And yet onion networks were developed by DARPA (U.S. government) and Tor is still largely funded by the U.S. government. While I would like to agree with you in principle, in this instance the government made the Silk Road's anonymity possible (of course selling drugs, prositution, hitmen, etc. isn't the primary goal of the network).
It is legal to grow your own plants and transfer up to a ounce of pot to another person in Colorado (passed last election). The government has until July (if I remember correctly) to come up with the framework for the full retail sale of Marijuana. Washington state is also working in a framework to sell legal pot.
The funny thing is that it exists and can stay anonymous thanks to a system designed by the United States government (DARPA to be exact). The network still gets most of its funding from the U.S. government.
Nothing. If you read the article (I know, this is Slashdot), then you will discover that the first satelites are scouts. In 2016, they want to launch larger satellites to retrieve small samples. Ultimately, they want to build a 3-D printer in space, as well as create rocket fuel for space gas stations. As far as I could tell, the funding for this endeavor is a bit of a question mark.
Science is not about answers. It is a methodology. If there are other theories that explain a certain phenomena better while using scientific methodology, then they will eventually replace the current theories. This does not mean that every theory is perfect, or even good, just that there isn't a better one yet.
Creationism might explain everything better. It might even be correct. That alone, however, does not make it Science.
I haven't seen any free market republicans in a long time. Most (if not all) of the Republicans in power believe seem to believe in long terms for copyright and patents (evidenced recently enough), tough trademark/design patent laws, corporate welfare and bailouts, no-bid government contracts, etc. As far as I can tell, neither side believes in free markets.
The answer for me is that you can't trust any company. Free software, for me, is about the freedom of ideas. Ideas belong to everyone and nobody should be able to monopolize them. That said, companies are free-market capitalists(not a bad thing in itself). Nobody hates free-market Capitalism more than free-market Capitalists. They will use any tactic at their disposal to destroy free markets and monopolize economic opportunities. The easiest way to accomplish this (in our society) is through government fiat (usually Intellectual Property these days). The best way to monoplize a space (outside of violence and government mandate) is to excusively own the ideas associated with that space. So you can see, purely profit driven companies will always be at odds with the notion of free ideas(I like free-market capitalism btw, just controlled a bit). The best defense against this is a strong neutral third party (government can play this role if it is both strong and neutral) or as many balanced competitors as possible to blunt the power of any single entity (of course, this breaks down with collusion).
I have an Android phone(but not a Samsung phone) because there are many competitors within the Android space, so even if Android gains a monopoly, there will still be many competitors fighting over the ideas and that will hopefully preserve most ideas in the public domain. It is far from a perfect answer, but this is far from a perfect world.
My point wasn't whether it was good or not. The point is that if you believe Google is being evil, you cannot blame it on the IPO and market pressures. The management of Google is fairly well insulated from such pressures due to their share structure, as they are only really accountable to Brin and Page. For all intents and purposes Google is still a private company and their actions are a reflection of the desires of their founders.
The problem I see in this case is that the founders are still completely in control of the company. Brin and Page control over 50% of the voting stock in Google thanks to their B shares being worth 10 times the vote of an A share. The Google founders don't have to listen to the stockholders at all and there is little the stockholders can do to change that.
Currently, many large tech (and non-tech) companies use multiple share classes so that the founders or managers have complete control of the company despite only owning a small piece. Probably the most famous tech company to have this structure is Google. Brin and Page own B shares in Google which have 10 times the voting power as the Class A shares. This gives them the majority of the voting interest despite only owning about 16 percent of the company (by value). Last year, Google introduced Class C shares, which have no voting rights whatsoever. They did this so that they could continue to give stock to their employees without those employees gaining more power in the company.
Other notable companies with similar systems: Facebook Broadcom Ford Motor Company (the family controls 40% of the vote with only 6% of the stock (by value)
While the computer will be far from perfect, in all the scenarios you mention, I would wager that a self-driving car would have better outcomes than a human. We are not aiming for perfection here, only improvement.
