It's been announced that the story will take place 30 years after the events in Jedi - there's a 6 year gap in the canon from 29 ABY to 35 ABY in which they can tell the 3 stories. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki...
The only major details that they have to look out for:
1) Chewie, Akbar, and Anakin Solo are dead 2) Luke and Mara / Leia and Han are married 3) Leia and Han have 2 kids and one dead kid
As long as he doesn't kill/revive/birth any established characters he can tell any story he wants and pay as much or as little attention to the events before and after that 6 year period as he wants.
The "sanitary regulated onesie living" was a reflection of the fact that they were on the flagship of a psudo-military vessel. Militaries around the world wear much stupider things in this day and age:
The civilians depicted did not dress in onesies, far from it - the costume design (especially in TOS) for the aliens/civilians was as varied and out there as it gets - again, it was a contrast of normalization (everyone dressing the same - a very 50s attitude) vs the creativity that is possible when you don't have the expectation of the norm (what the alien cultures provided)
In TNG they started to bring in more personality to the characters with Picard's anthropology, Riker's music, Worf's Klingon culture, etc and the sets "10 forward", the holodeck, etc without losing the ability to contrast. In DS9 they used the contrast to great effect - especially with what they did with Jake and Nog. Jake became less and less "federation-like" in his attitudes and dress as the story progressed while Nog made the opposite journey.
Throughout TOS/TNG/DS9 there were always very clear distinctions between "military" and non-military dress, attitudes, & culture for all the major races.
1) The franchise did need a swift kick, just not to the head (it had enough of that with Voyager/TNG movies/Enterprise).
2) Actually, Star Trek was the most expensive pilot in history and pushed the boundaries by having a black woman, a Russian, an Asian, etc. Those things were unheard of at the time. In the original pilot "Number One" was a female character - she was cut/replaced because she didn't test well with women oddly enough. As to the utopian nature of Star Trek it was intentional. Roddenberry wanted a world that had moved past racism/nationalism/war/social ills. The reason for this was two fold, one was that it allowed them to explore social issues in a non-threatening manner. Two, that the aliens/situations could represent aspects of humanity as they were in the 50s/60s contrasted against a utopian ideal.
3) The science grounds the story. Even if the science is just theory and in the end is proven to be false, the strength of scifi is that these things that are and might be possible. It's that grounding that inspires and brings scifi above just another special effects mind numbing waste of time. Star Trek is far from perfect in that regard, there's a lot of stuff that's bogus/wrong, but there's also a lot that was based on actual science and some that became reality http://www.nasa.gov/topics/tec...
Give me all the mind blowing special effects you want, so long as common sense/logic/basic intelligence are respected along with a solid story being told. I don't expect the next revelation in film - just something that has more intelligence than Love Guru.
Writing a good story that does not break canon does not require explaining/rehashing the other stories. It just requires that it takes place in or along side established events and does not directly contradict them. If you're telling a story based on events then it's not a story worth telling. Events are the backdrop for the story, which at it's core must be about something more (the heroes journey, emotion of some sort, growth/understanding, etc). If I remember correctly there are something like 6 basic stories which make up pretty much every story ever told - they're just set against different events. That was part of the problem with Eps 1/2/3 - they were about the events, the merchandising, and the effects - there was no emotional core to them.
Yes, lets put a bunch of icky nerds/geeks commenting on issues they had to make broad strokes about the fan base. Ad hominem at it's best.
I had no issues with the casting or the special effects, I didn't even have an issue with the lens flare. The story, the lack of science, the piss poor characterizations & character motivations, and the re-incarnated spirit of Jar-Jar http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net... those are things I took issue with.
Telling a story in a new way has nothing to do with canon. Sticking to canon is about continuity with the stories that have already been told, even if you're putting your on style on how it's told.
