It seems like everyone's just taking for granted that Firefox does indeed constitute a large percentage of Google's search traffic. Is there any evidence for this? It seems to me, if Google is paying Firefox $100M then the traffic they constitute is probably on the same order of magnitude (eg 100M/6B =~ 2%). (Or to be more exact, calculate what Google paid in the first year of the contract vs their revenue at the time.) . . . So to think that Bing could somehow gain 10% market share from some portion of this seems pretty off.
Garbage. Developers choose to have free sales in Apple's App Store all the time without someone "scamming" them. In fact, I've seen it work: I, and 2 friends, got one multi-player app (Uniwar) during a brief give-away. Later, as the 3 of us talked it up and our other friends saw us playing it, we got at least 4 other people to buy it full price. I'm pretty sure none of us would've heard about it (nor bought it if we had) if it hadn't been on some app give-away list that day. It's not about exposure on the day of the give-away, it's about the continued word-of-mouth exposure afterwards; that's how the vast majority of apps are advertised anyway.
This is a pretty inaccurate depiction of US debt. 1) There's really not that much newly-printed money used to pay off debt, nor is it a valid option, due to restrictions on how much the US can print. 2) The way we issue debt, we pay back any individual creditor in under 30 years (mostly under 10 years). 3) Over time, the US has demonstrated consistent growth, giving great fundamentals to back up the debt.
And of course the final line should be:
Creditor: Okay fine, we'll lend you more money because you're the best option we've got. In fact, we'll do it for even less than before . . . at nearly the lowest interest rate since WWII. Please take our money! You'd be a fool not to accept it at this rate.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
What if I don't want any credit? Then I am not to be trusted?
Pretty much. It's all about working your way up. Would you lend $1000 to a total stranger? I'm guessing not. Would you lend $1000 to someone you knew whom you had lent $100 several times in the past, who had paid you back in good standing? Much more likely.
This is what credit cards and credit scores are great for. The first card you ever get, when you have no score, you might only have a $1000 credit line, and you might have to put down a couple hundred dollars deposit against it. Over time, as you use it and pay it back appropriately, you can slowly raise your credit line, and build up a credit score which your bank and other banks can use to "know" you to some regard.
If you only ever pay in cash (other than being a bit shady in this day and age), no one can track whether or not you're credit-worthy. You can claim its better all you want, but there's no way for anyone else to have any idea that what you say is true. It's as simple as that.
Living debt-free is a great idea, but living credit-free is just stupid (in most cases).
It sounds interesting, but given their history I'm highly skeptical. I could see it improving things, but it all depends on two things.
a) How much and what information they're actually collecting (they didn't say):
The amount and nature of the information that will be sought was not disclosed.
I could easily imagine them requiring absurd amounts of information, such as full disclosure of banking accounts, family background information, etc., etc. Given that I'm sure they won't be trustworthy enough to store it safely, this could be a deal breaker for many (and have disastrous consequences when their database is hacked).
And b) What exactly this means:
Security experts have long expressed concern about so-called "clean skins" -- potential terrorists who enroll in "trusted traveler" programs to avoid scrutiny during a terror mission. But the TSA says it will continue to incorporate random and unpredictable security measures to address such concerns.
Random and unpredictable security measures even for "trusted travelers" sounds like it could make it not worth the effort. Furthermore, I can't imagine this program will last any longer than the first "close call" terrorist event where someone sneaks through using this program. So yeah . . . judgment reserved.
I should've read the preview more closely... Here's what the 2nd paragraph should say:
What about this situation, for example. Lets say you have some hard drive (drive1) with incriminating evidence on it. You encrypt it with key1, which you never look at, but store on a tiny drive. You then encrypt that drive with key2, which you store in plaintext on your computer. And then memorize the encrypted version of key1, and destroy the tiny drive it was stored on. They can get key2 by seizing your computer, but can they force you to divulge the encrypted version of key1? The bits you've memorized aren't technically the key to anything, and you don't actually know the key to drive1.
This makes me think of Godel Escher Bach. Is it perhaps unclear in this situation where the data actually lies? Is the entirety of the data in the encrypted drive and the key is just a trigger to bring it out? Or is there some actual content in some regards in the key itself?
