If development for it is exactly the same as the PC, why develop games for this console?
PCs number in the hundreds of millions. Nobody in their right minds would develop a game exclusively for it - maybe a port after a PC release, but this will never be a primary platform.
The XBox is similar, although noteably different in one respect - Microsoft is a huge games publisher and owns quite a few development houses as well.
I predict a quick, merciless death due to the following reasons:
1) Lack of good, exclusive content results in lackluster hardware sales, which results in lack of good content...
2) There is another company trying the same approach. That company controls DirectX. Does anyone really think Microsoft will sit still while some upstart to beats down the XBox? Expect Microsoft to hit back. Their weapon of choice would be DirectX.
3) Lack of differentiation from PC, if most games are available on PC as well. XBox suffers in this regard also, although Microsoft has done an admirable job of making content exclusive. It remains to be seen how long they are willing to throw away money to support XBox; we all know that Halo would have made much more money had the PC version been released by now also.
Quote: "They certainly don't care that you are having a fight with your wife and calling your girlfriend to make arrangements to stay over tonight."
What if I were some fledging politician rapidly gaining popularity for my almost rabid support for privacy and constitutional rights, young enough to still be idealistic and uncompromised by lobbying?
Then my fight with the wife and subsequent visit to the girlfriend become quite relevant to The Powers That Be (TM).
Don't laugh, this is the kind of stuff the FBI dabbled in under Hoover.
Privacy is privacy. There must be checks and balances to ensure that powers are not abused. These checks now do not seem to be sufficient (or existent, in some cases).
There's a reason we call it "erosion" of rights. It's a slow, insidious process - but that doesn't make it any less threatening.
At the risk of sound trite, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
I'm quite surprised that they issued a warning to the phones in question.
Doesn't this defeat the purpose of eavesdropping?
As if terrorists would discuss their plans via mobile phones fully knowing that the FSB is listening.
This type of action doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than to: (1) send terrorists scrambling to other forms of communication (land lines, maybe?), (2) cause terrorists to delay their planning by a day, and (3) bring attention to the potential abuse and rile up privacy advocates everywhere.
None of the above seem to accomplish any worthwhile goals for the FSB.
Yes, in the hostage crisis case gain the ability to intercept terrorist communications while the crisis is in progress.
In this case, however, the attacks have already been concluded. Two suicide bombers have taken 14 others with them. I don't think the accomplices are going to be calling the bombers anytime soon.
Good question - problem is, everyone else is thinking the same thing.
So prices start to rise, with people purchasing stock at increasing prices up until dividend day. The rise should be to some extent reflective of the size of the dividend.
They take their dividend, then dump the stock. And the price falls, again to an extent reflective of the dividend that the stock no longer provides.
So basically you are taking your changes. You could make money on the dividend, and get screwed on the stock price.
This is now the most retarded comment I have ever read.
Your 2% rate of return argument makes no sense.
First of all, the rate of return if you liquidated Microsoft is negative (-80% or so).
This is because, when you cough up $25 for a share of Microsoft, you are only buying $5 in real assets (office chairs, cash, development computers, office buildings, etc.).
In fact, in almost any company you invest, you are paying more than the hard assets of the company. By your argument, no company is worth investing in. Of course this is not true.
When you buy Microsoft stock, the remaining $20 is an investment in business that mints cash. Your share gives you a claim to that cash that is churned out, year after year.
Therefore, whether or not Microsoft is a good investment depends on the profits Microsoft generates, and how much you are paying to lay claim to those profits.
This is the most retarded comment I have ever read.
A hypothetical company declares a dividend of $10/share. Said company's stock trades at $1/share. Even the proverbial fool sees a compelling opportunity there.
Therefore, you must admit at least that with some combination of numbers it is worth investing in companies that give dividends. Kessler's blanket criticism is hence just wrong.
Furthermore, the characterization that Microsoft is choosing not to reinvest in itself is also wrong.
Microsoft is a cash cow. They are very cash flow positive - i.e., they generate way more cash than is necessary to continue/grow operations. Hence, they can finance all of their expansion with profits, and still have boatloads of cash left over.
And now those leftover boatloads of cash which used to be sitting idle is now being given back to shareholders. What is wrong with that?
