right to investigate private communication as well. Just as they'd be able to get a search warrant to search a person's private papers. Normal evidence gathering rules should apply.
Isn't that par for the course? It seems a lot of standards are driven by a few big players who have a strong interest in it.
Scientists who see that should feel a moral obligation to point out what's happening. It's good to see that some do.
No, but it's a lot cheaper to find storage space for pictures which you may or may not look again instead of going through all of them and sort out the ones you will never look at again. (Of course "cheaper" in this case assumes that you assign some non-zero value to your time.)
They want a way to obsolete phones. Users might want to have a new Android version, and Motorola wants to be able to force a new sale. Maybe not every time, but whenever they choose to. That's also something ordinary users can understand, even though they might not care about installing some custom version of the OS: this phone may not be upgradable, a phone from another company would be.
Well, today the catholic church is quite clear on which gospels of the new testament belong to canon. That wasn't the case in the first 300 years of Christianity - there weren't any in the beginning, and then there was a period where you had quite a lot of them. Which of those should be believed was a matter of considerable debate. After those 300 years of changes, you could say the text became stable, that's true - that's a fair amount of change though.
Hmmm - could you get around this by selling a custom "Amazon version" of your app? Add some minor feature, have different logos, that kind of thing.
He shouldn't, but it's a ridiculously harsh sentence. Community service would have been appropriate. 366 days of prison? That would seem excessive even for a first time DUI conviction.
Shall we compare her to a summer's day?
Fair point. On the other hand, going head to head with the US is not the immediate goal. They want to be able to take Taiwan before the US even has a chance to intervene. The problem is that the US has this strange attitude towards Taiwan - on the one hand they feel obligated to defend Taiwan, on the other hand they don't even maintain an embassy there, much less a permanent military presence. With over 1500 missiles, anti-carrier weapons and a carrier on their own, China has the advantage. This buildup continues unhindered despite the current Taiwanese president's eagerness to appease China. If the US wants to actually stick to defending Taiwan they need to do something to counter that, failure to do that could well be interpreted as a sign that the US will do nothing. That interpretation could set of a war.
So you have a brilliant employee who is unhappy because he sees how things go wrong and is disempowered. If you really want to keep him, then maybe it would be better to cut down on micromanagement and enable employees to make decisions. Or you have someone whose abilities you are not using fully - well that could be seen as an opportunity rather than a problem.
He's right, that once the employee has shared his unhappiness with 50 friends he's not likely to change his mind anymore. You shouldn't let that happen in the first place - listen to complaints and fix problems. Having the mindset that any employee issue can only be dealt with as a personnel matter - that's a good way to create problem employees.
Sure you can put those houses on rails, but now you have tiny houses and no access roads. Or - as in the cartoon you mentioned - they'd have to essentially move the houses all the time in a loop - you get off somewhere and wait as your destination comes along. That would make for very slow access, since each time someone needs to get to the platform or into a house, the whole movement would have to stop. Also very expensive since the whole mass of the town needs to be moved over it's rail system.
Anyway, they really where thinking more along the lines of a winter/summer movement, having more hotels and shopping in town in summer and "indoor activities" (which?) and "climate shelters" (don't know what that means?) in winter. It seems easier to have multi-purpose buildings - like a mall which sets-up an ice-rink in winter. There are probably nightclubs and pubs which do less business in winter (due to lack of tourists) but it doesn't really bring an advantage to move these houses out of the town. Questionable if a nightclub would fit on rails anyway.
The church, sorry. Corporations don't have a very long history yet, so that's probably not the best method of analysis.
I guess you misunderstood the example. I'll try to do better: you could e.g. pass a law to stop workers from being prevented to vote by their employers. Historically companies have sometimes been in a position to exercise extreme control of their employer's life. Imagine a small mining town where everything is owned by the mining company - employees need to buy at the company store, housing is only available in company accommodation etc. A bit like in many Chinese companies today. A company in such a position could easily control how their workers vote. (Not in China, that's unnecessary there.)
In the case of net neutrality you have corporations trying to exert control over freedom of expression on the internet and the government ought to stop that.
As for governments being more powerful than corporations ... that's somewhat doubtful - by now some corporate funding is pretty much required to even run for election, and there are many other ways to bribe elected representatives as well - which corporations regularly do. On top of that - corporations are transnational by now - they are no longer easily controlled by governments.
In differs in the same way as: ensuring that all citizens have the opportunity to vote, versus forbidding certain groups of citizens to vote.
You guys in the US usually don't like to hear this, but large powerful organizations (though useful) have this tendency to reduce the freedom of individuals - it matters not in the slightest if that organization is a government, a corporation or a church.
Did you just propose to MonsterTrimble? Seems like this particular musical taste is very important to you.