What about this situation, for example. Lets say you have some hard drive (drive1) with incriminating evidence on it. You encrypt it with key1, which you never look at, but store on a tiny (
Or what about this. Lets say you choose an xor cipher as your encryption scheme. In this case, both the key and the encrypted data are equal-length random bits. Does it somehow matter which you store in your head, and which you keep on the computer? Or can the court force you to divulge either?
The key is not just a key in encryption, it is part of the data itself. The analogy to a physical key is flawed.
Treasury bonds have a fixed interest rate so dumping will not affect the interest rates on existing bonds.
Yes, our obligations on existing bonds won't be affected. However, we have to roll something like $100 billion in bonds every week. That means that we pay back the principle and issue new debt to do so (we could still issue some amount of new debt within the debt ceiling since the old debt would be maturing). Obviously, for this new debt, we'd be feeling the effects of the dumping pretty hard. And we definitely don't have enough revenue to pay back every bit of existing debt right as it matures without issuing any new debt (weekly revenue is closer to $50 billion).
The US won't "default" no matter what happens. Enough tax money comes in every day to sustain the interest payments on the debt.
Under current treasury rates sure . . . But the moment the US has to start defaulting on its non-debt obligations (such as social security and medicare checks) in order to pay the debt, the rating agencies will downgrade us, which will force (by their own risk policies) hundreds of major financial institutions to dump treasuries, causing rates to skyrocket. It'll be less than a month before we don't make enough in revenue to roll our debt. That's all not to mention that once payments on social security and medicare stop, those people will stop spending the money they now don't have, which will send us into another recession, which will quickly drop our revenues.
Though I guess I agree that we won't technically default on our debt. Because as soon as the downgrade happens and our interest rates skyrocket, the debt limit increase will be pushed through congress so quick, there won't be time for any debate. But that'll be too late. The US's monetary reputation will be irreparably damaged, and interest rates will be that much higher for a long time for us.
But sure. We won't technically default, so Obama's wrong, right??
But viruses are already mostly immune to other viruses. Most (or all?) antivirals try to stop the virus from either entering or reproducing in the host cell; not to outright kill the virus If the virus itself doesn't use standard DNA/RNA replication, it's not going to be able to replicate in a normal host cell, so it would be pretty much harmless (unless you also had an organism that used that type of replication).
And a bacteria-like organism that uses a new type of replication, while it could be as deadly as any current bacteria, it's not going to be particularly more immune to antibacterial drugs, given that these don't usually work by interacting directly with the bacteria's RNA. (Nor do we ever, that I know of, send in viruses to attack bacteria . ..)
The real fear would be that they accidentally evolve a new bacteria that has all sorts of immunities to our various anti-bacterial drugs, regardless of its method of replication.
And there, we have our disconnect. I haven't failed to grasp the difference here - I simply prefer to take my pain up-front and get it over with, rather than drag it on forever.
This is like saying you'd rather fall off a 5-story building than roll down a 5-story high hill. Sure, you might get to the hospital sooner, but you might also be severely crippled.
If we really do need one particular company so much, why the hell have we let them remain private?
The problem is we have let such companies exist. With the repeal of Glass-Steagall, we've dismantled every protection put in place after the Great Depression. And totally failed to follow their example with new regulations to combat new issues. Given that, bailing out these companies was entirely necessary to avoid a much more massive dip in our economy.
And on the flip side, if we do start absorbing banks "too big to fail", such as F&F, we need to strip them of their corporate-charter-enforced "profit motive" ASAP. Because playing both sides of that fence leads to... Hmm, the last three years?
Yes, but this is pretty much what we've done with F&F. All the various loan-modification programs (of which there should be more) and rolling back their influence (by having a lower max loan size) in the markets, are all evidence of this. However, one thing to be clear, F&F were not really the major players in this crisis. They exasperated it, yes, but it was the private mortgage issuance that led the charge into subprime; and it was the firms that had too much non-F&F exposure (Bear and Lehman) that went under.
Bottom line is that we failed in our regulation of the financial industry in the past 50 years, and now we've had to pay for it. But there are ways to do this without falling off the building; it's not a zero-sum game.
