They did? According to the article, they are skeptical as to wether or not she will be defending TIA/CAPPS II anti-privacy agendas, just putting a PR spin on what the government says, or actually fighting for privacy (which is the least likely).
In fact, at her last job, she put a PR spin on new (yet intrusive) privacy policy, and worked to get it accepted by privacy groups. Nothing she did changed anything within the company for the better..
Promoting a product doesnt make it better. It only makes its value better. Same goes for privacy policy. Promoting it doesn't make it better, it just makes it easier to sell.
You are inherantly getting the wrong idea of the quote...
"One of the things we liked (about her job) at DoubleClick was that she worked hard to build relationships with the privacy community and to vet their new policies with these groups,"
The point of her job was to sell new (slightly less) invasive policy to privacy advocates. She did nothing to improve privacy within the company. She did damage control for predetermined policy decided upon by other people. Policy was forced upon the company by the courts. This has NOTHING TO DO with fighting for your privacy, and EVERYTHING TO DO with selling invasive and barely legal policy to the public.
According to the article, this is EXACTLY what she was hired to do for the government. In fact, near the end of the article, they explicitly state that she will likely be trying to sell potentially illegal government programs to congress for the bush administration.
She is effectively a lobbiest, hired by Bush appointed people, to sell illegal government programs like TIA and CAPPS II.
If you don't see anything wrong with this, I'd like to ask you wtf planet are you from? Now your tax dollars are going to a lobbiest that is trying to defend privacy policy that is illegal.
"Secondly, she helped clean up DoubleClick. She ran the division responsible for appeasing the privacy advocates/watchdogs/etc."
And you don't see 2 conflicting ideas in that statement?
Let me examine each part individually:
If by "clean up" DoubleClick you ment "clean up PR nightmares" for DoubleClick, then your statement is correct, but inconsistant with your first statement.
If by "clean up" DoubleClick you ment "cleane up DoubleClick for real", then your statement is contradictory, but at least consistant with your first statement. Too bad the final sentence goes agaisnt this
Either way, your entire post is contradictory.
This person either "cleaned up" doubleclick, or she cleaned up their PR nightmare. But your final sentence says her job was to appease the privacy advocates. Obviously, that has nothing to do with cleaning up sick and screwball policy of a company(that had already been ordered by the court to comply with FTC regulation). It has everything to do with reducing public outcry caused by this sick and screwball policy.
In other words, she ran the department that was in charge of doing damage control so privacy invasion wouldn't look as bad.
except for the fact that if you did read the article, and know the history of doubleclick and this woman, you would already know that she didn't clean up doubleclick. She brought their policy into bare minimal compliance with FTC (something the court had already ORDERED the company to do) and then spun it to the press.
This soman is in PR, not policy. There is nothing she did at doubleclick that helped any of you, except maybe made you feel better about getting assraped. Maybe she put some lube on the stick and used a smaller one so you didn't know you were getting assraped. That doesn't change the fact that you still got assraped.
She came in and changed policy to comply with FTC.
There is nothing else that she did. Nothing to fight for privacy. She did the bare minimum to get doubleclick compliant with FTC regulation, and then spun it like it was a fucking godsend. In other words, she whored her words to the public, and did exactly opposite (as much as legally possible) behind their back.
This is exactly what she will be doing for the department of homeland security. And in fact, the article explicitly mentions that she is going to have to "defend" programs introduced by Bush to congress as not being privacy intrusive.
So your telling me that she is going to help privacy for the public, but at the same time DEFEND a privacy intrusive program? Get Real. (and read the rest of the article)
Maybe you didn't read it. But since you didn't give any detailis against why your parent is incorrect, uninformed, etc.. then you look even stupider.
The facts are that a person from doubleclick, the worst privacy company in all of internet history, is being put in charge of privacy for the department of homeland security. In other words, someone who was brought into doubleclick to PR their customers into thinking privacy was improving significantly, is now the person who will try to PR the US population into thinking the homeland security database won't be used for privacy invasion.
No, I think it is YOU who didn't read the fucking article. Moron.
"Mom, Dad, I read on slashdot that I need to vote with my wallet. So I'm not going to go to this school we planed on. Now I will go to this other one that doesn't have insecure ID Cards... But, they don't have a scholarship for me there. Lets take out a $30,000 loan so I don't have to use this insecure ID Card that someone might use to steal 50 cents worth of soda out of the soda machine."
Assuming of course, if the rest of the country was enveloped in mass insanity, this might be normal. I am begining to see where you are coming from...
