"... as I understand it, the core of the problem was simple greed: money-hungry mortgage and securities dealers deliberately feeding bad data into the system.... So-called quants may be decidedly imperfect, but if someone's willing to game the system to make a buck, nothing the quant does can stop it...."
Good point, but I think you may be attributing too much of what happened in '07 (in the US)/08 (everywhere) to bad intentions, not that they don't exist. All my research about the mortgage crisis essentially boils down to there was a motive to sell to poor borrowers because most of the "good" borrowers already had their mortgages during the earlier part of the 21st century, if not before. You can't sell more homes than people need, at least to the financially prudent. So, there was incentive to sell bad mortgages to bad borrowers, because they could be packaged and re-sold as a form of derivative, eliminating the risk to the original mortgage lender from default.
Those derivatives were packaged in a way that the true nature of the underlying mortgages was obscured or totally hidden. Of course, like the insurance industry where every player buys some of every other player's risk while selling some of it's own, because each company is more solvent that way, some of these same lenders were buying other's derivatives, which were just as shaky, but somehow they managed to deceive themselves into thinking they were actually made up of sound mortgages.
There's the massive self-deception based on greed you may be alluding to, but I don't think it follows that everyone in the bank knew that there was any self-deception going on (ie those whose job it was to run the models). Certainly they were on the books as good, sound mortgage-backed paper; certainly the shareholders may have believed the deception; certainly there was a house of cards being built.
But, I don't think those who collect and feed the data were that much in the loop (to be as deliberate as you suggest); the problem being no-one, and I mean no-one, knew the scope or the actual value of these derivatives. Nobody, not banks, not the Fed, not Economists, could know the true nature of this wildcat, unregulated mortgage-backed security market (and thus this input). I believe that at the peak, the value of these derivatives exceeded one year's GNP of the US; in other words a huge unregulated market indeed.
The data had to be guessed at using "the best information available at the time" which is a fairly fundamental method of business transactions; you don't wait forever for perfect data because opportunity is lost if you do.
Ideally such a huge, unregulated market is reined in by regulators who do know that anything in the financial sector that is too big is going to run the risk of taking down markets, banks, investors, and economies. Greenspan has said out loud that he had too much faith in the banking and security industry and let it go too big for too long. Hindsight is 20:20, but a "Wild West" mentality in every aspect of a market is not necessarily best... the very first corporations about 600 years ago eventually caused so much havoc that for a few hundred years the whole concept was made illegal. That was a result of too few corporations, but the essence of a huge unregulated market is found there, because the few that did exist were the market, and one had a disproportionate (in today's terms) effect on others.
That's the natural result of unregulated markets: a great creator of wealth was legislated out of existence when better controls would have allowed society to benefit for a long time had they been properly understood at the time. But that's another topic.
You are fundamentally correct and it's an insightful comment. It's my belief that whatever bad inputs in the model, regardless of the avarice and greed of the players, existed because no-one had good data to put in.
"... This article seems a little bias when you consider how much more liberal Canadian laws are... i.e. we don't have a DMCA...."
Canada has both more and less restrictive copyright law than the US does; that it is "liberal" is simply spin by the usual suspects, which would come as no surprise to anyone following the modern copyright debate.
Regarding the DMCA, although it's somewhat strange to say "we don't have a [law enacted by a foreign government]" since sovereign nations always pass their own laws, virtually no two laws are identical between two nations (even basics like murder and theft legislation differs enough between any two given countries to be included there) and the US certainly never looks at Canadian legislation when crafting their own, I will accept your statement as if it were normal to have identical legislation, or for one country to copy another's laws verbatim.
The Copyright Act (Canada) makes it legal to create a backup of any software that you are otherwise legally entitled to own/use (or however you want to put it). That provision cannot be negated by a EULA, because illegal clauses in EULA cannot be enforced (in any nation), but does not affect the EULA otherwise, because any illegal clause does not invalidate any other otherwise legal provisions.
The DMCA (USA) would make certain backups illegal under all circumstances (although it would not affect every possible backup scenario).
The Copyright Act (Canada) makes it legal to create a personal copy of music from any source. Only the person who makes the copy can listen to it; it's illegal to lend it, sell it, play it in public or for an audience, or to make a copy for another person. The person who hopes to enjoy this exemption must make the copy himself, operate the equipment, software, etc personally. Artists are directly compensated by quarterly cash payments collected from sales of blank media and paid out based on radio airplay data.
Fair Use provisions (USA) allow you to make copies of music you otherwise have the right to play/use/etc. provided doing so would not violate the DMCA. Artists are not compensated for Fair Use copies. Other copies are prohibited.
The Copyright Act (Canada) makes the recording of any video content whatsoever illegal under all circumstances. Use of VCRs, DVRs to "time shift" TV shows, for example, is completely illegal in Canada, as is the copying of movies, TV shows, etc, regardless of whether you otherwise have the right to view such movies (ie own the DVD), etc.
Fair Use provisions (USA) for video content are similar to making music copies in the USA; allows for time shifting of TV shows, copying of movies that are not subject to the DMCA (video tapes), etc.
Canada (and virtually every nation on Earth) allow for "Fair Dealing" (which is not to be confused with "Fair Use", which exists only in the USA) which allows use of copyright material for bona fide news, research, citations, reviews, quotations, etc provided such use is brief, appropriate to the subject under examination, and does not constitute a significant portion of the work.
Quoting the entire article of a news story in a blog or forum, for example, would be illegal in Canada since it encompasses a significant portion of the work, and thus no Fair Dealing exemption could apply.
So, two examples where Canada is less restrictive (audio copying; software backups) and another where they are more restrictive (video copying) than US law.
Should the Private Copying provisions of the Copyright Act (Canada) be repealed, Canada would be more restrictive since there is no Fair Use exemption; all audio copying except for bona fide academic, etc use would be illegal, even if you owned the CD the copy was made from.
In other words, they are "different" and you can't take one provision out of context of the whole body of law in either country, or any country for that matter.
"... So far US, UK, Russia, France, China, and maybe Israel all have nuclear weapons capability...."
US, Russia, France, the UK, and China built and tested nukes around 50 or more years ago; the testing is considered important when you talk about who has and who does not have the capability to wage nuclear war. It's not a coincidence that these are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council... it was essentially the card you needed to be invited to the party (China was invited late).
Since then, three others have tested weapons, which is the gold standard for whether they have nukes... in other words, you can't lie about it. That is India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
I see you include Israel, which is in another category where they are widely believed to have nukes, some people in high places actually know the answer for sure one way or another, but they deny they do and have not tested a weapon, making it clearly possible to lie about it.
