It's a little surprising that a single group is so dominant in this area, actually, I wouldn't have expected it.
Well Taiwan accounts e.g. for over 80% of the world's laptop production (at least that's what they claim here - table in German only, but should be easy to read). So it would make sense that a lot of the industrial copying of software would be there, too.
You are right of course, but go easy on him it doesn't sound like he has a great life. Usually if a relationship fails it's not just one person's fault. However people change and nobody is able to predict with 100% accuracy how another person will develop over the course of their life. Some men do end up with wifes who exploit them and disrespect them and some women end up with husband who do the same and some people will just find that they can't be compatible with each other. If someone ends up in such a situation it wouldn't do any harm if they took an honest look at the mistakes they might have made - that doesn't automatically mean it's all their own fault though.
saying that it could potentially happen is a cop-out
He said something different though: "The Eee PC is expected to hit 3 and a half million in 2008. There's a single computer that's going to double this figure this year". It seems the cop-out is in the summary rather than in Hohndel's statement.
Well this works as long as you control the market. If you don't then a competitor can come along and sell a cure - they might not get as much as you would have made, but they can still make a good profit. That's why monopolies and cartels are such a big impediment to progress.
In my team we all have the option to work from home occassionally. I do it, and so do my colleagues - and I enjoy being able to have lunch with my wife, work undisturbed and all that. However I also know the other side: when most of us are in the office for some meeting or discussion and one person is not there. Conference calls always strike me as dramatically less efficient than face-to-face meetings: you don't get to read the other person's mood, you can't quickly sketch something on the whiteboard, you need to speak loudly so the conference phone picks up the signal, the other person is hard to understand, there is background noise from their kids or dog... Such conference calls always put a lot more stress on people than normal meetings do.
I think that lot of these problems could be overcome or reduced by investing in the proper tools: get better speaker phones, have better computing infrastructure with whiteboard software, have video conferencing etc. However the frustration which people feel when others are telecommuting is real, and it's not necessarily the office people's fault.
If containers of fluids are dangerous, why are they just thrown away next to the security lines?
Ok, let's assume that it was actually easier to make explosives from liquids rather than bringing them aboard inside chocolate bars. (Sounds absurd to me, but for the sake of argument lets accept it.) In this case - since the terrorists already know that their evil water bottles will be confiscated - they will not even attempt to bring them aboard. So the bottles thrown away will of course only contain water, however once you'd stop checking the terrorist would bring-in the exploding water bottles again.
So - it makes a little sense if you accept the premise.
I'm not quite sure - there are two cases described - one is about a Canadian (Sebastien Boucher) another about a guy called Michael Arnold on a flight from the Philippines. I didn't find anything about the latters nationality, but from the name it sounds like he might be American. Also the article states that The government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. If that's correct, the phrasing would include US citizens.
A big part of police work is to quickly process all the crimes commited by stupid people. There are plenty of crimes committed by intelligent people too, but you are in a better position to catch these if you can catch the stupid criminals with just a small amount of your resources.
That said - the point of us having a police force is for them to protect our rights, if we need to give up our rights for them to do their work, then they are useless.
Well in fairness: if the customs agent is asking: "do you have child pornography on your laptop" and you say "maybe", then they have a reason to search. (Both of these condition apply in the case discussed in the article.) So in this particular case, I can't find fault with their actions. However in general I think there should have to be a reasonable suspicion before they search a laptop.
What if you came from the US? I know that many Americans are ok with tourists to the US having no privacy rights, but what about US citizens - is it ok that a citizen loses his rights as soon as he encounters US borders? It seems the 4th amendment ought to protect you against "unreasonable searches and seizures". It's certainly reasonable to search a suitcase for illegal drugs, explosives or quantities of goods which exceed the import limits. All of these things are directly border-related. However is it reasonable to search a laptop at the border? Sure a laptop might contain illegal files, but that's always the case. So if it's reasonable to search for these at the border, it should be reasonable to search for these on all computers all of the time.
I don't know - I was working under the assumption that US patents are not allowed to be non-obvious. How did they manage to get this past the reviewer, I wonder?
MOST countries at that time though Iraq had WMDs of some sort...
Technically true - most countries thought there was a possibility that Iraq had a few "WMDs" - like a few chemical grenades and no useful delivery system, but they didn't think that these constituted a threat to anybody. Hussein had to accept inspections, the US controlled the air space, his economy was severely restricted. Most countries thought he was not a problem, and most countries were right about that, as we now know.