What he did with the Star Trek movies was moronic. I get wanting to reboot things, start telling a new story based on details of a universe - I often enjoy them. The problem with what he did was that it made no sense whatsoever. There were huge gaps in logic, huge plot holes, character logic issues, fundamental misunderstandings of the science/theory behind SCIENCE fiction, etc, etc. I could write a book on everything wrong with those movies without touching on any canon. The worst of it was that he broke what is at the heart of the franchise: that it's a story that attempts to envision what a utopian society might look like. He's not the first to do so in the franchise's history but he was one of the worst offenders. The reality is that you could change the names/uniforms/etc to just about anything and it wouldn't have mattered because other than the name and a few details they had nothing to do with what Star Trek is.
"Can Star Wars Episode VII Be Saved?" as always with these questions the answer is a resounding: NO.
gl4ss is 100% correct, Abrams is shit.
Directing: Star Trek? Butchered - how many close ups do you need!?! Mission Impossible? Butchered - was there anything remotely "mission imposible-esque" about that movie? Super 8? Super Stupid
Writer: Armageddon, Forever Young, Taking Care of Business, Felicity, Alias, Lost, Fringe: Not bad. The TV stuff not so much towards the end of their runs. Gone Fishin', Regarding Henry, Joy Ride, Mission Impossible 3, Lost Via Domus, Super 8, Undercovers: Complete SHIT.
Producer: Star Wars, Super 8, Mission Impossible 3/4, Cloverfield, Morning Glory, Joy Ride, Suburbans, Pallbearer: ALL SHIT.
In terms of movies, his success stems from 3 of his earliest films where he wrote/co-wrote the screenplay. The last of which came out 16 years ago. I have little to no hope for any of the Star Wars movies. What's worse is that this poser is going to be involved in the Half-Life/Portal movies too - another great franchise for him to ruin.
That sounds awesome. Did you ever snorkel/dive off the cut south of Winding Bay? Brutal currents but I saw more species there in an hour than the rest of the six months I spent there. The reefs south of Windermere Island, off Glenelg, were also pretty spectacular.
There are a mess of cables in the area, http://www.submarinecablemap.c... and I suppose they could but by "right by the bahamas" you're actually talking 1,000-2,000km of cable (depending on whether you went to Jamaica or directly to Caracas). The Bahamas largest project is around 3,500km which hooks up 20 islands and Haiti. Adding an extra 1/3rd to the length/cost just to avoid the US? Political/tourist implications aside, from a financial perspective it doesn't make sense. You have to remember that outside of Nassau/Freeport it's very much a 3rd world country - last I was there the entire island would lose power at least once every couple weeks.
First off, the incident took place prior to 2007 when the Army was supplying the many of aircraft for the DEA to use in the operations there. Prior to 2007 the DEA only had 3 Jayhawks and 1 other helicopter for it's OPBAT operations, everything else was supplied by the Army.
This is the helicopter I saw: http://www.forthoodsentinel.co... - in this configuration. Armaments were not equipped though. It's rather hard to mistake the thin/relatively small profile of an Apache compared to the Blackhawks.
As to the nature of the mission, I cannot say exactly what they were doing that day, all I know is that they were flying below the tree line directly over the beach, facing in-land and strafing north. For all I know they were cruising for boobs. I suspect though, knowing the local geography/topography, that because of the density of the forest/jungle they were trying to see under the canopy as much as possible to identify grow ops that were not visible via satellite. This would be particularly effective in Eleuthera because the island is one long strip for the most part with very little change in elevation. Between the density of the bush and the number of poison wood trees, grows would likely need to be near a road - in the area where I was when I saw it there is only 1 road, right near the beach for about a 30km stretch http://goo.gl/maps/FSM9G
As if a country like the Bahamas can do anything like that. The US is the only country they could hook into for internet infrastructure without running a cable to South America or Mexico.
The US also flies unmarked helos in Bahamas airspace - the DEA would do low level flights up and down the island of Eleuthera looking for crops and attempting to follow drug mules. The mules would drop the drugs off on the south end of the island, transfer from boat to a truck, drive up to the north end of the island and dump them on another boat to get around satellite surveillance. It's scary seeing an unmarked Apache 30 feet off the deck fly over as you're laying on the beach.