I suspect Google's cars currently employ learning algorithms. The programmer doesn't have to know all the possibilities. Given enough time on the road, and the ability to share what they learn, cars will teach themselves how to react to far more situations than we could ever program.
I also believe the smartphone market would have expanded without Apple. However, in my opinion, the iPhone helped the market grow much more quickly that would have occurred otherwise. Afterall, smartphones had been around for years before the iPhone and didn't experience such explosive growth until the iPhone. While numerous other companies were developing new smartphone operating systems, the success of the iPhone pushed those projects higher on the priority list of their respective organizations. In addition, it is my opinion that Apple exerted a strong influence on many aspects of smartphone evolution. All that said, I also don't see the iPhone as technologically revolutionary in any way.
As others have said, from a functionality standpoint, there is nothing Apple added to the party with the iPhone in 2007. Apple did package that functionality in user friendly way and made it cool. I will give significant credit to Apple for expanding the smartphone market, but they did not create the smartphone, the touchscreen phone, or rows of icons (and the original iPhone didn't have an App store). There is nothing that could be done on an iPhone in 2007 that I couldn't do on my phone in 2004.
THe problem is if you try to help them it encourages job creators to go to other places without these rules and taxes
Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? I hear it a lot, but it doesn't make much sense to me.
First, most studies I have seen suggest that most new jobs are created by a small group of companies, gazelles in David Birch's terminology, most of whom have few employees (but some of whom are also very large businesses). For these small business owners, where are they going to go? These "job creators" are usually tied to their communities and lack the resources to simply pick up and move to another country.
Second, even if they could leave, where would the "job creators" go? If companies require things like roads, police protection, political stability and an educated population, nearly all of those countries also have high taxes.
Lastly, if rules and taxes lead to job creators leaving, why has there not been a historical positive correlation between high taxes and low growth (there has been a negative correlation, but that's a different matter)?
It was close last quarter. Apple sold 24 million iPhones of all types (included 6 million iPhone 5's), while Samsung sold 18 million SIII's and 3 million Note 2's. Once you add in the high end phones of the other Android manufacturers (as well as SII sales etc, I suspect they were at least even). It will be interesting to see how these numbers shake out with a full quarter of the iPhone 5.
Colorado's amendment is less restrictive than Washington's. Both amendments would legalize consumption and possession, as well as create a regulatory structure to produce and distribute. Colorado's amendment goes further and allows an individual to grow their own plants (up to six I believe) and transfer to anyone else up to 1 oz. legally.
$220 billion in revenue last year. $7 billion of it from Apple (and low margin at that). The semiconductor business makes very little profit Samsung. Last quarter, 69% of Samsung Electronics profits came from their own branded phones and 14% came from their mobile display business (Apple orders had fallen from more than 10 million last year to only 1.5 million last quarter). Even with processors, your economies of scale do not increase linearly. Samsung sold more than 60 million branded mobile smart devices last quarter alone. That gives them tremendous economies of scale already. Apple is just gravy.
Sorry. I was replying to the person stating that Samsung was not making money off of their phones and I thought you were commenting on that point.
As for profits on the GSIII:
Most of the financial media single out the GSIII's strong sales to explain the enormous growth in Samsung profits. Considering that their feature phone sales have declined, yet their profits have surged, I think it is safe to say the feature phones are drivers of profit for Samsung.
The numbers: Samsung Sales 3rd quarter: feature phones: 2012 48.5 million 2011 59.1 million: net decline of 10.6 million phones smartphones: 2012 56.9 million 2011 28.1 million: net increase of 28.8 million phones
Telecommunications Profits 3rd quarter: 2012 $4.14 billion 2011 $1.94 billion: net increase of $2.2 billion
Conclusion: Samsung shipped considerably less feature phones versus a year ago, yet posted much larger profits. The feature phones are unlikely to be the driver of profits. Samsung shipped roughly twice as many smartphones since the same period last year and more than doubled their profits from phones. The GSIII represents 18 million of the 56.9 million phones sold (or just under a third of smartphone sales) Given that the GSIII accounted for a high percentage of sales versus a year ago and Samsung's phone profits surged over the same time period, I would say it is very likely that the GSIII's are highly profitable.