For some time South Africa was in the same category, but they have voluntarily dismantled the six bombs they had at one time assembled, and like Israel they have never tested a weapon. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have relinquished the bombs they inherited as a result of their owning collective property, including military equipment, in the old USSR.
The above list is the one agreed upon by the US State Department, amongst others. But, there are other lists with other criteria.
Then there is the list of countries that are considered capable of building and deploying a nuclear weapon within six months time or less (1), but for whatever reason have not built any. That includes nations with mature domestic nuclear industries and large amounts of weapons-grade material like Japan, Germany and Canada, and a few that have might be able to build one, or might not, like Brazil, which has voluntarily moved all it's weapons-grade material out of the country (less than 1 Kg remains, not enough to build a nuke).
There are currently 40 non-nuclear nations with available bomb-making material on hand in the form of highly-enriched uranium, and that includes at least one in every continent save Antarctica. Some consider any nation with nuclear power facilities to be nuclear capable, which is a bit of a stretch in my mind, but if you agree, that's 44 nations.
Pakistan is the source of most of North Korea's nuclear bomb-making ability, and it's well documented, not Iran as at least one poster here suggested. Pakistan recently (9th February 09) released Abdel Qadeer Khan, the architect of Pakistan's nuclear program, from house arrest, which he was under for five years as punishment for selling nuclear secrets to North Korea (as well as a few others). At roughly the same time the United States imposed sanctions on Khan, 12 other individuals, and three companies. The United States claims that these individuals and companies are part of "an extensive network" under Khan's direction that offered or may still offer in exchange for money "one-stop" shopping for countries aspiring to have nuclear weapons.
There are about 27,000 built and presumably working nuclear weapons on Earth with around 2.000 deployed in missile launchers available for immediate use worldwide.
(1) According to the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists based at the University of Chicago, the same people with the Doomsday Clock. You know they've been at it a while because they use "Atomic" instead of "Nuclear" in their name;-)
"... If anyone in Government said the same thing..."
You know, the quote I quoted, so people like you could read it. Then again, you could just ignore the quote and rant about something I didn't post about. Nice work, there, Mr Comprehension.
"... But if it helps me make a good, strong business argument to make other changes that will improve the experience for all of my users, for all time to come, and it means that a small segment of users for a small period of time will experience what we think will likely be a negative thing but we're not sure, it was a test worth running...."
If anyone in Government said the same thing, it would be a huge, unequivocal assault on freedom (where users = citizens; negative thing = anything you can't legally do to prisoners; and test worth running = ongoing study).
I mean the bougus-ness of this patent is beyond the pale.
Essentially, they are patenting the whole computing experience, and getting some legal entity to agree it must be FOR PROFIT ONLY, from somewhere around 1980-something until 20 [dot dot dot] ??-something. The mind boggles.
It's not often a good idea to grant a company automated billing, but then again, some tech operations depend on it, and consumers are all about the convenience.
But, once a company... ANY company, abuses it, you should cut them off and insist they bill you and wait, like everyone else has to, for payment.
It's an abuse of trust, and that should never be tolerated or rewarded. If the offending firm complains that to revert to old fashioned billing would be too expensive, tell them you don't believe them, since actually running an automated billing system seemed too expensive to them as well. Otherwise it would have been given the necessary resources to insure it would NEVER be broken in the first place.
The idea of using water cooling and then re-using the stored heat energy by redirecting it to an area that is heat-deficient is sound, green, and all that, at least in principle. The objections, if there are any, would come from the implementation. Since that is unique to each circumstance, the right answer is "it depends", but most certainly not "that's crazy talk" or "everyone should be doing this".
If we're talking about efficiency, then I'm not sure where to start... getting more work out of a processor via superior cooling also means getting more power into the CPU and other stuff around it. It is the waste power we need to dissipate via cooling (whether passive air, active (fan assisted) air, via water, unobtanium, whatever), after all. This stuff requires careful scrutiny and is not the province of lowly Slashdot contributors, although any company contemplating such questions is certainly free to hire one.
Water is 20 times more efficient at removing heat than air; I know this from my "other" job, which occasionally involves saving lives, where hypothermia is a real risk. Aided with forced air cooling (the wind) you have a very effective method of removing a tremendous amount of heat from a device (the human body) that generates it's own on a constant basis, as long as it's still working (alive), that is. Very much similar to a CPU doing work, and also showing how the inherent 20x can be improved upon, so I won't argue any claims about how efficient this particular method of IBM's is; I reserve my right to fall back to "it sounds like it might work".
Re-using the waste heat is a good idea and some buildings already employ hot-water heating/cooling systems that could easily incorporate a new source of heated water energy. Others... who knows?
Doesn't mean "what" exactly? I did not post anything at all regarding what it means; I said only that it doesn't matter what it means. Which your rebuttal proves, quite perfectly, I might add.
"... It will be published in Nature, not Science,..."
Point taken. I stand corrected.
"... and the research does disprove all of the climate science that's been done in the last thirty years, much as you'd like to believe that...."
I think you meant "does not disprove" and I said nothing at all regarding what I myself "believe". You painted me with that brush, the way any avid believer can pick out those who ask questions rather than simply going out amongst the masses and preaching to the unwashed, preferably quoting rather than thinking, lest they get some subtle aspect of the gospel wrong.
I instead prefer to refer to "all of the climate science that's been done in the last thirty years", not just the parts that agree with a "belief" that reinforces a predetermined conclusion.
I would like to thank you for your post; it would be perfect if we could now have one from someone who thinks Climate Change is a bunch of hooey. I can't, because that's not my conclusion based on the current literature, despite your quick judgement to the contrary.
He can even use your exact words:
"... Now, sit down and actually read the Woods Hole paper. Then, having been appraised of the facts, you can continue ranting as if nothing had happened...."
"... None of this makes the slightest difference to the expected global warming...."
I like your title. "Dear Deniers." Perfect.
You could have stopped at the first part of your first sentence (quoted above), though. And you might not like to whom the finger points, with "Dear Deniers.". Because the truth is, garbage in=garbage out notwithstanding, this won't make any difference in the "Global Warming" mindset. Nothing will. Getting a critical input 100% wrong, to the extent that the entire model shows a complete reversal of the predicted outcome, won't matter either.
