"Solar power may look terribly uneconomical at the moment, but with the exponential progress being made in nanoengineering, Dr. Kurzweil calculates that itâ(TM)ll be cost-competitive with fossil fuels in just five years"
I'm not sure that cost-competitive is the right way of looking at this. It's a matter or absolute versus comparative advantage. With the increase in fossil fuel prices, teleportation may soon be a cost-competitive alternative...
I have never been able to see how reducing transparency will increase safety. The reason that open source security solutions are so secure is due to the inherent transparency in the applied algorithms.
I think it is also worth noting one of the other changes that seems to have gotten buried under the comments on feedback and fee structure:
"In a small number of cases (fewer than 5% of all payments on eBay), PayPal will hold payment funds until either the buyer has left positive Feedback or 21 days have passed without a claim."
This essentially creates an escrow account in which funds will be held until eBay (or more specifically PayPal) decides to release them.
Let's put that in perspective. Based on a few assumptions:
1. EBay moves approximately $90M merchandise per day
2. Three quarters of all payments that eBay puts a hold on go the entire 21 days, due to buyers not leaving feedback in a timely manner (which happens all the time)
3. The weighted average interest rate on eBay's investment portfolio is approximately 4.3% (from 3Q07 10Q)
4. Per the PayPal user agreement, eBay, and not the receiving party, is privy to any and all interest generated on monies in a given PayPal account
With these assumptions in mind, this "small" percentage of payments being held has the potential to be, on average, somewhere around $4.5M dollars/day. After the initial 21 day period, eBay will have a steady $70M in perpetual escrow. Applying the non-recoverable investment interest (that pathetic 4.3%) that eBay generates, on hijacked money mind you, over the course of a year eBay will have bilked sellers out of well over $3M in aggregate. Considering that eBay made somewhere in the neighborhood of $130-140M in interest income last year, the 2% increase that this $3M represents seems like this is going to hurt sellers a whole lot more than it will help eBay.
I'm sure if Darwin were still alive he would be happy to hear that his theory of evolution is not being killed by the advances of modern man. With man no longer having to adapt to his environment, and instead grossly defiling the environment to his needs, why the hell would we need to evolve? Maybe the natural order of things has not been as thrown off as we might think. Our environmental "enhancements" championed by our ever improving technology may have it's repercussions yet! Why do we ever think we can out do mother nature?
Slashdot Mirror
"Solar power may look terribly uneconomical at the moment, but with the exponential progress being made in nanoengineering, Dr. Kurzweil calculates that itâ(TM)ll be cost-competitive with fossil fuels in just five years"
I'm not sure that cost-competitive is the right way of looking at this. It's a matter or absolute versus comparative advantage. With the increase in fossil fuel prices, teleportation may soon be a cost-competitive alternative...
I have never been able to see how reducing transparency will increase safety. The reason that open source security solutions are so secure is due to the inherent transparency in the applied algorithms.
I think it is also worth noting one of the other changes that seems to have gotten buried under the comments on feedback and fee structure:
"In a small number of cases (fewer than 5% of all payments on eBay), PayPal will hold payment funds until either the buyer has left positive Feedback or 21 days have passed without a claim."
This essentially creates an escrow account in which funds will be held until eBay (or more specifically PayPal) decides to release them.
Let's put that in perspective. Based on a few assumptions:
1. EBay moves approximately $90M merchandise per day
2. Three quarters of all payments that eBay puts a hold on go the entire 21 days, due to buyers not leaving feedback in a timely manner (which happens all the time)
3. The weighted average interest rate on eBay's investment portfolio is approximately 4.3% (from 3Q07 10Q)
4. Per the PayPal user agreement, eBay, and not the receiving party, is privy to any and all interest generated on monies in a given PayPal account
With these assumptions in mind, this "small" percentage of payments being held has the potential to be, on average, somewhere around $4.5M dollars/day. After the initial 21 day period, eBay will have a steady $70M in perpetual escrow. Applying the non-recoverable investment interest (that pathetic 4.3%) that eBay generates, on hijacked money mind you, over the course of a year eBay will have bilked sellers out of well over $3M in aggregate. Considering that eBay made somewhere in the neighborhood of $130-140M in interest income last year, the 2% increase that this $3M represents seems like this is going to hurt sellers a whole lot more than it will help eBay.
All in the name of making eBay a safer place...?
I'm sure if Darwin were still alive he would be happy to hear that his theory of evolution is not being killed by the advances of modern man. With man no longer having to adapt to his environment, and instead grossly defiling the environment to his needs, why the hell would we need to evolve? Maybe the natural order of things has not been as thrown off as we might think. Our environmental "enhancements" championed by our ever improving technology may have it's repercussions yet! Why do we ever think we can out do mother nature?