Finance theory dictates that when you can't reinvest profits at a higher rate of return than the market at large, those profits should be returned to shareholders.
And that is what they've decided to do.
Would you rather Microsoft blow the $40+ billion on spiffy new Aerons for every employee?
'Several' lines of code still in use...
on
Gnumeric Turns 5
·
· Score: 1
...for example, like
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
and even
}
at the end??
Not sure whether the choice of 'several' was just incompetence or failed sarcasm. Either way, it sure made my day:).
I hear the South Korean government getting reamed for keeping foreign companies from acquiring the company...but that's exactly what we do as well to protect UPS/FedEx.
In short, DHL is a small competitor to FedEx and UPS. DHL Airways is contracted by DHL to carry air freight for DHL. The German post office bought into DHL (which only owns 25% of DHL Airways), and now FedEx and UPS are trying to get DHL Airways shutdown in the US because that supposedly is 'foreign ownership'.
Of course, in the US, foreigners are not allowed to own more than 25% of our airlines.
Jumping ahead a bit, isn't the government bailout of airlines really the same thing? There is no question that airlines are the nastiest, most inefficient entities ever to develop on the planet Earth.
North and South Korea are hardly 'friends'. South Korea just doesn't want Bush the lone cowboy doing anything stupid to spark a war.
The 'warming up' is neccessitated by over a million North Koreans with guns right above the demilitarized zone.
In fact, Seoul is so close to the border that North Korean artillery can conceivably take the whole city down in a matter of days.
If I remember correctly, hundreds of thousands of pounds of shells can be delivered every single hour, should hostilities break out.
I would guess that South Koreans took notice of Israel/Palestine and realized that somebody's gotta take the first reconciliatory move and start sorting things out before things get nasty.
Doesn't matter how advanced and awesome something is if nobody ever uses it, nobody supports it anymore, and the common person has no clue where to even get it.
Re:Dear "environmentalist" NIMBYs everywhere,
on
A Mighty Wind
·
· Score: 1
Widening freeways does not always reduce congestion. In fact, in many cases it actually increases it.
The problem is called Braess' Paradox, and has been studied in detail.
...In other news, 86,400 humans died today from hunger, a rate of one per second.
Who gives a shit about ceta-whats? There are more than enough human problems to dedicate time and energy to, why do people concern themselves with this?
I posted before but it seems that this misconception is widespread enough to warrant additional explanation.
A WEAK DOLLAR IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY.
This is because most major American companies derive huge amounts of their profits from overseas (i.e., from exports). And when the dollar is weak, exports can be priced much more competitively.
For example, lets say Coke wants to price drinks sold in Japan at 1dollar each.
Ex1. Strong Dollar: Exchange rate is 100yen for 1dollar. Price of Coke in Japan will be 100yen.
Ex2. Weak Dollar: Exchange rate is 50yen for 1dollar. Price of Coke in Japan will be 50yen only!
In other words, with a weaker dollar, Coke can set lower prices will keeping its revenue (in dollars) the same. So this allows American firms to undercut prices and compete more effectively against foreign companies.
In addition, a weak dollar also inflates the amount of profits from operations in foreign countries.
For example, lets say Coke will make 100billion yen in profits in Japan.
Ex1. Strong Dollar: Exchange rate is 100yen for 1dollar. Coke will have made 1billion dollars in profit.
Ex2. Weak Dollar: Exchange rate is 50yen for 1dollar. Coke will have made 2billion dollars in profit!
So even though profits are stagnant at 100billion yen, Coke has still doubled its income. All because of a weak dollar.
To conclude, a weak dollar is NOT BAD.
In fact, a major concern right now is that if a weak dollar hurts the exports of other countries, they will try to devalue their own currencies.
Of course, currency values are all relative, so if Japan devalues the yen, and we still want a weak dollar, we have to devalue further, prompting them to do the same...and so on.
A gaining dollar is not good for the economy - it hurts exports.
This is because for American companies operating overseas, the weaker the dollar, the more dollars they can exchange for their foreign profits.
Because of the above, our companies are more competitive because they can set lower local prices overseas (in, say, yen) while still making the same amount of dollars.
In other words, a weak dollar helps our exports, a strong dollar does the opposite.