I'm sorry dude, your so far off its unbelieveable. Scholarships dont grow on trees. Hell, in my state they cut them all because of the recession. Sure, some schools will give out scholarships... if they have heard of you. If you were lucky enough to go to a decent high school, and have the opportunity to get a quality secondary education, then maybe you might get lucky with a private school scholarship.
Yea, you gotta work hard to get scholarships. That doesnt mean that everyone has a chance to get it. In fact, almost nobody has a chance to get them(especially of the caliber you speak of).
If everyone had a shot at a scholarship, then I would be agreeing with you right now. Sure, get good test scores, and good grades, be in a lot of clubs, do a lot of activities, be from a poor family. All these things aren't going to land you any good scholarships to an out of state school. They are going to get you maybe a choice between a couple in state schools, and possibly a regional private school. And a choice btween a couple to few different schools isn't going to get you into a school without these ID Card systems(assuming it is correct that they are in widespread use around the country). Students (generally speaking) can't vote with their dollar. That is my whole point of my post.
As it stands, there are very very very few scholarships, and everyone else has to foot their own bill. That is how education works in this country, and It isn't changing anytime soon.
"Also, education is a free market and you do have a choice in what university you attend."
What planet are YOU from? I guess the "I make 100,000/year and plan on paying for my child's education" planet.
I'll let you in on a little secret. Education is only a free market to a small minority of the United States population. We can't "always transfer..." we dont have a "choice in what university [we] attend." We attend the state university that is the best we can afford in the state in which we went to high school. We can't afford out of state tuition. We don't have rich parents willing to pay for our late night snacks we bought with our student ID. We get scholarships to attend school. We work full time jobs to attend school. This is America. Not the fantasy land you have been living in the past lifetime.
I don't have the.plan, but if you can find the old old archives from the Q3 days, he said he will continue to release Linux ports of his games, just not as retail packages...
So yes, the linux port will exist, and from what I remember, it will be released either simultaneously, or shortly after Doom III hits store shelves.
So what? It is a documentary. That has nothing to do with the fact that most of the problems this editorial rant had with the film was opinions and "slants" (read: different viewpoints)
The film isn't contradictory. It is shown from different views. There is an obvious turning point in the film when he talks to the canadians and finds out that they have plenty of guns as us Americans, but they don't kill eachother nearly as much. Different sides of the story do not a contradiction make.
About the "lies". Wow, there were two actual facts that were presented in the film that weren't actually true 100%. If that's all the factual problems this editorial is going to bring up, why even bother. I'm sure there are plenty of award winning documentaries that didn't tell the whole truth 100% either. Just like no science book has all the answers, and many times, the wrong answers.
Don't even get me started about how "only can the far left get away with such crap." LOL that was a good one!
The best part about your comment is that you are such a fucking idiot that you don't even realize it.
There is nothing in the movie to lie about. It is a viewpoint. The fact that you can't see that makes you even more of an idiot.
the website you point it is a right wing extremist that doesn't even give accurate critiques of the film. Insted, he tries to disprove each premise in the film by disagreeing with the opinions. This is ridiculous, and anybody with half a brain can see that this rant contains no new facts, and only old opinions.
If you haven't figured it out yet, opinions don't disprove other opinions, views, or facts. Ever.
"Firstly, the argument on politics is irrelevant as there are [some]democrats and [many]republicans in all my classes. Don't make yourself look even more stupid by denying basic economics and finance. Also, noone is an "expert" on the market. There are simply those of us who are more informed than others. And the parent poster was clearly an uninformed flamer. "
This is an argument about politics, read further to see why...
"I follow your reasoning, but it's really not relevant"
Ahh, but it is relevant to almost everyone. If people purchased stock to be owners of a company, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But in the real world, people purchase stock to risk their money and resell it later for profits, and expect their (larger, more important, greater investment)business partners to bend over backwards for their interests. They do this because thats the hot thing on the market, and its highly profitable, no matter who loses(as long as it isn't you, heh). This should be very relevant to you. My rebuttal to your main premise is what you consider irrelevant? So is it safe to assume your main premise in your origional post is also irrelevant? Maybe you need to think on this point some more...
"I can tell you what the "most important thing to a company is." It's to maximize shareholder wealth given some level of risk. PERIOD"
And here lies the answer to your politics.