It's now the established creed. Those who have always proposed clean air, less pollution, more responsibility, higher taxes to pay for clean initiatives, mass transit, the whole kit and kaboodle, finally have most of the world drinking the Kool-Aide, and they are not about to let some indcidental "facts" get in the way of the freight train that is the current thinking on Carbon, Climate Change, etc.
This is being reported in Science, a fairly respected journal. It is most pointedly not being reported on CNN, your local news, or talked about over a round of drinks at the local watering hole. Because that's how the machine works today.
It's irrelevant whether this changes anything, or not. It's irrelevant whether this totally disproves, slightly disproves, or wholeheartedly supports the 10+ year old computer models used to initiate the Climate Change paper issued by the IPCC in 1995 and again in 2001. It has become a commonly accepted "fact", the facts be damned.
It has the defining characteristic of a religion (facts are facts based on belief) rather than science (facts are established to test hypothesis and theories, with the intent of accepting what is the actual, reproducible result, regardless of the expected result).
Who is the denier here? It doesn't matter; both sides are experts at effective deployment of the blinders.
I was somewhat curious about his arguments, so I read TFA.
The guy is wrong in so many ways it's astounding, considering the brevity of the article.
But, it's kind of persuasive, if you were clueless about the subject itself, and didn't have much interest or skill in reasoning out the arguments and what they would mean in the real world.
Using the site recommended in TFA, I crunched the numbers for my annual driving habits. I assumed that every single mile I drive could be replaced by public transportation. I drive a 1/2 ton truck that gets 15 MPG in the city (25 highway, which is half my driving, but I went with 15 all the way in the calculator). Seems that using public transportation instead of driving would cost me $86.40 MORE than driving. I used $3.00 a gallon for gas cost and $3 both ways for public transportation, both the actual numbers where I live.
They then went on to add, in part two (under "You Save") "If you can live with one less vehicle in your household, you would save an additional $5,576 in car ownership cost (full-covereage insurance, license, registration, taxes, depreciation and finance charge)."
Call me crazy, but I happen to know exactly what those costs, and all my other vehicle costs, are, because I keep track of em all.
That Five Grand exceeds not only my costs for insurance ($344 annually for basic plus $205 annually for package policy with $50 deductible), license ($20 annually), registration ($45 annually), taxes ($0), depreciation (at 20% per year, this year would be $196.61), and finance charges ($0), but all my repairs, oil, parking, even gasoline. In fact, I can throw in the cost of the vehicle I bought four years ago in there and have a few dimes to the good.
I made $644 worth of repairs this year, including 2 new winter tires (2 per year, new winter tires in odd years and 2 new summer in even years), and passed a safety with flying colors. Oh, and that "one less vehicle" would leave me with exactly no vehicle, unless you count the boat or motorcycle, which I don't, because I have to deal with what they call winter.
Does public transportation require I go buy a new BMW to get rid of, to make it financially feasible?
It's illegal in the sense that "Hey, Officer, I want to report a robbery. That guy over there selling Crack stole it from my car; look, there's only ten bags left and I had twenty a minute ago."
Nobody who actually has any idea what the artifact might be worth would turn the seller in, since that would be incriminating themselves most of the time because exporting and importing artifacts is very illegal in most countries that actually have either artifacts or museums, let alone both.
There are other roadblocks to actual persecution; he may have bought it in good faith domestically, which lets him off the hook. He may rely on an expert opinion, which in my case would be the opinion of anyone who took an introductory Art History class, because I didn't.
The cops are not going to spend a few thou to check the authenticity, especially when you can trot out contradictory expert opinion, creating the necessary legal doubt. You might get sued, but any one of the other caveats applies; if it's proven to be authentic, the person who wins the lawsuit might have just proven themselves a criminal for buying a known genuine artifact.
And so on.
There are lots of things that are illegal, immoral, or just plain wrong, but nothing happens, and nothing is ever going to happen, to people who do them. This is one of those things.
Wow, and if people would just RTFA, they could save themselves a lot of typing:
"... It is true that fakes have been around for centuries. In 1886, the celebrated Smithsonian archaeologist W. H. Holmes described countless bogus antiquities in Mexico. A few decades later, Egyptologist T. G. Wakeling noted that many ancient Egyptian artifacts were, in fact, fakes. In the 19th century, American and European museums purchased large numbers of "Etruscan" ceramic vessels and sarcophagi that came straight from the kilns of rural Italian farmers...."
... that Cable is in trouble in any way, or at least not yet, and please, let's limit the conjecture to a decade, which is the entire railroad age in tech terms.
Anyone remember 1994? Remember how you felt about Record Companies in 1994? Try to be honest, folks... I know there's a 50/50 you hate them this morning, but let's keep in mind that this was the year a CD burner for your computer cost $2,000, down from last year's $10K.
I'm going to suggest you thought they were the guys who brought you CDs from great bands who played great music and sometimes engaged in some out-of-control promotion where the main result was they got some butt-ugly DJs laid by way of backstage passes and free coke. Or you didn't buy CDs and had no opinion at all.
Now, look at the cable company. This year, 1994, 1984, whenever. You hate them, don't you? You hated them ten years ago, didn't you? Two decades ago? I know I did.
So, I think it's clear that the cable company is not threatened, and is happily engaged in making bucketfuls of cash of what they see are many future customers. Don't forget how they are considered essential services by the poor, who cannot afford babysitters and couldn't get one every day for 10 times the price of cable. Maybe you can, but the poor cannot, believe me, do without cable.
When the cable company indicates it's worried, by actually answering the phone, showing up, telling the truth, and giving you what you want, then you can say they are in trouble, because that would be a radical change in business model dictated by doomsday scenarios from the moderately clued-in staff, wherever they may be. Until then, it's business as usual, and although they probably won't be letting us in on the secret, trust me, they have a plan for this and every other foreseeable issue in the near future.
Although the definition you link to refers to "... the act of a manufacturer in one country exporting a product to another country... below its costs of production...." that is not actually correct. It's probably just one of the more common issues with Wikipedia where either the edit was clumsy or someone is trying to score a political point, as it implies there is something wrong with selling below the cost of production alone, which is clearly untrue (and if it were true, half the products we use would not be made and half the companies we work for would be bankrupt fairly regularly).
Dumping is really about selling into one national market products made in another country at prices designed to undercut the domestic producer. Whether it's above or below the cost of production isn't relevant by itself, but does form part of the evidence that the intent is to disrupt the market so as to cripple the competitor or the domestic producers. Later in the same link you quote, they get it more or less right:
"... A standard technical definition of dumping is the act of charging a lower price for a good in a foreign market than one charges for the same good in a domestic market. This is often referred to as selling at less than "fair value." Under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement, dumping is condemned (but is not prohibited) if it causes or threatens to cause material injury to a domestic industry in the importing country. [1]..."