Lets say you're a toothbrush seller - you get an order for 5,000 toothbrushes, you fill the order and get paid within 90 days at most. Yes, there's a chance that people will buy another company's toothbrushes and that is a risk in any business. But the risk is fairly low comparatively and if you don't get the order you don't manufacture those brushes. The risk that you don't get paid for one shipment is also fairly low and won't sink the business overall due to the loss of one sale because they make thousands of sales.
A lawyer on the other hand, once they accept a case the money outlay starts right away (technically before they even accept the case). Typically, it's a 1-2 year turn around time minimum, if the case doesn't go to trial or get held up further. If the case settles for less than expected (ie: the opposition lowballs and the person takes it because they can't afford to hold out for what they actually deserve... happens all the time in med mal), the lawyer may lose money on it. That or the person does hold out and instead of getting paid in 1-2 years the lawyer is looking at 7-10 years before they get paid in some cases (assuming they win).
Lets assume a lawyer can close 25 cases in a year (that's on the high end), that's $120,000 per case just to break even. Now, that would be so bad if it was as simple as "close 3 cases in a month and expenses are covered with a tidy profit"... except that if you don't plan properly or things go awry you may have a 6 or a 9 month period without closing/earning on any cases. Banks aren't going to extend $1.50-2.25 million line of credit on $5 million in revenue because that revenue isn't guaranteed it's speculative. That means the lawyer has to pony up their personal money to keep the business afloat long enough to get some money coming in.
Lawyers do well for themselves but very few will have that kind of money laying around just in case of a bad stretch. I've seen them go to family/sell their home/etc to make payroll one year and be able to buy a home and cottage the next.
The factory that makes toothbrushes will have a baseline for their sales every quarter - it'll fluctuate a little but there's little risk of people not buying toothbrushes. That said, you're not making much sense because in your analogy the lawyer would be equivalent to the executives who are making the millions. The junior law clerk getting paid 35k/year isn't much better off than the factory worker.
That kind of lawyer might deal in real estate law or family law. When you get into the bigger cases (med mal, corporate, class actions, etc) you'll easily get up to 15 underlings per partner and 2-5 per non-partner lawyer.
Someone I know in the publishing industry, has 2 BAHs and a publishing certificate, has been doing internships for nearly 2 years. Typically, they're 3 months, full time, and either no pay or $500-$2,000 honourarium.
Coming out of school with $60k in debt, the pay not covering rent/food let alone loan repayments - there's no "fun" money there. These internships are supposed to have an "educational" element - they are not meant as a way to curb the cost of training an employee or as a buffer against employee turn over. You want people to stay, treat them well, promote them if possible, pay them properly.
I've seen this person exploited in every way from filling out passport applications for her boss to working from home, "part time" (aka 40+ hours a week), in multiple departments for over a year at a single company - not a lick of training. This person got a test for an actual part time job with them, they said they'd provide training once they were hired, filled it out and never heard back from them (despite continuing to intern for them). No honourarium, no job, no pay, not even a thank you but you're not right for the position. What can the person do though? No on the job experience (2-3 years minimum in that industry) on the resume means no interview for paid jobs.
It's standard operating procedure for many companies, exploit those who don't know better or don't have the connections to get a job offer. Claims are made that these companies can't survive without these interns but in reality if they can't survive without them then they don't deserve to be in business.
Everyone should know by now that the only people who get rich in ANY LEGAL actions are the lawyers.
Fixed that for you.
As someone who has intimate knowledge of a very successful law office (1000+/hour rates) the number of times they almost went bankrupt or had to risk their personal financial well being to support the business is crazy. The number of hours and stress level is beyond anything I'd consider putting myself through. At the end of the day they pull in a lot of money but one big case going sour at the wrong time can ruin them.