What does it matter "where" they made that money? They booked about $4 billion in profit to their phone sales last quarter. Apple booked about $5.3 billion in profits to their phones last quarter. Both companies are making money hand over fist on phones. Apple's margins are certainly higher as they made more profits on less than half the smartphones shipped compared to Samsung last quarter (57 million to 27 million smartphones). That said, insinuating that Samsung isn't making a tremendous profit on its phones doesn't reflect reality.
Remember that Samsung makes components for many companies. It also competes with most of those companies with its own products (Apple is the norm and not the exception here). Samsung is able to accomplish this by touting a "wall" dividing their own products and their component businesses. If Samsung breaches this wall for Apple, it could cost them significantly more business. Given that Samsung has yet to take retribution on Apple with its components, even after the $1 billion verdict, I doubt that this is is a "vendetta."
Samsung makes components for many companies. Samsung also competes with most of those companies with its own products. Samsung's biggest selling point to their competitors is that there is a wall between their components and retail businesses. If they broke down that wall for Apple, it would make the rest of their customers very nervous. This is the primary reason why we have not seen Samsung using components as leverage. I suspect this price increase is more because of Apple's reduced business.
Samsung Electronics made profits of about $6 billion last quarter on revenues equal to 19% of South Korea's entire GDP. While not quite Apple's $8 billion over the same period, I don't expect to see Samsung execs begging for change anytime soon.
Slashdot Mirror
And yet onion networks were developed by DARPA (U.S. government) and Tor is still largely funded by the U.S. government. While I would like to agree with you in principle, in this instance the government made the Silk Road's anonymity possible (of course selling drugs, prositution, hitmen, etc. isn't the primary goal of the network).
Don't forget the giant private prison system in the U.S.
It is legal to grow your own plants and transfer up to a ounce of pot to another person in Colorado (passed last election). The government has until July (if I remember correctly) to come up with the framework for the full retail sale of Marijuana. Washington state is also working in a framework to sell legal pot.
The funny thing is that it exists and can stay anonymous thanks to a system designed by the United States government (DARPA to be exact). The network still gets most of its funding from the U.S. government.
Nothing. If you read the article (I know, this is Slashdot), then you will discover that the first satelites are scouts. In 2016, they want to launch larger satellites to retrieve small samples. Ultimately, they want to build a 3-D printer in space, as well as create rocket fuel for space gas stations. As far as I could tell, the funding for this endeavor is a bit of a question mark.
Science is not about answers. It is a methodology. If there are other theories that explain a certain phenomena better while using scientific methodology, then they will eventually replace the current theories. This does not mean that every theory is perfect, or even good, just that there isn't a better one yet.
Creationism might explain everything better. It might even be correct. That alone, however, does not make it Science.
I haven't seen any free market republicans in a long time. Most (if not all) of the Republicans in power believe seem to believe in long terms for copyright and patents (evidenced recently enough), tough trademark/design patent laws, corporate welfare and bailouts, no-bid government contracts, etc. As far as I can tell, neither side believes in free markets.
The answer for me is that you can't trust any company. Free software, for me, is about the freedom of ideas. Ideas belong to everyone and nobody should be able to monopolize them. That said, companies are free-market capitalists(not a bad thing in itself). Nobody hates free-market Capitalism more than free-market Capitalists. They will use any tactic at their disposal to destroy free markets and monopolize economic opportunities. The easiest way to accomplish this (in our society) is through government fiat (usually Intellectual Property these days). The best way to monoplize a space (outside of violence and government mandate) is to excusively own the ideas associated with that space. So you can see, purely profit driven companies will always be at odds with the notion of free ideas(I like free-market capitalism btw, just controlled a bit). The best defense against this is a strong neutral third party (government can play this role if it is both strong and neutral) or as many balanced competitors as possible to blunt the power of any single entity (of course, this breaks down with collusion).