As to why selling at less than the cost of production is OK (it's a business practice taught in the usual schools) there are many reasons, but a simple one goes like this: You have 100 employees and a factory in Boston, making widgets out of unobtanium. A price spike in unobtanium means that it now costs you $1.05 to make a widget that you can only sell for $1.00. You lose five cents a widget and will be selling below the cost of production.
You decide to close the factory, based on your grandpa's business philosophy of always selling at a profit combined with a ill-advised look at a wikipedia page on dumping, forcing you to conclude you would be breaking the law.
The cost of taxes, electricity, interest on your land and equipment and the night watchman works out to the equivalent of a year's sales times 10 cents per widget. Because of this, you go broke in 12 months, while your competitor with the exact same costing structure and the same cash in the bank hangs in there for 18 months at -5c a widget, losing the equivalent of 9 months sales at -10c a widget.
When the smoke clears, he is the only supplier of widgets, raises the price to $1.50, and lives happily ever after. You lose the family business and your grandfather has you sent to hell due to his close association with Saint Peter and 40 years of donations to the church's favourite charities when he ran the show.
"... Reports Say Apple May Manufacture Its Own Chips..."
"... "PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, according to The New York Times during Apple's June 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference...."
From the Horse's Mouth, 9 months ago, announced publicly at the WDC. I think I would be going with "... will manufacture it's own chips..." since that's what they said they would be doing, right out loud in front of God and everybody.
I'd go with Bluetooth as my recommendation. It's got the qualities I need... low power versus who-knows-what power from a myriad of USB wireless providers who, almost naturally, will have varying emphasis on security versus usability. I like almost no power via bluetooth, designed from the start to be a limited range protocol.
Batteries might be an issue, but frankly regardless of what you choose if they are an issue whatsoever, you are suffering needlessly. Get 4 rechargeable NiMH or Lithium AA's (or whatever it uses) and have 2 charged units at the ready all the time. End of issue, regardless of battery life.
I eat AA's like candy with my Bluetooth mouse (not so much, but every few weeks) and my GPS needed for work (burns through 2 a day, every day). I'm still using the 8 AA's I bought a couple of years ago, and I probably won't need to buy new ones for another year, from the power I'm still getting. They don't last forever, but a few hundred recharges is plenty enough for the cost (if you get grinded, you might pay $20 for 4, but the same reseller probably has 4 with the charger for a dollar more; if you pay attention, you can find them for less). I haven't bought an alkaline in years.
I use the Apple Bluetooth mouse with my MacBook, but it wasn't a smooth adoption due to it's design. The left and right clicks are a bit ambiguous, so I changed mine in the mouse preferences so that it's all left click, with right-click being the middle scroll ball. Scroll up/down and left/right is enabled, and the side buttons are disabled. Works for me, but I wouldn't be against a nice 3-button plus scroll Bluetooth mouse from someone else.
I won't argue with you... you need to protect yourself.
But, if Hilton Hotels and American Airlines can find a way to accept credit cards in Moscow, Nairobi, and San Paulo, why can't you?
The answer is you are not trying to... you've decided that it's "not worth it" and that's that.
The problem is not foreign buyers, it's the method you are using to vet foreign buyers.
Right now, no-one in the US is really addressing the problem, so your problem is also your competitor's problem, and there is no competitive disadvantage that you can discern to refusing foreign buyers.
As soon as someone who competes with you on volume figures out how to do that (and clearly it is not impossible) they will own those buyers at your expense... and they will eat your lunch.
I will give you an example, Land's End. There is an issue with selling to Canadians, and that is there is GST to be collected at the border. It amounts to pennies on the dollar.
UPS, however, will charge the recipient $20 to $60 to collect those pennies, and demand a COD of (for example) $C 65.00 on a $US 70 product.
Land's End collects the $5 when you check out, they use the cheapest (for US resellers) carrier, which is UPS, but because there is no need to prepay the $5 there is no $60 brokerage fee. Customer gets the product just like his US counterpart.
As a result of that, Canadians either deal exclusively with Land's End (or merchants like them) or refuse to buy from any US reseller who ships UPS. Trust me... it's absolutely true.
Land's End reports that Canadian customers are 20% of their sales. Other clothing resellers... they see a few % and they are naive customers who are unaware of the issues, and complain.
So, those other resellers see Canadians as a pain-in-the-ass because of the complaints. In the meantime, Land's End quietly runs to the bank, hoping no-one else figures it out.
It's the same with other foreign buyers. There is a way, and those who are early and get on it will reap not only sales they cannot get from US buyers, but loyalty as well.
Okay, let me just introduce you to a place I once knew well. It was a place called the internet, circa 1999. Back then, apparently, I was a pioneer. I bought all my software and some of my computer hardware online. In 2001, I spent four figures online, when no-one else spent much of anything (according to the stats, anyway). One year after that, I spent five figures online. Just barely, but still. Today, if I don't need to eat it, or test it, I don't even shop locally, and I spend $20K online every year. That is roughly 70% of my disposable income. No, really. I buy everything online. I buy all my clothes online; all my electronics; all my music, all my movies. Not some... ALL OF IT. This year... all of my kitchen appliances were bought online. My espresso machine. My coffee grinder. My pot rack. My blender.
Did I mention I don't live in the US? Did I mention that at least 50% of all that spending was with US merchants?
Okay, let me put it this way. Introduce 10-year ad contracts. You can sign up for whatever, but the guys who sign up for 10 years get a break today and a guarantee that I will have ad space for you in 2019. Everyone else? Not so much.
Now tell me that you are losing money, and that there is no value in catering to those "money losing" second and third world countries.
Trust me... Amazon knew what they were doing. Everyone else plays catchup today. A smart social network plays the reality of future eyes to advertisers versus building a presence today. Those who think only of today are welcome to today, because today turns into yesterday at a very predictable rate.
Sure, there is no money in it in 2009. This just in... 2009 turns into 2010, and not at some random moment (like the stock market) but in exactly x number of days.
If you can't see the profit in that, you deserve to be left behind. And you will.
I'm aware of the current thinking regarding the origin of the 1918/1919 Pandemic as originating from Avian Flu. However, for all of the 20th century it was believed to be swine flu, the strain is active in swine today.