Did you expect me to disagree with that? We ran a surplus under Clinton
No, just attempting to redirect the blame to where it appropriately belongs. My point is that the government is best used in extraordinary times like these to keep the economy running smoothly. And if we had a better budget in other times, we'd have no problem using this sort of support.
That, however, won't happen, because even the hardest-core fiscal-only Republicans would rather fiddle while Rome burns than admit Clinton did anything well (much less, that soon after their failed hero Reagan).
Or most telling of all, that the Federal Reserve did bail out AIG the same goddamned day Lehman's value dropped by 2/3rds?
Do you really not understand the difference between Lehman and AIG? Lehman's collapse hit the market hard due to fear (of more big bank failures to come); its actual impact on the financial system was relatively manageable. (Whether it was the right decision nonetheless is a separate issue.) AIG on the other hand had far too many outstanding obligations both broad and deep in the economy. If AIG were to have gone bankrupt, its effect would've be more than fear; it would have endangered the entire system. Many more major banks would have been teetering on the brink of collapse.
The same logic applies to the Fannie and Freddie bailouts you mentioned. They were far too entrenched to let go. You're comparing apples and oranges here. If you want apples to apples, start with why *Bear Stearns* was bailed out, but not Lehman. That's a far more relevant question (with plenty of good answers if you do some reading) than any of your conspiracy theories.
We The People got fucked
By the previous decade of tax cuts and wars, yes. If we had stuck with Clinton's budget, we would have had plenty of resources to deal with this crisis without causing the painful debt we currently have.
So, which financial institution do you work for?
Well, you obviously have no significant experience in finance, given your cursory understanding of it.
Quick question - Why did we bail out Goldman, but not Lehman?
Um, we didn't bail out Goldman. We forced them to take some TARP money so that the banks that needed it wouldn't look so desperate. And we bailed out AIG which was more a bailout of the banks that were selling Goldman insurance against AIG defaulting.
We didn't bail out Lehman for a variety of reasons, mostly due to stupidity, but also because we couldn't find a buyer for them at any price (unlike Bear Stearns). And there were some serious fiscal issues at that point as well.
You want to find out who has the real power, you look at who has the money. Simple as that.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems like everyone's just taking for granted that Firefox does indeed constitute a large percentage of Google's search traffic. Is there any evidence for this? It seems to me, if Google is paying Firefox $100M then the traffic they constitute is probably on the same order of magnitude (eg 100M/6B =~ 2%). (Or to be more exact, calculate what Google paid in the first year of the contract vs their revenue at the time.) . . . So to think that Bing could somehow gain 10% market share from some portion of this seems pretty off.
Garbage. Developers choose to have free sales in Apple's App Store all the time without someone "scamming" them. In fact, I've seen it work: I, and 2 friends, got one multi-player app (Uniwar) during a brief give-away. Later, as the 3 of us talked it up and our other friends saw us playing it, we got at least 4 other people to buy it full price. I'm pretty sure none of us would've heard about it (nor bought it if we had) if it hadn't been on some app give-away list that day. It's not about exposure on the day of the give-away, it's about the continued word-of-mouth exposure afterwards; that's how the vast majority of apps are advertised anyway.
This is a pretty inaccurate depiction of US debt. 1) There's really not that much newly-printed money used to pay off debt, nor is it a valid option, due to restrictions on how much the US can print. 2) The way we issue debt, we pay back any individual creditor in under 30 years (mostly under 10 years). 3) Over time, the US has demonstrated consistent growth, giving great fundamentals to back up the debt.
And of course the final line should be:
Creditor: Okay fine, we'll lend you more money because you're the best option we've got. In fact, we'll do it for even less than before . . . at nearly the lowest interest rate since WWII. Please take our money! You'd be a fool not to accept it at this rate.
What if I don't want any credit? Then I am not to be trusted?
Pretty much. It's all about working your way up. Would you lend $1000 to a total stranger? I'm guessing not. Would you lend $1000 to someone you knew whom you had lent $100 several times in the past, who had paid you back in good standing? Much more likely.
This is what credit cards and credit scores are great for. The first card you ever get, when you have no score, you might only have a $1000 credit line, and you might have to put down a couple hundred dollars deposit against it. Over time, as you use it and pay it back appropriately, you can slowly raise your credit line, and build up a credit score which your bank and other banks can use to "know" you to some regard.