One problem most people don't consider is that these companies have dozens or hundreds of employees (depending on the size), most of them have to be skilled because one mistake can derail a case; that means high pay for quality employees. Then you've got the issue of delays - many cases can drag on for years, even decades, which means you've got to plan your revenue stream based on best guess of if/when cases will pay out and how much they'll bring in. All the while the employees, rent, taxes, loans, etc. need to be paid - a medium sized firm (15-30 people) can have up to $250,000 in costs/month. That's a lot of money for such an uncertain business model.
Have you looked at job postings lately? Slave labour (aka internships) positions are available but many, I would even venture to say most, entry level positions are asking for 2-3 or 3-5 years experience required. This is how they make it look like there's a labour shortage so they can get the cheap foreign labour in the country - jack up the requirements, don't interview anyone who applies, then whine to the government that there's no one to hire.
If Google drops the ball, Microsoft will pick it up for the default search revenue. Mozilla also doesn't need the 300m/y for a public interest browser - they've got more products and experiments than you can shake a stick at and they're expanding into the mobile OS market which will likely result in tablet/pc market as well. They could pull back or eliminate duplication.
Why they need 11 offices globally is beyond me as well. Close down/consolidate the Vancouver, Portland, Auckland, Taipei, London, and Paris offices then open one in India and Brazil.
Peak oil is not a hoax - it's mathematical fact. It'll happen at some point as the resources of this world are not limitless. Rising cost/barrel means some sources which are not financially viable become viable (as happened with the oil sands in Alberta). Fracturing will generate a lot of production in the short term but they are not long term sources.
While we have not hit peak oil, we have hit peak oil per capita (back in 1979).
Slashdot Mirror
He was the producer and director on both films - he had the ability to change the script or even get a re-write.
It's been announced that the story will take place 30 years after the events in Jedi - there's a 6 year gap in the canon from 29 ABY to 35 ABY in which they can tell the 3 stories. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki...
The only major details that they have to look out for:
1) Chewie, Akbar, and Anakin Solo are dead
2) Luke and Mara / Leia and Han are married
3) Leia and Han have 2 kids and one dead kid
As long as he doesn't kill/revive/birth any established characters he can tell any story he wants and pay as much or as little attention to the events before and after that 6 year period as he wants.
The "sanitary regulated onesie living" was a reflection of the fact that they were on the flagship of a psudo-military vessel. Militaries around the world wear much stupider things in this day and age:
http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpima...
http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpima...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... --I'd take a Star Trek onsie over this any day
The civilians depicted did not dress in onesies, far from it - the costume design (especially in TOS) for the aliens/civilians was as varied and out there as it gets - again, it was a contrast of normalization (everyone dressing the same - a very 50s attitude) vs the creativity that is possible when you don't have the expectation of the norm (what the alien cultures provided)
In TNG they started to bring in more personality to the characters with Picard's anthropology, Riker's music, Worf's Klingon culture, etc and the sets "10 forward", the holodeck, etc without losing the ability to contrast. In DS9 they used the contrast to great effect - especially with what they did with Jake and Nog. Jake became less and less "federation-like" in his attitudes and dress as the story progressed while Nog made the opposite journey.
Throughout TOS/TNG/DS9 there were always very clear distinctions between "military" and non-military dress, attitudes, & culture for all the major races.
1) The franchise did need a swift kick, just not to the head (it had enough of that with Voyager/TNG movies/Enterprise).
2) Actually, Star Trek was the most expensive pilot in history and pushed the boundaries by having a black woman, a Russian, an Asian, etc. Those things were unheard of at the time. In the original pilot "Number One" was a female character - she was cut/replaced because she didn't test well with women oddly enough. As to the utopian nature of Star Trek it was intentional. Roddenberry wanted a world that had moved past racism/nationalism/war/social ills. The reason for this was two fold, one was that it allowed them to explore social issues in a non-threatening manner. Two, that the aliens/situations could represent aspects of humanity as they were in the 50s/60s contrasted against a utopian ideal.