In fact, a major concern right now is that if a weak dollar hurts the exports of other countries, they will try to devalue their own currencies.
Of course, currency values are all relative, so if Japan devalues the yen, and we still want a weak dollar, we have to devalue further, prompting them to do the same...and so on.
Does greater number of patches indicate more buggy software? Or does it suggest a harder working support team?
Even discounting that, how do you arrive at a count? What if two related overflows are lumped and patched and distributed together?
Which begs the question - what defines a patch? One distinct instance of a problem? What if a patch isn't even security related? A user interface tweak?
So to conclude, patch counts can't convey any useful, actionable information. And besides, they're hard to come up with in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
What's the point?
If development for it is exactly the same as the PC, why develop games for this console?
PCs number in the hundreds of millions. Nobody in their right minds would develop a game exclusively for it - maybe a port after a PC release, but this will never be a primary platform.
The XBox is similar, although noteably different in one respect - Microsoft is a huge games publisher and owns quite a few development houses as well.
I predict a quick, merciless death due to the following reasons:
1) Lack of good, exclusive content results in lackluster hardware sales, which results in lack of good content...
2) There is another company trying the same approach. That company controls DirectX. Does anyone really think Microsoft will sit still while some upstart to beats down the XBox? Expect Microsoft to hit back. Their weapon of choice would be DirectX.
3) Lack of differentiation from PC, if most games are available on PC as well. XBox suffers in this regard also, although Microsoft has done an admirable job of making content exclusive. It remains to be seen how long they are willing to throw away money to support XBox; we all know that Halo would have made much more money had the PC version been released by now also.
Quote: "They certainly don't care that you are having a fight with your wife and calling your girlfriend to make arrangements to stay over tonight."
What if I were some fledging politician rapidly gaining popularity for my almost rabid support for privacy and constitutional rights, young enough to still be idealistic and uncompromised by lobbying?
Then my fight with the wife and subsequent visit to the girlfriend become quite relevant to The Powers That Be (TM).
Don't laugh, this is the kind of stuff the FBI dabbled in under Hoover.
Privacy is privacy. There must be checks and balances to ensure that powers are not abused. These checks now do not seem to be sufficient (or existent, in some cases).
There's a reason we call it "erosion" of rights. It's a slow, insidious process - but that doesn't make it any less threatening.
At the risk of sound trite, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
I'm quite surprised that they issued a warning to the phones in question.
Doesn't this defeat the purpose of eavesdropping?
As if terrorists would discuss their plans via mobile phones fully knowing that the FSB is listening.
This type of action doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than to: (1) send terrorists scrambling to other forms of communication (land lines, maybe?), (2) cause terrorists to delay their planning by a day, and (3) bring attention to the potential abuse and rile up privacy advocates everywhere.
None of the above seem to accomplish any worthwhile goals for the FSB.
Yes, in the hostage crisis case gain the ability to intercept terrorist communications while the crisis is in progress.
In this case, however, the attacks have already been concluded. Two suicide bombers have taken 14 others with them. I don't think the accomplices are going to be calling the bombers anytime soon.
He may be an outspoken lawyer and critic - so what?
Does anybody complain when Ralph Nader bitches about big business?
To dismiss an argument based solely on the person advocating it is a logical fallacy and nothing more than that.
Tell that to the six kids I know who failed out of Carnegie Mellon due to EverCrack.
One even skipped his finals...
No, a better way to pump up stock prices is just to go into the market and purchase them yourself, i.e. initiate a stock buyback.
This is returning money to shareholders via a dividend. In finance theory, the two are fundamentally different.
Good question - problem is, everyone else is thinking the same thing.
So prices start to rise, with people purchasing stock at increasing prices up until dividend day. The rise should be to some extent reflective of the size of the dividend.
They take their dividend, then dump the stock. And the price falls, again to an extent reflective of the dividend that the stock no longer provides.
So basically you are taking your changes. You could make money on the dividend, and get screwed on the stock price.
This is now the most retarded comment I have ever read.
Your 2% rate of return argument makes no sense.
First of all, the rate of return if you liquidated Microsoft is negative (-80% or so).
This is because, when you cough up $25 for a share of Microsoft, you are only buying $5 in real assets (office chairs, cash, development computers, office buildings, etc.).