You see, in the real world, a company is the officers, the board, the employees, and the company's assets. The stockholders are the employers/owners of said officers, board, employees, and assets. So what is the most important thing to the officers, the board, the employees, and the assets? Well, some might say it's to increase all of those things. Others say make profit. Others might say it is to gain marketshare. Others might think its about power. Still, others think its about making the world a better place for everyone, or a better place for the owner (Ex: non profit corporations), even more common, people will say it is to advance technology, or provide something that needs to be provided. Usually, it is a mixture of the above reasons.
My point is that you are missing the point. Selling stocks to the public is something that a company does to generate funding. Just like non-public companies get investment through more business partners. If that company wants to expand to something larger than they can afford (for reasons described above), they will open up to the public the ability for anybody to be a business partner(buy shares). Trading stocks to make profit because its hot on the market is SECONDARY TO ALL OF THIS. The fact that this is the most common reason for trading stocks (not on stock volume basis, but on stockholder numbers) does not change that it is SECONDARY, and not a primary concern of the people running the show (the company).
Companies are founded because the origional owners had an idea for a product or service that would be usefull. This is how technology advances in the real world. This is how people get jobs in the real world. And this is how people make money to put food on the table in the real world. As soon as you put profit as the number 1 priority in front of all of this, you are starting to miss the point of the whole fucking situation.
Corporations don't murder for profits, why not? Is it because its illegal, or because its greedy or immoral? If you answer the latter, then why is profit at all cost not immoral?
See, my point is that it IS a political debate. People like you approach the problem from a whole different perspective. One that is usually the least of the moral, and the most of the profitable.
I guess that is the difference between you and your party, and the rest of the world.
All this said, I offer a simple soluton to the problem. Maybe someone other than the business school should be teaching business majors ethics.
doubtful. Though I could be wrong, this has never even crossed the minds of most people that work on hardware...
On the mailing lists, most people will tell you this is the last thing anybody developing could care for.
What we need is a seamless API so you can write applications for any sound card. If available mixing channels are there, use them, if not, mix in software. Windows has had this functionality since forever. Linux has never, and probably will not have it in the near future.
When I asked these questions on artsd mailing lists, nobody was interested in this basic functionality. Their opinion is that everything should be mixed in software, and nothing in hardware, negating the use of modern sound cards.
ALSA's attitude is that there is no need, because software mixing should be done in userspace. So they just dont bother offering any kind of seamless integration, rather, they leave it as an exercise to the user.
If what you say is in fact true, maybe one day we can hope to get support for this on the application level. As it stands, most apps are written for artsd, ess, or OSS and nothing else.
Thought this was funny, both coming from you I might add:
"Umm...no. The company *does* owe you, personally, the value of your stock. Sorry, but that's just how capitalism works."
then later on, you try to correct someone else's statement, and then put your foot in your mouth:
"You're confusing bonds and stocks.
Bonds are loans with an obligation to pay back money.
Stocks are a certificate of ownership."
So which is it? are they obligated to pay you the value of the stock? Or not? You offer 2 conflicting views.
The facts are that no company owes you anything just because you own stock (except for dividends). Unless you have enough votes to turn a decision, the company doesn't, and shouldn't, give a thought about you.
Firstly, a business major does not a stock market expert make. Being a business major, you are inhearantly republican economics biased just because that is where all the republicans are. And your post has shown that your understanding of the stock market is from that perspective.
Secondly, Since joe stock owner doesn't own, or come close to owning, 51% of the stock, and the board members and officers do (in the real world), Your whole point about voting is mute (except in certain circumstances of companies that this is not the case, which is not as common and doesn't make up for a significant consideration on the discussion).
Thirdly, your parent wasn't talking about loans or bonds. He is talking about profit sharing.This is common practice in the stock market as I'm sure you are aware. While his argument isn't technically completely correct, the spirit of it is. His claim (if I read it correctly) is that unless you directly invested into the company (and aren't just transferring stocks from someone who transferred stocks from someone who transferred stocks..... from someone who invested originally, because it is the hot thing on the market) then the company has no reason to be greatful, or have any interest in helping you or people like you. You are forgetting that the purpose of selling stocks is to generate funding for corporations, not for hot head business majors wanting to profit from the volatile inflation and deflation rate of shares.