I have an Android phone(but not a Samsung phone) because there are many competitors within the Android space, so even if Android gains a monopoly, there will still be many competitors fighting over the ideas and that will hopefully preserve most ideas in the public domain. It is far from a perfect answer, but this is far from a perfect world.
My point wasn't whether it was good or not. The point is that if you believe Google is being evil, you cannot blame it on the IPO and market pressures. The management of Google is fairly well insulated from such pressures due to their share structure, as they are only really accountable to Brin and Page. For all intents and purposes Google is still a private company and their actions are a reflection of the desires of their founders.
The problem I see in this case is that the founders are still completely in control of the company. Brin and Page control over 50% of the voting stock in Google thanks to their B shares being worth 10 times the vote of an A share. The Google founders don't have to listen to the stockholders at all and there is little the stockholders can do to change that.
Currently, many large tech (and non-tech) companies use multiple share classes so that the founders or managers have complete control of the company despite only owning a small piece. Probably the most famous tech company to have this structure is Google. Brin and Page own B shares in Google which have 10 times the voting power as the Class A shares. This gives them the majority of the voting interest despite only owning about 16 percent of the company (by value). Last year, Google introduced Class C shares, which have no voting rights whatsoever. They did this so that they could continue to give stock to their employees without those employees gaining more power in the company.
Other notable companies with similar systems:
Facebook
Broadcom
Ford Motor Company (the family controls 40% of the vote with only 6% of the stock (by value)
While the computer will be far from perfect, in all the scenarios you mention, I would wager that a self-driving car would have better outcomes than a human. We are not aiming for perfection here, only improvement.
I suspect Google's cars currently employ learning algorithms. The programmer doesn't have to know all the possibilities. Given enough time on the road, and the ability to share what they learn, cars will teach themselves how to react to far more situations than we could ever program.
I also believe the smartphone market would have expanded without Apple. However, in my opinion, the iPhone helped the market grow much more quickly that would have occurred otherwise. Afterall, smartphones had been around for years before the iPhone and didn't experience such explosive growth until the iPhone. While numerous other companies were developing new smartphone operating systems, the success of the iPhone pushed those projects higher on the priority list of their respective organizations. In addition, it is my opinion that Apple exerted a strong influence on many aspects of smartphone evolution. All that said, I also don't see the iPhone as technologically revolutionary in any way.
As others have said, from a functionality standpoint, there is nothing Apple added to the party with the iPhone in 2007. Apple did package that functionality in user friendly way and made it cool. I will give significant credit to Apple for expanding the smartphone market, but they did not create the smartphone, the touchscreen phone, or rows of icons (and the original iPhone didn't have an App store). There is nothing that could be done on an iPhone in 2007 that I couldn't do on my phone in 2004.
THe problem is if you try to help them it encourages job creators to go to other places without these rules and taxes
Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? I hear it a lot, but it doesn't make much sense to me.
First, most studies I have seen suggest that most new jobs are created by a small group of companies, gazelles in David Birch's terminology, most of whom have few employees (but some of whom are also very large businesses). For these small business owners, where are they going to go? These "job creators" are usually tied to their communities and lack the resources to simply pick up and move to another country.
Second, even if they could leave, where would the "job creators" go? If companies require things like roads, police protection, political stability and an educated population, nearly all of those countries also have high taxes.
Lastly, if rules and taxes lead to job creators leaving, why has there not been a historical positive correlation between high taxes and low growth (there has been a negative correlation, but that's a different matter)?