The easy confidence of Wikipedia contributors notwithstanding, the recently proposed link to avian flu is currently considered viable, due to the somewhat recent exhuming of a 1918/1919 victim, but un-proven in the current literature. As such, you can go with what the textbooks say (swine flu) or add the disclaimer (but recent information casts doubt and it may be avian flu, but nobody can say for sure at this point).
Someday, one or the other will be proven correct. Not today, though.
"... You obviously don't remember, but the reason for the big push to go electronic was because of Florida in the 2000 election. It came down to election officials' opinions on whether the hanging/pregnant/dimpled chad constituted a vote for one candidate or not...."
I obviously do remember, and the election in Florida with voting machines that have been used in the US for decades and that punch chads is in no way similar to paper ballots marked with an X, as is done everywhere else, including Ireland.
It's irrelevant to the parent and just barely relevant to paper ballots vs computer-based voting machines as the US has not used paper ballots marked with pencil in decades.
Slashdot Mirror
" ... as I understand it, the core of the problem was simple greed: money-hungry mortgage and securities dealers deliberately feeding bad data into the system. ... So-called quants may be decidedly imperfect, but if someone's willing to game the system to make a buck, nothing the quant does can stop it. ..."
Good point, but I think you may be attributing too much of what happened in '07 (in the US) /08 (everywhere) to bad intentions, not that they don't exist. All my research about the mortgage crisis essentially boils down to there was a motive to sell to poor borrowers because most of the "good" borrowers already had their mortgages during the earlier part of the 21st century, if not before. You can't sell more homes than people need, at least to the financially prudent. So, there was incentive to sell bad mortgages to bad borrowers, because they could be packaged and re-sold as a form of derivative, eliminating the risk to the original mortgage lender from default.
Those derivatives were packaged in a way that the true nature of the underlying mortgages was obscured or totally hidden. Of course, like the insurance industry where every player buys some of every other player's risk while selling some of it's own, because each company is more solvent that way, some of these same lenders were buying other's derivatives, which were just as shaky, but somehow they managed to deceive themselves into thinking they were actually made up of sound mortgages.
There's the massive self-deception based on greed you may be alluding to, but I don't think it follows that everyone in the bank knew that there was any self-deception going on (ie those whose job it was to run the models). Certainly they were on the books as good, sound mortgage-backed paper; certainly the shareholders may have believed the deception; certainly there was a house of cards being built.
But, I don't think those who collect and feed the data were that much in the loop (to be as deliberate as you suggest); the problem being no-one, and I mean no-one, knew the scope or the actual value of these derivatives. Nobody, not banks, not the Fed, not Economists, could know the true nature of this wildcat, unregulated mortgage-backed security market (and thus this input). I believe that at the peak, the value of these derivatives exceeded one year's GNP of the US; in other words a huge unregulated market indeed.
The data had to be guessed at using "the best information available at the time" which is a fairly fundamental method of business transactions; you don't wait forever for perfect data because opportunity is lost if you do.
Ideally such a huge, unregulated market is reined in by regulators who do know that anything in the financial sector that is too big is going to run the risk of taking down markets, banks, investors, and economies. Greenspan has said out loud that he had too much faith in the banking and security industry and let it go too big for too long. Hindsight is 20:20, but a "Wild West" mentality in every aspect of a market is not necessarily best ... the very first corporations about 600 years ago eventually caused so much havoc that for a few hundred years the whole concept was made illegal. That was a result of too few corporations, but the essence of a huge unregulated market is found there, because the few that did exist were the market, and one had a disproportionate (in today's terms) effect on others.
That's the natural result of unregulated markets: a great creator of wealth was legislated out of existence when better controls would have allowed society to benefit for a long time had they been properly understood at the time. But that's another topic.
You are fundamentally correct and it's an insightful comment. It's my belief that whatever bad inputs in the model, regardless of the avarice and greed of the players, existed because no-one had good data to put in.
" ... This article seems a little bias when you consider how much more liberal Canadian laws are ... i.e. we don't have a DMCA. ..."
Canada has both more and less restrictive copyright law than the US does; that it is "liberal" is simply spin by the usual suspects, which would come as no surprise to anyone following the modern copyright debate.
Regarding the DMCA, although it's somewhat strange to say "we don't have a [law enacted by a foreign government]" since sovereign nations always pass their own laws, virtually no two laws are identical between two nations (even basics like murder and theft legislation differs enough between any two given countries to be included there) and the US certainly never looks at Canadian legislation when crafting their own, I will accept your statement as if it were normal to have identical legislation, or for one country to copy another's laws verbatim.
The Copyright Act (Canada) makes it legal to create a backup of any software that you are otherwise legally entitled to own/use (or however you want to put it). That provision cannot be negated by a EULA, because illegal clauses in EULA cannot be enforced (in any nation), but does not affect the EULA otherwise, because any illegal clause does not invalidate any other otherwise legal provisions.
The DMCA (USA) would make certain backups illegal under all circumstances (although it would not affect every possible backup scenario).
The Copyright Act (Canada) makes it legal to create a personal copy of music from any source. Only the person who makes the copy can listen to it; it's illegal to lend it, sell it, play it in public or for an audience, or to make a copy for another person. The person who hopes to enjoy this exemption must make the copy himself, operate the equipment, software, etc personally. Artists are directly compensated by quarterly cash payments collected from sales of blank media and paid out based on radio airplay data.
Fair Use provisions (USA) allow you to make copies of music you otherwise have the right to play/use/etc. provided doing so would not violate the DMCA. Artists are not compensated for Fair Use copies. Other copies are prohibited.
The Copyright Act (Canada) makes the recording of any video content whatsoever illegal under all circumstances. Use of VCRs, DVRs to "time shift" TV shows, for example, is completely illegal in Canada, as is the copying of movies, TV shows, etc, regardless of whether you otherwise have the right to view such movies (ie own the DVD), etc.
Fair Use provisions (USA) for video content are similar to making music copies in the USA; allows for time shifting of TV shows, copying of movies that are not subject to the DMCA (video tapes), etc.
Canada (and virtually every nation on Earth) allow for "Fair Dealing" (which is not to be confused with "Fair Use", which exists only in the USA) which allows use of copyright material for bona fide news, research, citations, reviews, quotations, etc provided such use is brief, appropriate to the subject under examination, and does not constitute a significant portion of the work.
Quoting the entire article of a news story in a blog or forum, for example, would be illegal in Canada since it encompasses a significant portion of the work, and thus no Fair Dealing exemption could apply.
So, two examples where Canada is less restrictive (audio copying; software backups) and another where they are more restrictive (video copying) than US law.