3) The science grounds the story. Even if the science is just theory and in the end is proven to be false, the strength of scifi is that these things that are and might be possible. It's that grounding that inspires and brings scifi above just another special effects mind numbing waste of time. Star Trek is far from perfect in that regard, there's a lot of stuff that's bogus/wrong, but there's also a lot that was based on actual science and some that became reality http://www.nasa.gov/topics/tec...
Give me all the mind blowing special effects you want, so long as common sense/logic/basic intelligence are respected along with a solid story being told. I don't expect the next revelation in film - just something that has more intelligence than Love Guru.
Writing a good story that does not break canon does not require explaining/rehashing the other stories. It just requires that it takes place in or along side established events and does not directly contradict them. If you're telling a story based on events then it's not a story worth telling. Events are the backdrop for the story, which at it's core must be about something more (the heroes journey, emotion of some sort, growth/understanding, etc). If I remember correctly there are something like 6 basic stories which make up pretty much every story ever told - they're just set against different events. That was part of the problem with Eps 1/2/3 - they were about the events, the merchandising, and the effects - there was no emotional core to them.
Yes, lets put a bunch of icky nerds/geeks commenting on issues they had to make broad strokes about the fan base. Ad hominem at it's best.
I had no issues with the casting or the special effects, I didn't even have an issue with the lens flare. The story, the lack of science, the piss poor characterizations & character motivations, and the re-incarnated spirit of Jar-Jar http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net... those are things I took issue with.
Just a taste of why it was a future fiction story and not a science fiction story: http://trekmovie.com/2009/05/0...
Telling a story in a new way has nothing to do with canon. Sticking to canon is about continuity with the stories that have already been told, even if you're putting your on style on how it's told.
What he did with the Star Trek movies was moronic. I get wanting to reboot things, start telling a new story based on details of a universe - I often enjoy them. The problem with what he did was that it made no sense whatsoever. There were huge gaps in logic, huge plot holes, character logic issues, fundamental misunderstandings of the science/theory behind SCIENCE fiction, etc, etc. I could write a book on everything wrong with those movies without touching on any canon. The worst of it was that he broke what is at the heart of the franchise: that it's a story that attempts to envision what a utopian society might look like. He's not the first to do so in the franchise's history but he was one of the worst offenders. The reality is that you could change the names/uniforms/etc to just about anything and it wouldn't have mattered because other than the name and a few details they had nothing to do with what Star Trek is.
"Can Star Wars Episode VII Be Saved?" as always with these questions the answer is a resounding: NO.
gl4ss is 100% correct, Abrams is shit.
Directing:
Star Trek? Butchered - how many close ups do you need!?!
Mission Impossible? Butchered - was there anything remotely "mission imposible-esque" about that movie?
Super 8? Super Stupid
Writer:
Armageddon, Forever Young, Taking Care of Business, Felicity, Alias, Lost, Fringe: Not bad. The TV stuff not so much towards the end of their runs.
Gone Fishin', Regarding Henry, Joy Ride, Mission Impossible 3, Lost Via Domus, Super 8, Undercovers: Complete SHIT.
Producer:
Star Wars, Super 8, Mission Impossible 3/4, Cloverfield, Morning Glory, Joy Ride, Suburbans, Pallbearer: ALL SHIT.
In terms of movies, his success stems from 3 of his earliest films where he wrote/co-wrote the screenplay. The last of which came out 16 years ago. I have little to no hope for any of the Star Wars movies. What's worse is that this poser is going to be involved in the Half-Life/Portal movies too - another great franchise for him to ruin.
That sounds awesome. Did you ever snorkel/dive off the cut south of Winding Bay? Brutal currents but I saw more species there in an hour than the rest of the six months I spent there. The reefs south of Windermere Island, off Glenelg, were also pretty spectacular.