In fact, in almost any company you invest, you are paying more than the hard assets of the company. By your argument, no company is worth investing in. Of course this is not true.
When you buy Microsoft stock, the remaining $20 is an investment in business that mints cash. Your share gives you a claim to that cash that is churned out, year after year.
Therefore, whether or not Microsoft is a good investment depends on the profits Microsoft generates, and how much you are paying to lay claim to those profits.
To claim otherwise is foolish.
This is the most retarded comment I have ever read.
A hypothetical company declares a dividend of $10/share. Said company's stock trades at $1/share. Even the proverbial fool sees a compelling opportunity there.
Therefore, you must admit at least that with some combination of numbers it is worth investing in companies that give dividends. Kessler's blanket criticism is hence just wrong.
Furthermore, the characterization that Microsoft is choosing not to reinvest in itself is also wrong.
Microsoft is a cash cow. They are very cash flow positive - i.e., they generate way more cash than is necessary to continue/grow operations. Hence, they can finance all of their expansion with profits, and still have boatloads of cash left over.
And now those leftover boatloads of cash which used to be sitting idle is now being given back to shareholders. What is wrong with that?
Finance theory dictates that when you can't reinvest profits at a higher rate of return than the market at large, those profits should be returned to shareholders.
And that is what they've decided to do.
Would you rather Microsoft blow the $40+ billion on spiffy new Aerons for every employee?
...for example, like
:).
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
and even
}
at the end??
Not sure whether the choice of 'several' was just incompetence or failed sarcasm. Either way, it sure made my day
I hear the South Korean government getting reamed for keeping foreign companies from acquiring the company...but that's exactly what we do as well to protect UPS/FedEx.
0 01 0126/aponline190119_000.htm
In short, DHL is a small competitor to FedEx and UPS. DHL Airways is contracted by DHL to carry air freight for DHL. The German post office bought into DHL (which only owns 25% of DHL Airways), and now FedEx and UPS are trying to get DHL Airways shutdown in the US because that supposedly is 'foreign ownership'.
Of course, in the US, foreigners are not allowed to own more than 25% of our airlines.
Jumping ahead a bit, isn't the government bailout of airlines really the same thing? There is no question that airlines are the nastiest, most inefficient entities ever to develop on the planet Earth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/2
One only need look to a current news article to see why:
1 .html)
= cnet).
Micron Sees Improved PC Demand, Even Though Dell Doesn't(http://biz.yahoo.com/tsp/030611/10093006_
Hmmm...which of the two companies mentioned has a better track record at the PC industry? Does Micron even make PCs anymore?
This Hynix dumping thing is really just a lame attempt to cover up some very stupid decisions on part of Micron.
When the Hynix acquisition didn't pan out, what did Micron do? Go and buy Toshiba's DRAM operation instead.
All this in 2001, during a time of falling prices (http://news.com.com/2100-1001-271208.html?legacy
Now they're saddled with overcapacity and lost something like $900million on sales of almost $2billion. Nobody to blame but themselves.
One only need look to a current news article to see why:
1 .html)
= cnet).
Micron Sees Improved PC Demand, Even Though Dell Doesn't(http://biz.yahoo.com/tsp/030611/10093006_
Hmmm...which of the two companies mentioned has a better track record at the PC industry? Does Micron even make PCs anymore?
This Hynix dumping thing is really just a lame attempt to cover up some very stupid decisions on part of Micron.
When the Hynix acquisition didn't pan out, what did Micron do? Go and buy Toshiba's DRAM operation instead.
All this in 2001, during a time of falling prices (http://news.com.com/2100-1001-271208.html?legacy
Now they're saddled with overcapacity and lost something like $900million on sales of almost $2billion. Nobody to blame but themselves.
This just shows that despite that the Bush adminsitration claims, they are simply not for free trade.
In addition to Vietnamese catfish (which has been beaten to death) and Canadian lumber, steel imports have been taxed too.
Guess whose Presidential re-election depends on steel-heavy states like Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania?
And now DRAM. Well, at least now he has the votes of all 18,700 employees of Micron.
North and South Korea are hardly 'friends'. South Korea just doesn't want Bush the lone cowboy doing anything stupid to spark a war.