Should the Private Copying provisions of the Copyright Act (Canada) be repealed, Canada would be more restrictive since there is no Fair Use exemption; all audio copying except for bona fide academic, etc use would be illegal, even if you owned the CD the copy was made from.
In other words, they are "different" and you can't take one provision out of context of the whole body of law in either country, or any country for that matter.
" ... So far US, UK, Russia, France, China, and maybe Israel all have nuclear weapons capability. ..."
US, Russia, France, the UK, and China built and tested nukes around 50 or more years ago; the testing is considered important when you talk about who has and who does not have the capability to wage nuclear war. It's not a coincidence that these are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council ... it was essentially the card you needed to be invited to the party (China was invited late).
Since then, three others have tested weapons, which is the gold standard for whether they have nukes ... in other words, you can't lie about it. That is India, Pakistan, and North Korea.
I see you include Israel, which is in another category where they are widely believed to have nukes, some people in high places actually know the answer for sure one way or another, but they deny they do and have not tested a weapon, making it clearly possible to lie about it.
For some time South Africa was in the same category, but they have voluntarily dismantled the six bombs they had at one time assembled, and like Israel they have never tested a weapon. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine have relinquished the bombs they inherited as a result of their owning collective property, including military equipment, in the old USSR.
The above list is the one agreed upon by the US State Department, amongst others. But, there are other lists with other criteria.
Then there is the list of countries that are considered capable of building and deploying a nuclear weapon within six months time or less (1), but for whatever reason have not built any. That includes nations with mature domestic nuclear industries and large amounts of weapons-grade material like Japan, Germany and Canada, and a few that have might be able to build one, or might not, like Brazil, which has voluntarily moved all it's weapons-grade material out of the country (less than 1 Kg remains, not enough to build a nuke).
There are currently 40 non-nuclear nations with available bomb-making material on hand in the form of highly-enriched uranium, and that includes at least one in every continent save Antarctica. Some consider any nation with nuclear power facilities to be nuclear capable, which is a bit of a stretch in my mind, but if you agree, that's 44 nations.
Pakistan is the source of most of North Korea's nuclear bomb-making ability, and it's well documented, not Iran as at least one poster here suggested. Pakistan recently (9th February 09) released Abdel Qadeer Khan, the architect of Pakistan's nuclear program, from house arrest, which he was under for five years as punishment for selling nuclear secrets to North Korea (as well as a few others). At roughly the same time the United States imposed sanctions on Khan, 12 other individuals, and three companies. The United States claims that these individuals and companies are part of "an extensive network" under Khan's direction that offered or may still offer in exchange for money "one-stop" shopping for countries aspiring to have nuclear weapons.
There are about 27,000 built and presumably working nuclear weapons on Earth with around 2.000 deployed in missile launchers available for immediate use worldwide.
(1) According to the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists based at the University of Chicago, the same people with the Doomsday Clock. You know they've been at it a while because they use "Atomic" instead of "Nuclear" in their name ;-)
Links:
http://www.thebulletin.org/
http://www.cnsnews.com/Public/Content/Article.aspx?rsrcid=43235
" ... If anyone in Government said the same thing ..."
You know, the quote I quoted, so people like you could read it. Then again, you could just ignore the quote and rant about something I didn't post about. Nice work, there, Mr Comprehension.
" ... But if it helps me make a good, strong business argument to make other changes that will improve the experience for all of my users, for all time to come, and it means that a small segment of users for a small period of time will experience what we think will likely be a negative thing but we're not sure, it was a test worth running. ..."
If anyone in Government said the same thing, it would be a huge, unequivocal assault on freedom (where users = citizens; negative thing = anything you can't legally do to prisoners; and test worth running = ongoing study).
As a corporation, though, it's good to go.
" ... Even the lay-people know the courts systems aren't completely fair. What manner of arrogant do you have to be to behave in this way? ..."
Why, that would be "RIAArogant.
I mean the bougus-ness of this patent is beyond the pale.
Essentially, they are patenting the whole computing experience, and getting some legal entity to agree it must be FOR PROFIT ONLY, from somewhere around 1980-something until 20 [dot dot dot] ??-something. The mind boggles.
It's not often a good idea to grant a company automated billing, but then again, some tech operations depend on it, and consumers are all about the convenience.
But, once a company ... ANY company, abuses it, you should cut them off and insist they bill you and wait, like everyone else has to, for payment.
It's an abuse of trust, and that should never be tolerated or rewarded. If the offending firm complains that to revert to old fashioned billing would be too expensive, tell them you don't believe them, since actually running an automated billing system seemed too expensive to them as well. Otherwise it would have been given the necessary resources to insure it would NEVER be broken in the first place.
The idea of using water cooling and then re-using the stored heat energy by redirecting it to an area that is heat-deficient is sound, green, and all that, at least in principle. The objections, if there are any, would come from the implementation. Since that is unique to each circumstance, the right answer is "it depends", but most certainly not "that's crazy talk" or "everyone should be doing this".
If we're talking about efficiency, then I'm not sure where to start ... getting more work out of a processor via superior cooling also means getting more power into the CPU and other stuff around it. It is the waste power we need to dissipate via cooling (whether passive air, active (fan assisted) air, via water, unobtanium, whatever), after all. This stuff requires careful scrutiny and is not the province of lowly Slashdot contributors, although any company contemplating such questions is certainly free to hire one.
Water is 20 times more efficient at removing heat than air; I know this from my "other" job, which occasionally involves saving lives, where hypothermia is a real risk. Aided with forced air cooling (the wind) you have a very effective method of removing a tremendous amount of heat from a device (the human body) that generates it's own on a constant basis, as long as it's still working (alive), that is. Very much similar to a CPU doing work, and also showing how the inherent 20x can be improved upon, so I won't argue any claims about how efficient this particular method of IBM's is; I reserve my right to fall back to "it sounds like it might work".
Re-using the waste heat is a good idea and some buildings already employ hot-water heating/cooling systems that could easily incorporate a new source of heated water energy. Others ... who knows?
" ... No, it really doesn't mean that, either. ..."
Doesn't mean "what" exactly? I did not post anything at all regarding what it means; I said only that it doesn't matter what it means. Which your rebuttal proves, quite perfectly, I might add.
" ... It will be published in Nature, not Science, ..."
Point taken. I stand corrected.
" ... and the research does disprove all of the climate science that's been done in the last thirty years, much as you'd like to believe that. ..."