Finally, you make an interesting point:
"The initial IPO doesn't mean jack... Noone buys the stock "originally". That is done by an investment banker -- usually a firm that has set up the value of the company and takes a cut of the price before they RESELL it to investors. There is no human being on the planet that has stock that came directly from a company -- that would be illegal. The company gets its original funding from the investment banker -- period. After that, the stock is OWNERSHIP in the company "
While this is true, you have only described the details of the supporting facts that were made in the previous argument that you do not support. People who buy stock at the IPO are giving funding to the corporation in exchange for very very partial ownership. The corporation should be greatful that someone is helping the funding. If it wasn't for the people getting in on the IPO, the investment banker would have NEVER set the IPO up in the first place, knowing that it would be a shitty investment. The investment banker is a person or firm who acts as the middleman, just like a computer store acts like the middleman for Microsoft's products, just like B&N is a middleman for book publishers, just as walmart is a middleman for all sorts of companies. Obviously he cannot foot the bill on his own and keep all the stock (or he wouldn't be reselling it) so he is a re-seller of stock ownership, taking a cut as the middleman. Investment bankers don't do IPO's to keep ownership of the entire bundle of stock. They do it specifically to raise funds for the corporation by selling shares [for the company] on the stock market. If anything, a close approximation of an investment banker's role is a salesman, not an investor. Most risk on the investment banker's part is folded into his cut, and if the shares do not sell well, he doesn't pay as much to the company for them.
What you have described in your detailed analysis of how IPO's are carried out makes no difference in my origional argument, or your parent's argument. Thus, the origional arguments still stand. Your whole point just shows how fucking stupid business majors are about reality. (if you are going to generalize about what business majors know, then so will I) -------
FYI: and since you have shown you don't already know this, shareholders are not the most important thing in the world to a company. Their customers are. Just because YOU hold stock does not mean YOU are the most important asset to the company. If anything, you are a liability because of the attitude you ha
"How long before the shareholders demand that AMD leave a business that is throwing away their money (and always will) and concentrate on a business that actually makes money."
Shareholders invested in a microprocessor company that makes chips that compete with Intel Corp.'s chips. If they do not intend to sell microprocessors, they should not purchase stock in AMD.
I'm sorry, but if you own shares, you already agreed to foot the bill. If you don't like how they are running the show with your invested money, SELL YOUR FUCKING SHARES. So typical of shareholders nowadays to think that the board of a company owes you personally something because you bought 3rd hand stock equivilent to like.01% of their initial public funding. Unless you got in on the IPO, you are a liability to the company, not an investor.
The stock market is a gamble. If you lose your money, Tuff shit. It's not the board's job to make sure every.01% owner of their company that doesn't even have fucking voting rights is 100% satisfied with their decision. Let me clue you in on something... That is the LAST thing on their minds.
If you dont like the way they run shit, GO START YOUR OWN COMPANY AND RUN IT HOW YOU WANT IT. And stop bitching to slashdot that you are unhappy with the way the REAL owners that have REAL stakes in the company are running it. It's people like you that royally fuck up the way the stock market is run. [/rant]
It sure is, that is why there is a completely different named field, called computer science, that produces people plenty capable of doing just that, with a degree in science, not engineering.
I'm not trying to trash your choice of major in college, but "engineering majors" who think they are engineers just becuse they went to a school who called themselves an engineering school really have no room to talk when compared to other majors that teach the same stuff.
I'm sorry but taking a couple math classes and paying extra for tuition at your university does not an engineer make.
Depending on the university you go to, software engineering and computer science could be exactly the same thing, or completely different. In the end, there are probably more qualified BS/CS people out there than BS/CE.Just because there is a premium price on tuition at engineering colleges, doesn't mean your degree is worth more than anybody else's, especially when there exist non engineers more qualified to do the job in many cases.
On top of that, you aren't a real engineer unless you are a real PE, which I doubt you are considering you write software for a living. Engineering outside of Professional Engineering is just a name that can be applied to anybody doing design work in his/her field. Graduating from college doesn't make you any more an engineer than a homemaker.
That would be fraud through negligance. Which would hold less penalty, but is still illegal.
The law says you cannot sell the same product as 2 different products at different prices and claim one is better. Intel currently does this. All chip makers do this. The only difference is that there has been no lawsuit.
B&L could do the same thing. Test some of their lenses for "1 year" worth of wear and tear, and test the others for only "1 week" but if they come off the same exact manufacturing line (like intel cpu's, micron memory, AMD cpu's, everything similar) then it is fraudulent to sell one as a better product.
The only way around this would be to prove that every low clocked CPU sold has failed their higher clocked tests. Everybody knows that doesn't happen.
The difference between the B&L situation and the Intel situation is that nobody has taken Intel to court over it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Privacy groups actually like this choice"
They did? According to the article, they are skeptical as to wether or not she will be defending TIA/CAPPS II anti-privacy agendas, just putting a PR spin on what the government says, or actually fighting for privacy (which is the least likely).