Saddam kept acting like he had something to hide.
Yep, he was a scumbag, as we all realize. He probably wasn't all that bright, either. Having said that, pointing to the non-cooperation of a known scumbag, after you've killed around 100000 people and wrecked an entire country's infrastructure is a rather lousy excuse.
Well it's kind of questionable if there is a bad guy on the top, relatively speaking. And I think it's relevant that in Nigeria's history the guy at the top has been taken out a few times already. As for solving all their problems - I'll have to agree, Slashdot might not be the prime venue for that... (Maybe one for interesting discussions, though?) However it's annoying that people so often advocate simple solutions to problems they don't care to make an effort to understand. I believe looking at the Wikipedia site would give a good idea just how complex Nigeria's problems are and really take extremely little effort. I'm ok with looking at this and saying "I have no glue how that could possibly be solved" sounds better to me than saying "let's just kill someone" or "let's just fuel armed conflict".
Uhm - what is supposed to be the white man's fault? The suggestion was made to kill the leader of Nigeria, and I blamed this kind of "facts don't matter" attitude on the US education system. As for the problems of Nigeria - I would still recommend that anyone making suggestions how to solve their problems, would invest at least the small amount of effort to read the wikipedia summary on their history.
The college market is a seller's market - they have the service that everybody wants, so they can raise the price until demand drops off. Since a lot depends on the name of the college it's difficult to compete. I agree with your description of the health care market - the market forces have been removed where it counts - you'd need to provide an incentive e.g. for the use of cheaper crutches. One of the problems is that once you've been run over by a car you are often not in a great negotiation position...
In this particular case though - if you are offering a box for $45, why shouldn't I offer a similar-featured box for $40 and get all the sales? Which mechanism would prevent that?
Doubt it, that's not how the market works. The seller is not interested where the buyer's money comes from. The buyer still wants to spend as little as possible, the seller still needs to compete against others who are willing to offer a lower price. The market will still work and drive down the price as a result. It gets interesting on the low end though: there is no benefit for the buyer to spend less than $40, and that could remove the incentive to drive the price down further than that. However the sellers will compete on features or come up with creative things like rebates or bundling the converter with "free" stuff.
I blame part of this on the US education system. There is a strong focus on teaching methods to acquire knowledge, rather than teaching actual knowledge. The basic idea behind this is sound, but it seems to have been taken to the extreme and lead to the widespread assumption that actual knowledge is of no import. Obviously you can not comment on the political situation of Nigeria without knowing anything at all about Nigeria. Have a look at wikipedia at least: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria#History .
Looks like taking out Abacha was a good thing for the country - but why would you think that killing Yar'Adua would be a good thing? To which people would you give weapons? Why would this not lead to another ethnic war? Why would this not turn into another Iraq or Lebanon? Why is something that worked in the US once in very specific circumstances the one-size-fits solution for every other country in very different circumstances?
I'm not sure how you want to support that notion. If you go to your boss and say "I'm going to quit unless I get a raise", or if you talk to a new company and say "I'm not going to work for you unless you give me $amount" - then you are negotiating.
I mean their personal negotiations. I don't strike when I negotiate my contracts...sigh
That's your personal choice - they made a different one.
[...] why should they get paid residuals every time the product of their work brings in income for their employers?
As an engineer I typically get a salary and stock options, in some companies I get a bonus, too. I guess it would be just as reasonable to get a higher salary and no bonus or stock options. But that's merely a contractual detail - it's open to negotiation, just as anything else. So why should the writers not get paid residuals in addition to a salary? If that's the way they want to get paid, they are free to negotiate for these conditions.
[...] they should have negotiated better [...] Do they need their hands held?
That's what they are doing just now: they are negotiating. Striking is just a part of the negotiation process. Apparently they don't need help with that.
Does anyone who actually supports these embargo laws ever really think they'll stop said country from getting what they want anyway?
This is not how an embargo is supposed to work - rather the idea is to hurt the targeted country economically. Of course you can not prevent the targeted country of getting their hands on things which are ubiquitous everywhere else. However you can prevent them from getting these goods in the numbers they want, and at the price they want. One of the areas in which this seems to work is in civilian aviation - at least the Iranians claim that their large numbers of crashes are a direct result of them not being able to obtain spare parts.
