The latter shouldn't be a problem if the software company knows what they're doing.
Really? If you get paid to deliver to specifications, but the specifications are poorly defined, not defined, or keep changing, how do you intend to meet your deliverable?
We all like to point fingers at the contractor, but this is more than likely a case of:
City: We know we asked for A, and you are almost done and the contract is out of funds, but now we want B.
Vendor: OK, but it will cost $X more and take two years.
City: OK, we will add $X and a couple of years to the contract.
A couple of years later...
City: We know we asked for B, and you are almost done and the contract is out of funds, but now we want C.
Vendor: OK, but it will cost $y more and take two years.
City: OK, we will add $y and a couple of years to the contract.
rinse, lather, repeat
Project is late and over budget. Damn contractors.
This is what happens when you privatize an important function of government.
Nothing was privatized. The government hired a private contractor to do the job. This is how the vast majority of government projects are completed.
I wonder how much of the federal budget deficit has ended up in the pockets of private contractors who overran costs and then didn't perform up to expectations.
It depends on how you define overruns. Many government contracts are for projects that are large and complex to the point they cannot be completely defined before the work starts. If the government issues a contract with clauses to cover cost escalations, agrees to the cost escalations, and pays for the escalations, is it not the vendor's fault.
Bloomberg should be suing his contracting managers. I'm quite sure SAIC did not bill a dime until they had a contract to bill against.
If you know that Samsung produces about 40% of the DRAM supply, certainly between the report you have and Google you can determine that Hynix supplies ~20%, Elpida ~16%, Micron ~11%, and so on. It shouldn't be too hard to use the same resources to determine that Toshiba and Micron/Intel are the other big players in NAND.
It is unlikely anything will be at the drop of a hat. Apple knows what they intend to do, and will already have alternate source contracts set up when they let Samsung know.
It also shouldn't be too hard to figure out that Apple changing vendors does not materially impact the supply of DRAM and NAND, but just shifts the buckets of who supplies who. There may be some short term price volatility on the spot market as large contracts reorganize, but it will not be a cataclysmic end of the universe for us all.
I believe they sign contracts to lock in capacity, but I find it hard to believe any cash actually changes hand before the parts are delivered. To be correct, the sentence should read "One of the strategic advantages of Apple's cash pile is that manufacturers believe you can pay when the time comes to deliver the large portion of their capacity they ran for you".
I could very well be wrong, but pre-payment does not fit any Apple MO I have seen.
It is very unlikely Apple pre-pays anything. It is very likely the contract has enough escape clauses that Apple does not need to take anything if the mood strikes them.
Great idea, except since the trajectory of the debris is difficult to predict, your "oh crap" button might just push you directly into the object's path instead of away from it.
Or maybe rocket scientists are completely oblivious to all the easy answers pontificated by armchair astronauts that know absolutely nothing about flying space stations.
Instead of setting up the rules such that I have to opt out of every stupid scheme someone sets up, reverse the situation such that I must opt in if I feel there is benefit.
The AMA is just as evil as the pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
And the government is worse than them both.
Regardless of the benefits, try telling that to someone who's been denied health coverage because of a "pre-exisitng" condition and who makes too much money for Medicaid and is too young for Medicare. Hmmmm?
The government that you are looking to for solutions has already screwed up the situation. You do know that Medicaid and Medicare are government programs, right?
Or tell that to someone who, even though they had plenty of insurance, gets wiped out by doctors balance billing for services or docs who insist on using out of network docs in their practice:
I'm sure government sponsored healthcare will never have any holes and no one will have any ugly surprises. Refer back to your whole Medicare and Medicaid story.
You have to understand that these folks are doing their jobs not because they want to, but because the alternative is much worse - unemployment, starvation, homelessness, etc.
Bullshit. The TSA employees act like jackasses because you give the otherwise unemployable power over those they detest such as high-level jobs that require travel or those that are flying away to vacations.
the TSA crew got the full support of the organization
Is that because they were doing such a stellar job, or because the head of the TSA is playing down a potential hornet's nest? Your boss can claim you are not an ass all day, but that doesn't mean you are not an ass.
Wrong. The shoe bomber and the underwear bomber both made it through government approved security. They were both effectively dealt with by their fellow passengers.
The best defense is a populace that has not been convinced to act like sheep.