There are a mess of cables in the area, http://www.submarinecablemap.c... and I suppose they could but by "right by the bahamas" you're actually talking 1,000-2,000km of cable (depending on whether you went to Jamaica or directly to Caracas). The Bahamas largest project is around 3,500km which hooks up 20 islands and Haiti. Adding an extra 1/3rd to the length/cost just to avoid the US? Political/tourist implications aside, from a financial perspective it doesn't make sense. You have to remember that outside of Nassau/Freeport it's very much a 3rd world country - last I was there the entire island would lose power at least once every couple weeks.
First off, the incident took place prior to 2007 when the Army was supplying the many of aircraft for the DEA to use in the operations there. Prior to 2007 the DEA only had 3 Jayhawks and 1 other helicopter for it's OPBAT operations, everything else was supplied by the Army.
This is the helicopter I saw: http://www.forthoodsentinel.co... - in this configuration. Armaments were not equipped though. It's rather hard to mistake the thin/relatively small profile of an Apache compared to the Blackhawks.
As to the nature of the mission, I cannot say exactly what they were doing that day, all I know is that they were flying below the tree line directly over the beach, facing in-land and strafing north. For all I know they were cruising for boobs. I suspect though, knowing the local geography/topography, that because of the density of the forest/jungle they were trying to see under the canopy as much as possible to identify grow ops that were not visible via satellite. This would be particularly effective in Eleuthera because the island is one long strip for the most part with very little change in elevation. Between the density of the bush and the number of poison wood trees, grows would likely need to be near a road - in the area where I was when I saw it there is only 1 road, right near the beach for about a 30km stretch http://goo.gl/maps/FSM9G
As if a country like the Bahamas can do anything like that. The US is the only country they could hook into for internet infrastructure without running a cable to South America or Mexico.
The US also flies unmarked helos in Bahamas airspace - the DEA would do low level flights up and down the island of Eleuthera looking for crops and attempting to follow drug mules. The mules would drop the drugs off on the south end of the island, transfer from boat to a truck, drive up to the north end of the island and dump them on another boat to get around satellite surveillance. It's scary seeing an unmarked Apache 30 feet off the deck fly over as you're laying on the beach.
No, it's not analogous.
Lets say you're a toothbrush seller - you get an order for 5,000 toothbrushes, you fill the order and get paid within 90 days at most. Yes, there's a chance that people will buy another company's toothbrushes and that is a risk in any business. But the risk is fairly low comparatively and if you don't get the order you don't manufacture those brushes. The risk that you don't get paid for one shipment is also fairly low and won't sink the business overall due to the loss of one sale because they make thousands of sales.
A lawyer on the other hand, once they accept a case the money outlay starts right away (technically before they even accept the case). Typically, it's a 1-2 year turn around time minimum, if the case doesn't go to trial or get held up further. If the case settles for less than expected (ie: the opposition lowballs and the person takes it because they can't afford to hold out for what they actually deserve... happens all the time in med mal), the lawyer may lose money on it. That or the person does hold out and instead of getting paid in 1-2 years the lawyer is looking at 7-10 years before they get paid in some cases (assuming they win).
Lets assume a lawyer can close 25 cases in a year (that's on the high end), that's $120,000 per case just to break even. Now, that would be so bad if it was as simple as "close 3 cases in a month and expenses are covered with a tidy profit"... except that if you don't plan properly or things go awry you may have a 6 or a 9 month period without closing/earning on any cases. Banks aren't going to extend $1.50-2.25 million line of credit on $5 million in revenue because that revenue isn't guaranteed it's speculative. That means the lawyer has to pony up their personal money to keep the business afloat long enough to get some money coming in.
Lawyers do well for themselves but very few will have that kind of money laying around just in case of a bad stretch. I've seen them go to family/sell their home/etc to make payroll one year and be able to buy a home and cottage the next.