In fact, at her last job, she put a PR spin on new (yet intrusive) privacy policy, and worked to get it accepted by privacy groups. Nothing she did changed anything within the company for the better..
Promoting a product doesnt make it better. It only makes its value better. Same goes for privacy policy. Promoting it doesn't make it better, it just makes it easier to sell.
You are inherantly getting the wrong idea of the quote...
"One of the things we liked (about her job) at DoubleClick was that she worked hard to build relationships with the privacy community and to vet their new policies with these groups,"
The point of her job was to sell new (slightly less) invasive policy to privacy advocates. She did nothing to improve privacy within the company. She did damage control for predetermined policy decided upon by other people. Policy was forced upon the company by the courts. This has NOTHING TO DO with fighting for your privacy, and EVERYTHING TO DO with selling invasive and barely legal policy to the public.
According to the article, this is EXACTLY what she was hired to do for the government. In fact, near the end of the article, they explicitly state that she will likely be trying to sell potentially illegal government programs to congress for the bush administration.
She is effectively a lobbiest, hired by Bush appointed people, to sell illegal government programs like TIA and CAPPS II.
If you don't see anything wrong with this, I'd like to ask you wtf planet are you from? Now your tax dollars are going to a lobbiest that is trying to defend privacy policy that is illegal.
"Secondly, she helped clean up DoubleClick. She ran the division responsible for appeasing the privacy advocates/watchdogs/etc."
And you don't see 2 conflicting ideas in that statement?
Let me examine each part individually:
If by "clean up" DoubleClick you ment "clean up PR nightmares" for DoubleClick, then your statement is correct, but inconsistant with your first statement.
If by "clean up" DoubleClick you ment "cleane up DoubleClick for real", then your statement is contradictory, but at least consistant with your first statement. Too bad the final sentence goes agaisnt this
Either way, your entire post is contradictory.
This person either "cleaned up" doubleclick, or she cleaned up their PR nightmare. But your final sentence says her job was to appease the privacy advocates. Obviously, that has nothing to do with cleaning up sick and screwball policy of a company(that had already been ordered by the court to comply with FTC regulation). It has everything to do with reducing public outcry caused by this sick and screwball policy.
In other words, she ran the department that was in charge of doing damage control so privacy invasion wouldn't look as bad.
except for the fact that if you did read the article, and know the history of doubleclick and this woman, you would already know that she didn't clean up doubleclick. She brought their policy into bare minimal compliance with FTC (something the court had already ORDERED the company to do) and then spun it to the press.
This soman is in PR, not policy. There is nothing she did at doubleclick that helped any of you, except maybe made you feel better about getting assraped. Maybe she put some lube on the stick and used a smaller one so you didn't know you were getting assraped. That doesn't change the fact that you still got assraped.
No, you are farther off then your parent.
She came in and cleaned up a PR nightmare.
She came in and changed policy to comply with FTC.
There is nothing else that she did. Nothing to fight for privacy. She did the bare minimum to get doubleclick compliant with FTC regulation, and then spun it like it was a fucking godsend. In other words, she whored her words to the public, and did exactly opposite (as much as legally possible) behind their back.
This is exactly what she will be doing for the department of homeland security. And in fact, the article explicitly mentions that she is going to have to "defend" programs introduced by Bush to congress as not being privacy intrusive.
So your telling me that she is going to help privacy for the public, but at the same time DEFEND a privacy intrusive program? Get Real. (and read the rest of the article)
Maybe you didn't read it. But since you didn't give any detailis against why your parent is incorrect, uninformed, etc.. then you look even stupider.
The facts are that a person from doubleclick, the worst privacy company in all of internet history, is being put in charge of privacy for the department of homeland security. In other words, someone who was brought into doubleclick to PR their customers into thinking privacy was improving significantly, is now the person who will try to PR the US population into thinking the homeland security database won't be used for privacy invasion.
No, I think it is YOU who didn't read the fucking article. Moron.
"Mom, Dad, I read on slashdot that I need to vote with my wallet. So I'm not going to go to this school we planed on. Now I will go to this other one that doesn't have insecure ID Cards... But, they don't have a scholarship for me there. Lets take out a $30,000 loan so I don't have to use this insecure ID Card that someone might use to steal 50 cents worth of soda out of the soda machine."
Assuming of course, if the rest of the country was enveloped in mass insanity, this might be normal. I am begining to see where you are coming from...
I'm sorry dude, your so far off its unbelieveable. Scholarships dont grow on trees. Hell, in my state they cut them all because of the recession. Sure, some schools will give out scholarships... if they have heard of you. If you were lucky enough to go to a decent high school, and have the opportunity to get a quality secondary education, then maybe you might get lucky with a private school scholarship.