To a large degree we are debating apples and oranges. You claim familiarity with software patents, and I am most familiar with "tangible thing" patents. However, the argument is thrown about that the "patent system" is broken, when it does work for a great many.
That sentence is a nightmare and I think I understand what you are trying to ask, considering that you're basically asking me why something didn't exist...before it existed.
I did write the sentence poorly as a demonstration of the poor logic I was paraphrasing, which you continued to expand upon. One of the tests of securing a patent is the obviousness of the invention. If obvious, it is not patentable. However, you argue that almost everything is obvious IF someone has the knowledge/skill and IF they think to identify the problem and IF they choose to solve the problem, concluding they will identify the same invention. Yeah, great, but they did not, so it is indeed not obvious. The invention is almost always obvious after someone does it.
someone else just happened by chance to be faced with that problem first, why should they have the right to prevent someone who comes up with the same solution completely independently, from using the same solution?
Because they did it first. If you build your house in a prime location, should I get to come live in it without paying any construction costs or rent just because I would have built a similar house there if I would have found the property first?
ridiculous
Indeed
Patent trolls suck. I am all for patent reform. But do not hamper innovators in an attempt to kill the trolls.
I pay my local power company for delivery, not for generation.
Apparently you don't understand how this works.
Just because the majority of US households are powered by fossil fuels doesn't mean yours has to be as well.
Not really. Since the generation capacity of alternative sources is far below the demand, I could choose to buy "green" electricity, but it would simply be the case of moving my fossil consumption into someone else's bucket.
I'm not interested in a shell game. If you want to get away from fossil fuels, build nuclear plants and wind farms, turn off your lights, and walk to work.
Slashdot Mirror
The latter shouldn't be a problem if the software company knows what they're doing.
Really? If you get paid to deliver to specifications, but the specifications are poorly defined, not defined, or keep changing, how do you intend to meet your deliverable?
We all like to point fingers at the contractor, but this is more than likely a case of:
City: We know we asked for A, and you are almost done and the contract is out of funds, but now we want B.
Vendor: OK, but it will cost $X more and take two years.
City: OK, we will add $X and a couple of years to the contract.
A couple of years later...
City: We know we asked for B, and you are almost done and the contract is out of funds, but now we want C.
Vendor: OK, but it will cost $y more and take two years.
City: OK, we will add $y and a couple of years to the contract.
rinse, lather, repeat
Project is late and over budget. Damn contractors.
This is what happens when you privatize an important function of government.
Nothing was privatized. The government hired a private contractor to do the job. This is how the vast majority of government projects are completed.
I wonder how much of the federal budget deficit has ended up in the pockets of private contractors who overran costs and then didn't perform up to expectations.
It depends on how you define overruns. Many government contracts are for projects that are large and complex to the point they cannot be completely defined before the work starts. If the government issues a contract with clauses to cover cost escalations, agrees to the cost escalations, and pays for the escalations, is it not the vendor's fault.
Bloomberg should be suing his contracting managers. I'm quite sure SAIC did not bill a dime until they had a contract to bill against.
Because large government programs always run on time and on budget.
Except it isn't an Apple product Fail.
If you know that Samsung produces about 40% of the DRAM supply, certainly between the report you have and Google you can determine that Hynix supplies ~20%, Elpida ~16%, Micron ~11%, and so on. It shouldn't be too hard to use the same resources to determine that Toshiba and Micron/Intel are the other big players in NAND.
It is unlikely anything will be at the drop of a hat. Apple knows what they intend to do, and will already have alternate source contracts set up when they let Samsung know.
It also shouldn't be too hard to figure out that Apple changing vendors does not materially impact the supply of DRAM and NAND, but just shifts the buckets of who supplies who. There may be some short term price volatility on the spot market as large contracts reorganize, but it will not be a cataclysmic end of the universe for us all.
I believe they sign contracts to lock in capacity, but I find it hard to believe any cash actually changes hand before the parts are delivered. To be correct, the sentence should read "One of the strategic advantages of Apple's cash pile is that manufacturers believe you can pay when the time comes to deliver the large portion of their capacity they ran for you".
I could very well be wrong, but pre-payment does not fit any Apple MO I have seen.
NAND and DRAM are commodities. Apple has other options. Very large customers are harder to come by.
Apple played their hand aggressively, but not necessarily "dumb".
It is very unlikely Apple pre-pays anything. It is very likely the contract has enough escape clauses that Apple does not need to take anything if the mood strikes them.