If you only ever pay in cash (other than being a bit shady in this day and age), no one can track whether or not you're credit-worthy. You can claim its better all you want, but there's no way for anyone else to have any idea that what you say is true. It's as simple as that.
Living debt-free is a great idea, but living credit-free is just stupid (in most cases).
It sounds interesting, but given their history I'm highly skeptical. I could see it improving things, but it all depends on two things.
a) How much and what information they're actually collecting (they didn't say):
The amount and nature of the information that will be sought was not disclosed.
I could easily imagine them requiring absurd amounts of information, such as full disclosure of banking accounts, family background information, etc., etc. Given that I'm sure they won't be trustworthy enough to store it safely, this could be a deal breaker for many (and have disastrous consequences when their database is hacked).
And b) What exactly this means:
Security experts have long expressed concern about so-called "clean skins" -- potential terrorists who enroll in "trusted traveler" programs to avoid scrutiny during a terror mission. But the TSA says it will continue to incorporate random and unpredictable security measures to address such concerns.
Random and unpredictable security measures even for "trusted travelers" sounds like it could make it not worth the effort. Furthermore, I can't imagine this program will last any longer than the first "close call" terrorist event where someone sneaks through using this program. So yeah . . . judgment reserved.
I should've read the preview more closely... Here's what the 2nd paragraph should say:
What about this situation, for example. Lets say you have some hard drive (drive1) with incriminating evidence on it. You encrypt it with key1, which you never look at, but store on a tiny drive. You then encrypt that drive with key2, which you store in plaintext on your computer. And then memorize the encrypted version of key1, and destroy the tiny drive it was stored on. They can get key2 by seizing your computer, but can they force you to divulge the encrypted version of key1? The bits you've memorized aren't technically the key to anything, and you don't actually know the key to drive1.
This makes me think of Godel Escher Bach. Is it perhaps unclear in this situation where the data actually lies? Is the entirety of the data in the encrypted drive and the key is just a trigger to bring it out? Or is there some actual content in some regards in the key itself?
What about this situation, for example. Lets say you have some hard drive (drive1) with incriminating evidence on it. You encrypt it with key1, which you never look at, but store on a tiny (
Or what about this. Lets say you choose an xor cipher as your encryption scheme. In this case, both the key and the encrypted data are equal-length random bits. Does it somehow matter which you store in your head, and which you keep on the computer? Or can the court force you to divulge either?
The key is not just a key in encryption, it is part of the data itself. The analogy to a physical key is flawed.
Treasury bonds have a fixed interest rate so dumping will not affect the interest rates on existing bonds.
Yes, our obligations on existing bonds won't be affected. However, we have to roll something like $100 billion in bonds every week. That means that we pay back the principle and issue new debt to do so (we could still issue some amount of new debt within the debt ceiling since the old debt would be maturing). Obviously, for this new debt, we'd be feeling the effects of the dumping pretty hard. And we definitely don't have enough revenue to pay back every bit of existing debt right as it matures without issuing any new debt (weekly revenue is closer to $50 billion).
The US won't "default" no matter what happens. Enough tax money comes in every day to sustain the interest payments on the debt.
Under current treasury rates sure . . . But the moment the US has to start defaulting on its non-debt obligations (such as social security and medicare checks) in order to pay the debt, the rating agencies will downgrade us, which will force (by their own risk policies) hundreds of major financial institutions to dump treasuries, causing rates to skyrocket. It'll be less than a month before we don't make enough in revenue to roll our debt. That's all not to mention that once payments on social security and medicare stop, those people will stop spending the money they now don't have, which will send us into another recession, which will quickly drop our revenues.
Though I guess I agree that we won't technically default on our debt. Because as soon as the downgrade happens and our interest rates skyrocket, the debt limit increase will be pushed through congress so quick, there won't be time for any debate. But that'll be too late. The US's monetary reputation will be irreparably damaged, and interest rates will be that much higher for a long time for us.
But sure. We won't technically default, so Obama's wrong, right??
But viruses are already mostly immune to other viruses. Most (or all?) antivirals try to stop the virus from either entering or reproducing in the host cell; not to outright kill the virus If the virus itself doesn't use standard DNA/RNA replication, it's not going to be able to replicate in a normal host cell, so it would be pretty much harmless (unless you also had an organism that used that type of replication).