The factory that makes toothbrushes will have a baseline for their sales every quarter - it'll fluctuate a little but there's little risk of people not buying toothbrushes. That said, you're not making much sense because in your analogy the lawyer would be equivalent to the executives who are making the millions. The junior law clerk getting paid 35k/year isn't much better off than the factory worker.
That kind of lawyer might deal in real estate law or family law. When you get into the bigger cases (med mal, corporate, class actions, etc) you'll easily get up to 15 underlings per partner and 2-5 per non-partner lawyer.
I'd like to live in a country like that - here it's 55% internships out of post-secondary education.
Someone I know in the publishing industry, has 2 BAHs and a publishing certificate, has been doing internships for nearly 2 years. Typically, they're 3 months, full time, and either no pay or $500-$2,000 honourarium.
Coming out of school with $60k in debt, the pay not covering rent/food let alone loan repayments - there's no "fun" money there. These internships are supposed to have an "educational" element - they are not meant as a way to curb the cost of training an employee or as a buffer against employee turn over. You want people to stay, treat them well, promote them if possible, pay them properly.
I've seen this person exploited in every way from filling out passport applications for her boss to working from home, "part time" (aka 40+ hours a week), in multiple departments for over a year at a single company - not a lick of training. This person got a test for an actual part time job with them, they said they'd provide training once they were hired, filled it out and never heard back from them (despite continuing to intern for them). No honourarium, no job, no pay, not even a thank you but you're not right for the position. What can the person do though? No on the job experience (2-3 years minimum in that industry) on the resume means no interview for paid jobs.
It's standard operating procedure for many companies, exploit those who don't know better or don't have the connections to get a job offer. Claims are made that these companies can't survive without these interns but in reality if they can't survive without them then they don't deserve to be in business.
Everyone should know by now that the only people who get rich in ANY LEGAL actions are the lawyers.
Fixed that for you.
As someone who has intimate knowledge of a very successful law office (1000+/hour rates) the number of times they almost went bankrupt or had to risk their personal financial well being to support the business is crazy. The number of hours and stress level is beyond anything I'd consider putting myself through. At the end of the day they pull in a lot of money but one big case going sour at the wrong time can ruin them.
One problem most people don't consider is that these companies have dozens or hundreds of employees (depending on the size), most of them have to be skilled because one mistake can derail a case; that means high pay for quality employees. Then you've got the issue of delays - many cases can drag on for years, even decades, which means you've got to plan your revenue stream based on best guess of if/when cases will pay out and how much they'll bring in. All the while the employees, rent, taxes, loans, etc. need to be paid - a medium sized firm (15-30 people) can have up to $250,000 in costs/month. That's a lot of money for such an uncertain business model.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://dictionary.reference.co...
http://www.thefreedictionary.c...
You were saying?
Have you looked at job postings lately? Slave labour (aka internships) positions are available but many, I would even venture to say most, entry level positions are asking for 2-3 or 3-5 years experience required. This is how they make it look like there's a labour shortage so they can get the cheap foreign labour in the country - jack up the requirements, don't interview anyone who applies, then whine to the government that there's no one to hire.
If Google drops the ball, Microsoft will pick it up for the default search revenue. Mozilla also doesn't need the 300m/y for a public interest browser - they've got more products and experiments than you can shake a stick at and they're expanding into the mobile OS market which will likely result in tablet/pc market as well. They could pull back or eliminate duplication.
Why they need 11 offices globally is beyond me as well. Close down/consolidate the Vancouver, Portland, Auckland, Taipei, London, and Paris offices then open one in India and Brazil.
Peak oil is not a hoax - it's mathematical fact. It'll happen at some point as the resources of this world are not limitless. Rising cost/barrel means some sources which are not financially viable become viable (as happened with the oil sands in Alberta). Fracturing will generate a lot of production in the short term but they are not long term sources.
While we have not hit peak oil, we have hit peak oil per capita (back in 1979).
Almost 7 times as much.
But when will we finally get an update for the update of the update to the update?
When they start supporting Windows 8 - I'm still waiting for it to happen.