Yea, you gotta work hard to get scholarships. That doesnt mean that everyone has a chance to get it. In fact, almost nobody has a chance to get them(especially of the caliber you speak of).
If everyone had a shot at a scholarship, then I would be agreeing with you right now. Sure, get good test scores, and good grades, be in a lot of clubs, do a lot of activities, be from a poor family. All these things aren't going to land you any good scholarships to an out of state school. They are going to get you maybe a choice between a couple in state schools, and possibly a regional private school. And a choice btween a couple to few different schools isn't going to get you into a school without these ID Card systems(assuming it is correct that they are in widespread use around the country). Students (generally speaking) can't vote with their dollar. That is my whole point of my post.
As it stands, there are very very very few scholarships, and everyone else has to foot their own bill. That is how education works in this country, and It isn't changing anytime soon.
"Also, education is a free market and you do have a choice in what university you attend."
What planet are YOU from? I guess the "I make 100,000/year and plan on paying for my child's education" planet.
I'll let you in on a little secret. Education is only a free market to a small minority of the United States population. We can't "always transfer..." we dont have a "choice in what university [we] attend." We attend the state university that is the best we can afford in the state in which we went to high school. We can't afford out of state tuition. We don't have rich parents willing to pay for our late night snacks we bought with our student ID. We get scholarships to attend school. We work full time jobs to attend school. This is America. Not the fantasy land you have been living in the past lifetime.
I don't have the .plan, but if you can find the old old archives from the Q3 days, he said he will continue to release Linux ports of his games, just not as retail packages...
So yes, the linux port will exist, and from what I remember, it will be released either simultaneously, or shortly after Doom III hits store shelves.
So what? It is a documentary. That has nothing to do with the fact that most of the problems this editorial rant had with the film was opinions and "slants" (read: different viewpoints)
The film isn't contradictory. It is shown from different views. There is an obvious turning point in the film when he talks to the canadians and finds out that they have plenty of guns as us Americans, but they don't kill eachother nearly as much. Different sides of the story do not a contradiction make.
About the "lies". Wow, there were two actual facts that were presented in the film that weren't actually true 100%. If that's all the factual problems this editorial is going to bring up, why even bother. I'm sure there are plenty of award winning documentaries that didn't tell the whole truth 100% either. Just like no science book has all the answers, and many times, the wrong answers.
Don't even get me started about how "only can the far left get away with such crap." LOL that was a good one!
LOL,
The best part about your comment is that you are such a fucking idiot that you don't even realize it.
There is nothing in the movie to lie about. It is a viewpoint. The fact that you can't see that makes you even more of an idiot.
the website you point it is a right wing extremist that doesn't even give accurate critiques of the film. Insted, he tries to disprove each premise in the film by disagreeing with the opinions. This is ridiculous, and anybody with half a brain can see that this rant contains no new facts, and only old opinions.
If you haven't figured it out yet, opinions don't disprove other opinions, views, or facts. Ever.
I'm with you... As simple as it sounds, the law says you do not have to file if you do not owe a tax.
Take that advice and run with it.
Agreed. Well written...
:)
thanks for the reply, and discussion
"Firstly, the argument on politics is irrelevant as there are [some]democrats and [many]republicans in all my classes. Don't make yourself look even more stupid by denying basic economics and finance. Also, noone is an "expert" on the market. There are simply those of us who are more informed than others. And the parent poster was clearly an uninformed flamer. "
This is an argument about politics, read further to see why...
"I follow your reasoning, but it's really not relevant"
Ahh, but it is relevant to almost everyone. If people purchased stock to be owners of a company, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But in the real world, people purchase stock to risk their money and resell it later for profits, and expect their (larger, more important, greater investment)business partners to bend over backwards for their interests. They do this because thats the hot thing on the market, and its highly profitable, no matter who loses(as long as it isn't you, heh). This should be very relevant to you. My rebuttal to your main premise is what you consider irrelevant? So is it safe to assume your main premise in your origional post is also irrelevant? Maybe you need to think on this point some more...
"I can tell you what the "most important thing to a company is." It's to maximize shareholder wealth given some level of risk. PERIOD"
And here lies the answer to your politics.