I think you meant "does not disprove" and I said nothing at all regarding what I myself "believe". You painted me with that brush, the way any avid believer can pick out those who ask questions rather than simply going out amongst the masses and preaching to the unwashed, preferably quoting rather than thinking, lest they get some subtle aspect of the gospel wrong.
I instead prefer to refer to "all of the climate science that's been done in the last thirty years", not just the parts that agree with a "belief" that reinforces a predetermined conclusion.
I would like to thank you for your post; it would be perfect if we could now have one from someone who thinks Climate Change is a bunch of hooey. I can't, because that's not my conclusion based on the current literature, despite your quick judgement to the contrary.
He can even use your exact words:
" ... Now, sit down and actually read the Woods Hole paper. Then, having been appraised of the facts, you can continue ranting as if nothing had happened. ..."
" ... None of this makes the slightest difference to the expected global warming. ..."
I like your title. "Dear Deniers." Perfect.
You could have stopped at the first part of your first sentence (quoted above), though. And you might not like to whom the finger points, with "Dear Deniers.". Because the truth is, garbage in=garbage out notwithstanding, this won't make any difference in the "Global Warming" mindset. Nothing will. Getting a critical input 100% wrong, to the extent that the entire model shows a complete reversal of the predicted outcome, won't matter either.
It's now the established creed. Those who have always proposed clean air, less pollution, more responsibility, higher taxes to pay for clean initiatives, mass transit, the whole kit and kaboodle, finally have most of the world drinking the Kool-Aide, and they are not about to let some indcidental "facts" get in the way of the freight train that is the current thinking on Carbon, Climate Change, etc.
This is being reported in Science, a fairly respected journal. It is most pointedly not being reported on CNN, your local news, or talked about over a round of drinks at the local watering hole. Because that's how the machine works today.
It's irrelevant whether this changes anything, or not. It's irrelevant whether this totally disproves, slightly disproves, or wholeheartedly supports the 10+ year old computer models used to initiate the Climate Change paper issued by the IPCC in 1995 and again in 2001. It has become a commonly accepted "fact", the facts be damned.
It has the defining characteristic of a religion (facts are facts based on belief) rather than science (facts are established to test hypothesis and theories, with the intent of accepting what is the actual, reproducible result, regardless of the expected result).
Who is the denier here? It doesn't matter; both sides are experts at effective deployment of the blinders.
I was somewhat curious about his arguments, so I read TFA.
The guy is wrong in so many ways it's astounding, considering the brevity of the article.
But, it's kind of persuasive, if you were clueless about the subject itself, and didn't have much interest or skill in reasoning out the arguments and what they would mean in the real world.
Then it occurred to me.
The guy can write.
He just can't think.
He's a Journalist!
Using the site recommended in TFA, I crunched the numbers for my annual driving habits. I assumed that every single mile I drive could be replaced by public transportation. I drive a 1/2 ton truck that gets 15 MPG in the city (25 highway, which is half my driving, but I went with 15 all the way in the calculator). Seems that using public transportation instead of driving would cost me $86.40 MORE than driving. I used $3.00 a gallon for gas cost and $3 both ways for public transportation, both the actual numbers where I live.
They then went on to add, in part two (under "You Save") "If you can live with one less vehicle in your household, you would save an additional $5,576 in car ownership cost (full-covereage insurance, license, registration, taxes, depreciation and finance charge)."
Call me crazy, but I happen to know exactly what those costs, and all my other vehicle costs, are, because I keep track of em all.
That Five Grand exceeds not only my costs for insurance ($344 annually for basic plus $205 annually for package policy with $50 deductible), license ($20 annually), registration ($45 annually), taxes ($0), depreciation (at 20% per year, this year would be $196.61), and finance charges ($0), but all my repairs, oil, parking, even gasoline. In fact, I can throw in the cost of the vehicle I bought four years ago in there and have a few dimes to the good.
I made $644 worth of repairs this year, including 2 new winter tires (2 per year, new winter tires in odd years and 2 new summer in even years), and passed a safety with flying colors. Oh, and that "one less vehicle" would leave me with exactly no vehicle, unless you count the boat or motorcycle, which I don't, because I have to deal with what they call winter.
Does public transportation require I go buy a new BMW to get rid of, to make it financially feasible?
"FTC could delay Adult Stem Cell Breakthroughs"
In related news, the FDA has decided to intervene in the Janet Jackson Superbowl "Wardrobe Malfunction" litigation.
It's illegal in the sense that "Hey, Officer, I want to report a robbery. That guy over there selling Crack stole it from my car; look, there's only ten bags left and I had twenty a minute ago."
Nobody who actually has any idea what the artifact might be worth would turn the seller in, since that would be incriminating themselves most of the time because exporting and importing artifacts is very illegal in most countries that actually have either artifacts or museums, let alone both.
There are other roadblocks to actual persecution; he may have bought it in good faith domestically, which lets him off the hook. He may rely on an expert opinion, which in my case would be the opinion of anyone who took an introductory Art History class, because I didn't.
The cops are not going to spend a few thou to check the authenticity, especially when you can trot out contradictory expert opinion, creating the necessary legal doubt. You might get sued, but any one of the other caveats applies; if it's proven to be authentic, the person who wins the lawsuit might have just proven themselves a criminal for buying a known genuine artifact.
And so on.
There are lots of things that are illegal, immoral, or just plain wrong, but nothing happens, and nothing is ever going to happen, to people who do them. This is one of those things.
Wow, and if people would just RTFA, they could save themselves a lot of typing:
" ... It is true that fakes have been around for centuries. In 1886, the celebrated Smithsonian archaeologist W. H. Holmes described countless bogus antiquities in Mexico. A few decades later, Egyptologist T. G. Wakeling noted that many ancient Egyptian artifacts were, in fact, fakes. In the 19th century, American and European museums purchased large numbers of "Etruscan" ceramic vessels and sarcophagi that came straight from the kilns of rural Italian farmers. ..."
... that Cable is in trouble in any way, or at least not yet, and please, let's limit the conjecture to a decade, which is the entire railroad age in tech terms.
Anyone remember 1994? Remember how you felt about Record Companies in 1994? Try to be honest, folks ... I know there's a 50/50 you hate them this morning, but let's keep in mind that this was the year a CD burner for your computer cost $2,000, down from last year's $10K.
I'm going to suggest you thought they were the guys who brought you CDs from great bands who played great music and sometimes engaged in some out-of-control promotion where the main result was they got some butt-ugly DJs laid by way of backstage passes and free coke. Or you didn't buy CDs and had no opinion at all.