The 'warming up' is neccessitated by over a million North Koreans with guns right above the demilitarized zone.
In fact, Seoul is so close to the border that North Korean artillery can conceivably take the whole city down in a matter of days.
If I remember correctly, hundreds of thousands of pounds of shells can be delivered every single hour, should hostilities break out.
I would guess that South Koreans took notice of Israel/Palestine and realized that somebody's gotta take the first reconciliatory move and start sorting things out before things get nasty.
You mention that the non-creditor shareholders have been screwed repeatedly and claim that to be part of Micron's "strong argument".
Please tell me how artificial tariffs in anyway help the shareholders?
Awesome! Do we get to slaughter civilians too?
It's about time we treated napalm as a real weapon in games.
So? BeOS is dead.
Doesn't matter how advanced and awesome something is if nobody ever uses it, nobody supports it anymore, and the common person has no clue where to even get it.
Widening freeways does not always reduce congestion. In fact, in many cases it actually increases it.
The problem is called Braess' Paradox, and has been studied in detail.
...In other news, 86,400 humans died today from hunger, a rate of one per second.
Who gives a shit about ceta-whats? There are more than enough human problems to dedicate time and energy to, why do people concern themselves with this?
I posted before but it seems that this misconception is widespread enough to warrant additional explanation.
A WEAK DOLLAR IS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY.
This is because most major American companies derive huge amounts of their profits from overseas (i.e., from exports). And when the dollar is weak, exports can be priced much more competitively.
For example, lets say Coke wants to price drinks sold in Japan at 1dollar each.
Ex1. Strong Dollar:
Exchange rate is 100yen for 1dollar.
Price of Coke in Japan will be 100yen.
Ex2. Weak Dollar:
Exchange rate is 50yen for 1dollar.
Price of Coke in Japan will be 50yen only!
In other words, with a weaker dollar, Coke can set lower prices will keeping its revenue (in dollars) the same. So this allows American firms to undercut prices and compete more effectively against foreign companies.
In addition, a weak dollar also inflates the amount of profits from operations in foreign countries.
For example, lets say Coke will make 100billion yen in profits in Japan.
Ex1. Strong Dollar:
Exchange rate is 100yen for 1dollar.
Coke will have made 1billion dollars in profit.
Ex2. Weak Dollar:
Exchange rate is 50yen for 1dollar.
Coke will have made 2billion dollars in profit!
So even though profits are stagnant at 100billion yen, Coke has still doubled its income. All because of a weak dollar.
To conclude, a weak dollar is NOT BAD.
In fact, a major concern right now is that if a weak dollar hurts the exports of other countries, they will try to devalue their own currencies.
Of course, currency values are all relative, so if Japan devalues the yen, and we still want a weak dollar, we have to devalue further, prompting them to do the same...and so on.
Things then spiral downward.
You are completely wrong.
A gaining dollar is not good for the economy - it hurts exports.
This is because for American companies operating overseas, the weaker the dollar, the more dollars they can exchange for their foreign profits.
Because of the above, our companies are more competitive because they can set lower local prices overseas (in, say, yen) while still making the same amount of dollars.
In other words, a weak dollar helps our exports, a strong dollar does the opposite.
In fact, a major concern right now is that if a weak dollar hurts the exports of other countries, they will try to devalue their own currencies.
Of course, currency values are all relative, so if Japan devalues the yen, and we still want a weak dollar, we have to devalue further, prompting them to do the same...and so on.
Things then spiral downward.
The real reason why MS can't get its act straight is simple: there are too many damn versions of its operating systems.
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/6205
Look under the vulnerable list...I spent 15 seconds holding down the space bar to scroll through them all.................
Must be a thousand separate products there.
So...lets see.
If Linux has all the win32 apps...is it not more usable for tasks?
If Linux supports all hardware, including those nasty winmodems, is it not more usable?
But patch counts mean nothing...
Does greater number of patches indicate more buggy software? Or does it suggest a harder working support team?
Even discounting that, how do you arrive at a count? What if two related overflows are lumped and patched and distributed together?
Which begs the question - what defines a patch? One distinct instance of a problem? What if a patch isn't even security related? A user interface tweak?
So to conclude, patch counts can't convey any useful, actionable information. And besides, they're hard to come up with in the first place.