Compare this to import tariffs - wouldn't you agree that these have an effect on the price of certain goods in the market place, which in turn has an effect on both the importing and exporting country? Sure imposing tariffs also makes smuggling worthwile, but normally smuggling does not offset the effect of tariffs completely, and similarly it does not offset the effect of an embargo completely.
Also there have been historical examples where embargos have had a political effect - e.g. in South Africa, so it's untenable to say that they never work. They are nothing more than a political tool, though - they allow you to apply a certain amount of pressure that's all. If someone assumes they could solve any and all problems with that single tool, they'll be in for a surprise sooner or later.
This is just silly - please provide some data to backup your claims. If you have some information to share about the ecological benefits - that would be interesting for the discussion. Otherwise your claim deserves the same credit as any other unsupported conspiracy theory.
Slashdot Mirror
Well Taiwan accounts e.g. for over 80% of the world's laptop production (at least that's what they claim here - table in German only, but should be easy to read). So it would make sense that a lot of the industrial copying of software would be there, too.
You are right of course, but go easy on him it doesn't sound like he has a great life. Usually if a relationship fails it's not just one person's fault. However people change and nobody is able to predict with 100% accuracy how another person will develop over the course of their life. Some men do end up with wifes who exploit them and disrespect them and some women end up with husband who do the same and some people will just find that they can't be compatible with each other. If someone ends up in such a situation it wouldn't do any harm if they took an honest look at the mistakes they might have made - that doesn't automatically mean it's all their own fault though.
He said something different though: "The Eee PC is expected to hit 3 and a half million in 2008. There's a single computer that's going to double this figure this year". It seems the cop-out is in the summary rather than in Hohndel's statement.
Well this works as long as you control the market. If you don't then a competitor can come along and sell a cure - they might not get as much as you would have made, but they can still make a good profit. That's why monopolies and cartels are such a big impediment to progress.
The KKK would be a suitable example, I think.
I think that lot of these problems could be overcome or reduced by investing in the proper tools: get better speaker phones, have better computing infrastructure with whiteboard software, have video conferencing etc. However the frustration which people feel when others are telecommuting is real, and it's not necessarily the office people's fault.
Ok, let's assume that it was actually easier to make explosives from liquids rather than bringing them aboard inside chocolate bars. (Sounds absurd to me, but for the sake of argument lets accept it.) In this case - since the terrorists already know that their evil water bottles will be confiscated - they will not even attempt to bring them aboard. So the bottles thrown away will of course only contain water, however once you'd stop checking the terrorist would bring-in the exploding water bottles again.
So - it makes a little sense if you accept the premise.
I'm not quite sure - there are two cases described - one is about a Canadian (Sebastien Boucher) another about a guy called Michael Arnold on a flight from the Philippines. I didn't find anything about the latters nationality, but from the name it sounds like he might be American. Also the article states that The government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. If that's correct, the phrasing would include US citizens.
That said - the point of us having a police force is for them to protect our rights, if we need to give up our rights for them to do their work, then they are useless.
Well in fairness: if the customs agent is asking: "do you have child pornography on your laptop" and you say "maybe", then they have a reason to search. (Both of these condition apply in the case discussed in the article.) So in this particular case, I can't find fault with their actions. However in general I think there should have to be a reasonable suspicion before they search a laptop.
What if you came from the US? I know that many Americans are ok with tourists to the US having no privacy rights, but what about US citizens - is it ok that a citizen loses his rights as soon as he encounters US borders? It seems the 4th amendment ought to protect you against "unreasonable searches and seizures". It's certainly reasonable to search a suitcase for illegal drugs, explosives or quantities of goods which exceed the import limits. All of these things are directly border-related. However is it reasonable to search a laptop at the border? Sure a laptop might contain illegal files, but that's always the case. So if it's reasonable to search for these at the border, it should be reasonable to search for these on all computers all of the time.
I don't know - I was working under the assumption that US patents are not allowed to be non-obvious. How did they manage to get this past the reviewer, I wonder?
Technically true - most countries thought there was a possibility that Iraq had a few "WMDs" - like a few chemical grenades and no useful delivery system, but they didn't think that these constituted a threat to anybody. Hussein had to accept inspections, the US controlled the air space, his economy was severely restricted. Most countries thought he was not a problem, and most countries were right about that, as we now know.