You see, in the real world, a company is the officers, the board, the employees, and the company's assets. The stockholders are the employers/owners of said officers, board, employees, and assets. So what is the most important thing to the officers, the board, the employees, and the assets? Well, some might say it's to increase all of those things. Others say make profit. Others might say it is to gain marketshare. Others might think its about power. Still, others think its about making the world a better place for everyone, or a better place for the owner (Ex: non profit corporations), even more common, people will say it is to advance technology, or provide something that needs to be provided. Usually, it is a mixture of the above reasons.
My point is that you are missing the point. Selling stocks to the public is something that a company does to generate funding. Just like non-public companies get investment through more business partners. If that company wants to expand to something larger than they can afford (for reasons described above), they will open up to the public the ability for anybody to be a business partner(buy shares). Trading stocks to make profit because its hot on the market is SECONDARY TO ALL OF THIS. The fact that this is the most common reason for trading stocks (not on stock volume basis, but on stockholder numbers) does not change that it is SECONDARY, and not a primary concern of the people running the show (the company).
Companies are founded because the origional owners had an idea for a product or service that would be usefull. This is how technology advances in the real world. This is how people get jobs in the real world. And this is how people make money to put food on the table in the real world. As soon as you put profit as the number 1 priority in front of all of this, you are starting to miss the point of the whole fucking situation.
Corporations don't murder for profits, why not? Is it because its illegal, or because its greedy or immoral? If you answer the latter, then why is profit at all cost not immoral?
See, my point is that it IS a political debate. People like you approach the problem from a whole different perspective. One that is usually the least of the moral, and the most of the profitable.
I guess that is the difference between you and your party, and the rest of the world.
All this said, I offer a simple soluton to the problem. Maybe someone other than the business school should be teaching business majors ethics.
doubtful. Though I could be wrong, this has never even crossed the minds of most people that work on hardware...
On the mailing lists, most people will tell you this is the last thing anybody developing could care for.
What we need is a seamless API so you can write applications for any sound card. If available mixing channels are there, use them, if not, mix in software. Windows has had this functionality since forever. Linux has never, and probably will not have it in the near future.
When I asked these questions on artsd mailing lists, nobody was interested in this basic functionality. Their opinion is that everything should be mixed in software, and nothing in hardware, negating the use of modern sound cards.
ALSA's attitude is that there is no need, because software mixing should be done in userspace. So they just dont bother offering any kind of seamless integration, rather, they leave it as an exercise to the user.
If what you say is in fact true, maybe one day we can hope to get support for this on the application level. As it stands, most apps are written for artsd, ess, or OSS and nothing else.
Yes, and this whole contraption you speak of is going to be easier to build than putting a few magnets and microchip on the pendulem?
Why travel anywhere if you can just move the universe?
Thought this was funny, both coming from you I might add:
"Umm...no. The company *does* owe you, personally, the value of your stock. Sorry, but that's just how capitalism works."
then later on, you try to correct someone else's statement, and then put your foot in your mouth:
"You're confusing bonds and stocks.
Bonds are loans with an obligation to pay back money.
Stocks are a certificate of ownership."
So which is it? are they obligated to pay you the value of the stock? Or not? You offer 2 conflicting views.
The facts are that no company owes you anything just because you own stock (except for dividends). Unless you have enough votes to turn a decision, the company doesn't, and shouldn't, give a thought about you.
Firstly, a business major does not a stock market expert make. Being a business major, you are inhearantly republican economics biased just because that is where all the republicans are. And your post has shown that your understanding of the stock market is from that perspective.
Secondly, Since joe stock owner doesn't own, or come close to owning, 51% of the stock, and the board members and officers do (in the real world), Your whole point about voting is mute (except in certain circumstances of companies that this is not the case, which is not as common and doesn't make up for a significant consideration on the discussion).
Thirdly, your parent wasn't talking about loans or bonds. He is talking about profit sharing.This is common practice in the stock market as I'm sure you are aware. While his argument isn't technically completely correct, the spirit of it is. His claim (if I read it correctly) is that unless you directly invested into the company (and aren't just transferring stocks from someone who transferred stocks from someone who transferred stocks..... from someone who invested originally, because it is the hot thing on the market) then the company has no reason to be greatful, or have any interest in helping you or people like you. You are forgetting that the purpose of selling stocks is to generate funding for corporations, not for hot head business majors wanting to profit from the volatile inflation and deflation rate of shares.