And a bacteria-like organism that uses a new type of replication, while it could be as deadly as any current bacteria, it's not going to be particularly more immune to antibacterial drugs, given that these don't usually work by interacting directly with the bacteria's RNA. (Nor do we ever, that I know of, send in viruses to attack bacteria . . .)
The real fear would be that they accidentally evolve a new bacteria that has all sorts of immunities to our various anti-bacterial drugs, regardless of its method of replication.
Then it's not an organism.
And there, we have our disconnect. I haven't failed to grasp the difference here - I simply prefer to take my pain up-front and get it over with, rather than drag it on forever.
This is like saying you'd rather fall off a 5-story building than roll down a 5-story high hill. Sure, you might get to the hospital sooner, but you might also be severely crippled.
If we really do need one particular company so much, why the hell have we let them remain private?
The problem is we have let such companies exist. With the repeal of Glass-Steagall, we've dismantled every protection put in place after the Great Depression. And totally failed to follow their example with new regulations to combat new issues. Given that, bailing out these companies was entirely necessary to avoid a much more massive dip in our economy.
And on the flip side, if we do start absorbing banks "too big to fail", such as F&F, we need to strip them of their corporate-charter-enforced "profit motive" ASAP. Because playing both sides of that fence leads to... Hmm, the last three years?
Yes, but this is pretty much what we've done with F&F. All the various loan-modification programs (of which there should be more) and rolling back their influence (by having a lower max loan size) in the markets, are all evidence of this. However, one thing to be clear, F&F were not really the major players in this crisis. They exasperated it, yes, but it was the private mortgage issuance that led the charge into subprime; and it was the firms that had too much non-F&F exposure (Bear and Lehman) that went under.
Bottom line is that we failed in our regulation of the financial industry in the past 50 years, and now we've had to pay for it. But there are ways to do this without falling off the building; it's not a zero-sum game.
Did you expect me to disagree with that? We ran a surplus under Clinton
No, just attempting to redirect the blame to where it appropriately belongs. My point is that the government is best used in extraordinary times like these to keep the economy running smoothly. And if we had a better budget in other times, we'd have no problem using this sort of support.
That, however, won't happen, because even the hardest-core fiscal-only Republicans would rather fiddle while Rome burns than admit Clinton did anything well (much less, that soon after their failed hero Reagan).
We're on the same page here, for sure.
Or most telling of all, that the Federal Reserve did bail out AIG the same goddamned day Lehman's value dropped by 2/3rds?
Do you really not understand the difference between Lehman and AIG? Lehman's collapse hit the market hard due to fear (of more big bank failures to come); its actual impact on the financial system was relatively manageable. (Whether it was the right decision nonetheless is a separate issue.) AIG on the other hand had far too many outstanding obligations both broad and deep in the economy. If AIG were to have gone bankrupt, its effect would've be more than fear; it would have endangered the entire system. Many more major banks would have been teetering on the brink of collapse.
The same logic applies to the Fannie and Freddie bailouts you mentioned. They were far too entrenched to let go. You're comparing apples and oranges here. If you want apples to apples, start with why *Bear Stearns* was bailed out, but not Lehman. That's a far more relevant question (with plenty of good answers if you do some reading) than any of your conspiracy theories.
We The People got fucked
By the previous decade of tax cuts and wars, yes. If we had stuck with Clinton's budget, we would have had plenty of resources to deal with this crisis without causing the painful debt we currently have.
So, which financial institution do you work for?
Well, you obviously have no significant experience in finance, given your cursory understanding of it.
Quick question - Why did we bail out Goldman, but not Lehman?
Um, we didn't bail out Goldman. We forced them to take some TARP money so that the banks that needed it wouldn't look so desperate. And we bailed out AIG which was more a bailout of the banks that were selling Goldman insurance against AIG defaulting. We didn't bail out Lehman for a variety of reasons, mostly due to stupidity, but also because we couldn't find a buyer for them at any price (unlike Bear Stearns). And there were some serious fiscal issues at that point as well.
You want to find out who has the real power, you look at who has the money. Simple as that.
While true, your example was poor.