Saddam kept acting like he had something to hide.
Yep, he was a scumbag, as we all realize. He probably wasn't all that bright, either. Having said that, pointing to the non-cooperation of a known scumbag, after you've killed around 100000 people and wrecked an entire country's infrastructure is a rather lousy excuse.
Well it's kind of questionable if there is a bad guy on the top, relatively speaking. And I think it's relevant that in Nigeria's history the guy at the top has been taken out a few times already. As for solving all their problems - I'll have to agree, Slashdot might not be the prime venue for that ... (Maybe one for interesting discussions, though?) However it's annoying that people so often advocate simple solutions to problems they don't care to make an effort to understand. I believe looking at the Wikipedia site would give a good idea just how complex Nigeria's problems are and really take extremely little effort. I'm ok with looking at this and saying "I have no glue how that could possibly be solved" sounds better to me than saying "let's just kill someone" or "let's just fuel armed conflict".
Uhm - what is supposed to be the white man's fault? The suggestion was made to kill the leader of Nigeria, and I blamed this kind of "facts don't matter" attitude on the US education system. As for the problems of Nigeria - I would still recommend that anyone making suggestions how to solve their problems, would invest at least the small amount of effort to read the wikipedia summary on their history.
In this particular case though - if you are offering a box for $45, why shouldn't I offer a similar-featured box for $40 and get all the sales? Which mechanism would prevent that?
Doubt it, that's not how the market works. The seller is not interested where the buyer's money comes from. The buyer still wants to spend as little as possible, the seller still needs to compete against others who are willing to offer a lower price. The market will still work and drive down the price as a result. It gets interesting on the low end though: there is no benefit for the buyer to spend less than $40, and that could remove the incentive to drive the price down further than that. However the sellers will compete on features or come up with creative things like rebates or bundling the converter with "free" stuff.
Looks like taking out Abacha was a good thing for the country - but why would you think that killing Yar'Adua would be a good thing? To which people would you give weapons? Why would this not lead to another ethnic war? Why would this not turn into another Iraq or Lebanon? Why is something that worked in the US once in very specific circumstances the one-size-fits solution for every other country in very different circumstances?
Most of the Eee PC versions seem to have a webcam, too: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/eee_pc_701
Does anyone actually use CapsLock for anything? It seems on a small unit like that, just removing the key would increase usability considerably.
I'm not sure how you want to support that notion. If you go to your boss and say "I'm going to quit unless I get a raise", or if you talk to a new company and say "I'm not going to work for you unless you give me $amount" - then you are negotiating.
I mean their personal negotiations. I don't strike when I negotiate my contracts...sigh
That's your personal choice - they made a different one.
As an engineer I typically get a salary and stock options, in some companies I get a bonus, too. I guess it would be just as reasonable to get a higher salary and no bonus or stock options. But that's merely a contractual detail - it's open to negotiation, just as anything else. So why should the writers not get paid residuals in addition to a salary? If that's the way they want to get paid, they are free to negotiate for these conditions.
That's what they are doing just now: they are negotiating. Striking is just a part of the negotiation process. Apparently they don't need help with that.
This is not how an embargo is supposed to work - rather the idea is to hurt the targeted country economically. Of course you can not prevent the targeted country of getting their hands on things which are ubiquitous everywhere else. However you can prevent them from getting these goods in the numbers they want, and at the price they want. One of the areas in which this seems to work is in civilian aviation - at least the Iranians claim that their large numbers of crashes are a direct result of them not being able to obtain spare parts.
Compare this to import tariffs - wouldn't you agree that these have an effect on the price of certain goods in the market place, which in turn has an effect on both the importing and exporting country? Sure imposing tariffs also makes smuggling worthwile, but normally smuggling does not offset the effect of tariffs completely, and similarly it does not offset the effect of an embargo completely.
Also there have been historical examples where embargos have had a political effect - e.g. in South Africa, so it's untenable to say that they never work. They are nothing more than a political tool, though - they allow you to apply a certain amount of pressure that's all. If someone assumes they could solve any and all problems with that single tool, they'll be in for a surprise sooner or later.
This is just silly - please provide some data to backup your claims. If you have some information to share about the ecological benefits - that would be interesting for the discussion. Otherwise your claim deserves the same credit as any other unsupported conspiracy theory.