It was close last quarter. Apple sold 24 million iPhones of all types (included 6 million iPhone 5's), while Samsung sold 18 million SIII's and 3 million Note 2's. Once you add in the high end phones of the other Android manufacturers (as well as SII sales etc, I suspect they were at least even). It will be interesting to see how these numbers shake out with a full quarter of the iPhone 5.
Colorado's amendment is less restrictive than Washington's. Both amendments would legalize consumption and possession, as well as create a regulatory structure to produce and distribute. Colorado's amendment goes further and allows an individual to grow their own plants (up to six I believe) and transfer to anyone else up to 1 oz. legally.
$220 billion in revenue last year. $7 billion of it from Apple (and low margin at that). The semiconductor business makes very little profit Samsung. Last quarter, 69% of Samsung Electronics profits came from their own branded phones and 14% came from their mobile display business (Apple orders had fallen from more than 10 million last year to only 1.5 million last quarter). Even with processors, your economies of scale do not increase linearly. Samsung sold more than 60 million branded mobile smart devices last quarter alone. That gives them tremendous economies of scale already. Apple is just gravy.
I should have read it first. Should read,
"I think it is safe to say that feature phones are NOT a driver of profit for Samsung."
Sorry. I was replying to the person stating that Samsung was not making money off of their phones and I thought you were commenting on that point.
As for profits on the GSIII:
Most of the financial media single out the GSIII's strong sales to explain the enormous growth in Samsung profits. Considering that their feature phone sales have declined, yet their profits have surged, I think it is safe to say the feature phones are drivers of profit for Samsung.
The numbers:
Samsung Sales 3rd quarter:
feature phones: 2012 48.5 million 2011 59.1 million: net decline of 10.6 million phones
smartphones: 2012 56.9 million 2011 28.1 million: net increase of 28.8 million phones
Telecommunications Profits 3rd quarter: 2012 $4.14 billion 2011 $1.94 billion: net increase of $2.2 billion
Conclusion: Samsung shipped considerably less feature phones versus a year ago, yet posted much larger profits. The feature phones are unlikely to be the driver of profits. Samsung shipped roughly twice as many smartphones since the same period last year and more than doubled their profits from phones. The GSIII represents 18 million of the 56.9 million phones sold (or just under a third of smartphone sales) Given that the GSIII accounted for a high percentage of sales versus a year ago and Samsung's phone profits surged over the same time period, I would say it is very likely that the GSIII's are highly profitable.
What does it matter "where" they made that money? They booked about $4 billion in profit to their phone sales last quarter. Apple booked about $5.3 billion in profits to their phones last quarter. Both companies are making money hand over fist on phones. Apple's margins are certainly higher as they made more profits on less than half the smartphones shipped compared to Samsung last quarter (57 million to 27 million smartphones). That said, insinuating that Samsung isn't making a tremendous profit on its phones doesn't reflect reality.
Remember that Samsung makes components for many companies. It also competes with most of those companies with its own products (Apple is the norm and not the exception here). Samsung is able to accomplish this by touting a "wall" dividing their own products and their component businesses. If Samsung breaches this wall for Apple, it could cost them significantly more business. Given that Samsung has yet to take retribution on Apple with its components, even after the $1 billion verdict, I doubt that this is is a "vendetta."
Samsung makes components for many companies. Samsung also competes with most of those companies with its own products. Samsung's biggest selling point to their competitors is that there is a wall between their components and retail businesses. If they broke down that wall for Apple, it would make the rest of their customers very nervous. This is the primary reason why we have not seen Samsung using components as leverage. I suspect this price increase is more because of Apple's reduced business.
According to Samsung Electronics, two-thirds of their $6 billion in profits last quarter came from their smartphones.
This is about the same percentage for Apple, the iPhone, and their $8 billion in profits last quarter.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/samsung-profit-beats-estimates-on-surging-sales-of-phones.html
Samsung Electronics made profits of about $6 billion last quarter on revenues equal to 19% of South Korea's entire GDP. While not quite Apple's $8 billion over the same period, I don't expect to see Samsung execs begging for change anytime soon.