Great idea, except since the trajectory of the debris is difficult to predict, your "oh crap" button might just push you directly into the object's path instead of away from it.
Or maybe rocket scientists are completely oblivious to all the easy answers pontificated by armchair astronauts that know absolutely nothing about flying space stations.
Instead of setting up the rules such that I have to opt out of every stupid scheme someone sets up, reverse the situation such that I must opt in if I feel there is benefit.
Oh yeah, that makes far too much sense.
The AMA is just as evil as the pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
And the government is worse than them both.
Regardless of the benefits, try telling that to someone who's been denied health coverage because of a "pre-exisitng" condition and who makes too much money for Medicaid and is too young for Medicare. Hmmmm?
The government that you are looking to for solutions has already screwed up the situation. You do know that Medicaid and Medicare are government programs, right?
Or tell that to someone who, even though they had plenty of insurance, gets wiped out by doctors balance billing for services or docs who insist on using out of network docs in their practice:
I'm sure government sponsored healthcare will never have any holes and no one will have any ugly surprises. Refer back to your whole Medicare and Medicaid story.
Yes, because the government getting involved in anything always makes it more efficient and affordable.
Good point.
The failure of the London experiment may keep entities in the U.S. from trying the same thing.
That depends on your definition of enforcement. Laws do not prevent anything. They only allow for punishment afterward.
And since those pesky murderers are still around, the police may have higher priorities than the illicit hamster operation down the street.
You have to understand that these folks are doing their jobs not because they want to, but because the alternative is much worse - unemployment, starvation, homelessness, etc.
Bullshit. The TSA employees act like jackasses because you give the otherwise unemployable power over those they detest such as high-level jobs that require travel or those that are flying away to vacations.
the TSA crew got the full support of the organization
Is that because they were doing such a stellar job, or because the head of the TSA is playing down a potential hornet's nest? Your boss can claim you are not an ass all day, but that doesn't mean you are not an ass.
Power corrupts. Or maybe you haven't heard. Read up - here is an example: http://www.prisonexp.org/
Oh yeah, they "my superior told me to do it" defense.
Yes, I condemn the rank and file TSA employees. Once you start doing the stupid shit people ask you to do, you are stupid too.
Wrong. The shoe bomber and the underwear bomber both made it through government approved security. They were both effectively dealt with by their fellow passengers.
The best defense is a populace that has not been convinced to act like sheep.
Tell your boss he can find some flunky to do the flying, 'cause you're not doing it.
And there's the flaw. The seat was still filled.
You should switch to the Nokia phones running Windows Mobile.
Oh wait, I was thinking you wanted to migrate to the next phone manufacturer rapidly losing market share.
A related headline that may help explain the developer story.
Yeah, because your POTS and cell carriers have absolutely no way to listen in on your conversation.
That sentence is a nightmare and I think I understand what you are trying to ask, considering that you're basically asking me why something didn't exist...before it existed.
I did write the sentence poorly as a demonstration of the poor logic I was paraphrasing, which you continued to expand upon. One of the tests of securing a patent is the obviousness of the invention. If obvious, it is not patentable. However, you argue that almost everything is obvious IF someone has the knowledge/skill and IF they think to identify the problem and IF they choose to solve the problem, concluding they will identify the same invention. Yeah, great, but they did not, so it is indeed not obvious. The invention is almost always obvious after someone does it.
someone else just happened by chance to be faced with that problem first, why should they have the right to prevent someone who comes up with the same solution completely independently, from using the same solution?
Because they did it first. If you build your house in a prime location, should I get to come live in it without paying any construction costs or rent just because I would have built a similar house there if I would have found the property first?
ridiculous
Indeed
Patent trolls suck. I am all for patent reform. But do not hamper innovators in an attempt to kill the trolls.
I pay my local power company for delivery, not for generation.
Apparently you don't understand how this works.
Just because the majority of US households are powered by fossil fuels doesn't mean yours has to be as well.
Not really. Since the generation capacity of alternative sources is far below the demand, I could choose to buy "green" electricity, but it would simply be the case of moving my fossil consumption into someone else's bucket.
I'm not interested in a shell game. If you want to get away from fossil fuels, build nuclear plants and wind farms, turn off your lights, and walk to work.
You miss the point. The power for electric vehicles is still predominantly fossil fuel. You move the problem, but you don't eliminate it.