Finally, you make an interesting point:
"The initial IPO doesn't mean jack... Noone buys the stock "originally". That is done by an investment banker -- usually a firm that has set up the value of the company and takes a cut of the price before they RESELL it to investors. There is no human being on the planet that has stock that came directly from a company -- that would be illegal. The company gets its original funding from the investment banker -- period. After that, the stock is OWNERSHIP in the company "
While this is true, you have only described the details of the supporting facts that were made in the previous argument that you do not support. People who buy stock at the IPO are giving funding to the corporation in exchange for very very partial ownership. The corporation should be greatful that someone is helping the funding. If it wasn't for the people getting in on the IPO, the investment banker would have NEVER set the IPO up in the first place, knowing that it would be a shitty investment. The investment banker is a person or firm who acts as the middleman, just like a computer store acts like the middleman for Microsoft's products, just like B&N is a middleman for book publishers, just as walmart is a middleman for all sorts of companies. Obviously he cannot foot the bill on his own and keep all the stock (or he wouldn't be reselling it) so he is a re-seller of stock ownership, taking a cut as the middleman. Investment bankers don't do IPO's to keep ownership of the entire bundle of stock. They do it specifically to raise funds for the corporation by selling shares [for the company] on the stock market. If anything, a close approximation of an investment banker's role is a salesman, not an investor. Most risk on the investment banker's part is folded into his cut, and if the shares do not sell well, he doesn't pay as much to the company for them.
What you have described in your detailed analysis of how IPO's are carried out makes no difference in my origional argument, or your parent's argument. Thus, the origional arguments still stand. Your whole point just shows how fucking stupid business majors are about reality. (if you are going to generalize about what business majors know, then so will I)
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FYI: and since you have shown you don't already know this, shareholders are not the most important thing in the world to a company. Their customers are. Just because YOU hold stock does not mean YOU are the most important asset to the company. If anything, you are a liability because of the attitude you ha
"How long before the shareholders demand that AMD leave a business that is throwing away their money (and always will) and concentrate on a business that actually makes money."
.01% of their initial public funding. Unless you got in on the IPO, you are a liability to the company, not an investor.
.01% owner of their company that doesn't even have fucking voting rights is 100% satisfied with their decision. Let me clue you in on something... That is the LAST thing on their minds.
Shareholders invested in a microprocessor company that makes chips that compete with Intel Corp.'s chips. If they do not intend to sell microprocessors, they should not purchase stock in AMD.
I'm sorry, but if you own shares, you already agreed to foot the bill. If you don't like how they are running the show with your invested money, SELL YOUR FUCKING SHARES. So typical of shareholders nowadays to think that the board of a company owes you personally something because you bought 3rd hand stock equivilent to like
The stock market is a gamble. If you lose your money, Tuff shit. It's not the board's job to make sure every
If you dont like the way they run shit, GO START YOUR OWN COMPANY AND RUN IT HOW YOU WANT IT. And stop bitching to slashdot that you are unhappy with the way the REAL owners that have REAL stakes in the company are running it. It's people like you that royally fuck up the way the stock market is run.
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It sure is, that is why there is a completely different named field, called computer science, that produces people plenty capable of doing just that, with a degree in science, not engineering.
I'm not trying to trash your choice of major in college, but "engineering majors" who think they are engineers just becuse they went to a school who called themselves an engineering school really have no room to talk when compared to other majors that teach the same stuff.
I'm sorry but taking a couple math classes and paying extra for tuition at your university does not an engineer make.
Depending on the university you go to, software engineering and computer science could be exactly the same thing, or completely different. In the end, there are probably more qualified BS/CS people out there than BS/CE.Just because there is a premium price on tuition at engineering colleges, doesn't mean your degree is worth more than anybody else's, especially when there exist non engineers more qualified to do the job in many cases.
On top of that, you aren't a real engineer unless you are a real PE, which I doubt you are considering you write software for a living. Engineering outside of Professional Engineering is just a name that can be applied to anybody doing design work in his/her field. Graduating from college doesn't make you any more an engineer than a homemaker.
That would be fraud through negligance. Which would hold less penalty, but is still illegal.
The law says you cannot sell the same product as 2 different products at different prices and claim one is better. Intel currently does this. All chip makers do this. The only difference is that there has been no lawsuit.
B&L could do the same thing. Test some of their lenses for "1 year" worth of wear and tear, and test the others for only "1 week" but if they come off the same exact manufacturing line (like intel cpu's, micron memory, AMD cpu's, everything similar) then it is fraudulent to sell one as a better product.
The only way around this would be to prove that every low clocked CPU sold has failed their higher clocked tests. Everybody knows that doesn't happen.
The difference between the B&L situation and the Intel situation is that nobody has taken Intel to court over it.
thats what im saying. MY post was in support of my parent. Which says that people need to leave if they dont want to question.
My reply was essentially a "me too" to the parent.