Now, look at the cable company. This year, 1994, 1984, whenever. You hate them, don't you? You hated them ten years ago, didn't you? Two decades ago? I know I did.
So, I think it's clear that the cable company is not threatened, and is happily engaged in making bucketfuls of cash of what they see are many future customers. Don't forget how they are considered essential services by the poor, who cannot afford babysitters and couldn't get one every day for 10 times the price of cable. Maybe you can, but the poor cannot, believe me, do without cable.
When the cable company indicates it's worried, by actually answering the phone, showing up, telling the truth, and giving you what you want, then you can say they are in trouble, because that would be a radical change in business model dictated by doomsday scenarios from the moderately clued-in staff, wherever they may be. Until then, it's business as usual, and although they probably won't be letting us in on the secret, trust me, they have a plan for this and every other foreseeable issue in the near future.
After 2019, maybe that changes.
Although the definition you link to refers to " ... the act of a manufacturer in one country exporting a product to another country ... below its costs of production. ..." that is not actually correct. It's probably just one of the more common issues with Wikipedia where either the edit was clumsy or someone is trying to score a political point, as it implies there is something wrong with selling below the cost of production alone, which is clearly untrue (and if it were true, half the products we use would not be made and half the companies we work for would be bankrupt fairly regularly).
Dumping is really about selling into one national market products made in another country at prices designed to undercut the domestic producer. Whether it's above or below the cost of production isn't relevant by itself, but does form part of the evidence that the intent is to disrupt the market so as to cripple the competitor or the domestic producers. Later in the same link you quote, they get it more or less right:
" ... A standard technical definition of dumping is the act of charging a lower price for a good in a foreign market than one charges for the same good in a domestic market. This is often referred to as selling at less than "fair value." Under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement, dumping is condemned (but is not prohibited) if it causes or threatens to cause material injury to a domestic industry in the importing country. [1] ..."
As to why selling at less than the cost of production is OK (it's a business practice taught in the usual schools) there are many reasons, but a simple one goes like this:
You have 100 employees and a factory in Boston, making widgets out of unobtanium. A price spike in unobtanium means that it now costs you $1.05 to make a widget that you can only sell for $1.00. You lose five cents a widget and will be selling below the cost of production.
You decide to close the factory, based on your grandpa's business philosophy of always selling at a profit combined with a ill-advised look at a wikipedia page on dumping, forcing you to conclude you would be breaking the law.
The cost of taxes, electricity, interest on your land and equipment and the night watchman works out to the equivalent of a year's sales times 10 cents per widget. Because of this, you go broke in 12 months, while your competitor with the exact same costing structure and the same cash in the bank hangs in there for 18 months at -5c a widget, losing the equivalent of 9 months sales at -10c a widget.
When the smoke clears, he is the only supplier of widgets, raises the price to $1.50, and lives happily ever after. You lose the family business and your grandfather has you sent to hell due to his close association with Saint Peter and 40 years of donations to the church's favourite charities when he ran the show.
Maybe, but it's a line not often drawn by many ... ATI never had a fab.
" ... Reports Say Apple May Manufacture Its Own Chips ..."
" ... "PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, according to The New York Times during Apple's June 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference. ..."
From the Horse's Mouth, 9 months ago, announced publicly at the WDC. I think I would be going with " ... will manufacture it's own chips ..." since that's what they said they would be doing, right out loud in front of God and everybody.
I'd go with Bluetooth as my recommendation. It's got the qualities I need ... low power versus who-knows-what power from a myriad of USB wireless providers who, almost naturally, will have varying emphasis on security versus usability. I like almost no power via bluetooth, designed from the start to be a limited range protocol.
Batteries might be an issue, but frankly regardless of what you choose if they are an issue whatsoever, you are suffering needlessly. Get 4 rechargeable NiMH or Lithium AA's (or whatever it uses) and have 2 charged units at the ready all the time. End of issue, regardless of battery life.
I eat AA's like candy with my Bluetooth mouse (not so much, but every few weeks) and my GPS needed for work (burns through 2 a day, every day). I'm still using the 8 AA's I bought a couple of years ago, and I probably won't need to buy new ones for another year, from the power I'm still getting. They don't last forever, but a few hundred recharges is plenty enough for the cost (if you get grinded, you might pay $20 for 4, but the same reseller probably has 4 with the charger for a dollar more; if you pay attention, you can find them for less). I haven't bought an alkaline in years.
I use the Apple Bluetooth mouse with my MacBook, but it wasn't a smooth adoption due to it's design. The left and right clicks are a bit ambiguous, so I changed mine in the mouse preferences so that it's all left click, with right-click being the middle scroll ball. Scroll up/down and left/right is enabled, and the side buttons are disabled. Works for me, but I wouldn't be against a nice 3-button plus scroll Bluetooth mouse from someone else.
I won't argue with you ... you need to protect yourself.
But, if Hilton Hotels and American Airlines can find a way to accept credit cards in Moscow, Nairobi, and San Paulo, why can't you?
The answer is you are not trying to ... you've decided that it's "not worth it" and that's that.
The problem is not foreign buyers, it's the method you are using to vet foreign buyers.
Right now, no-one in the US is really addressing the problem, so your problem is also your competitor's problem, and there is no competitive disadvantage that you can discern to refusing foreign buyers.
As soon as someone who competes with you on volume figures out how to do that (and clearly it is not impossible) they will own those buyers at your expense ... and they will eat your lunch.
I will give you an example, Land's End. There is an issue with selling to Canadians, and that is there is GST to be collected at the border. It amounts to pennies on the dollar.
UPS, however, will charge the recipient $20 to $60 to collect those pennies, and demand a COD of (for example) $C 65.00 on a $US 70 product.
Land's End collects the $5 when you check out, they use the cheapest (for US resellers) carrier, which is UPS, but because there is no need to prepay the $5 there is no $60 brokerage fee. Customer gets the product just like his US counterpart.
As a result of that, Canadians either deal exclusively with Land's End (or merchants like them) or refuse to buy from any US reseller who ships UPS. Trust me ... it's absolutely true.
Land's End reports that Canadian customers are 20% of their sales. Other clothing resellers ... they see a few % and they are naive customers who are unaware of the issues, and complain.
So, those other resellers see Canadians as a pain-in-the-ass because of the complaints. In the meantime, Land's End quietly runs to the bank, hoping no-one else figures it out.
It's the same with other foreign buyers. There is a way, and those who are early and get on it will reap not only sales they cannot get from US buyers, but loyalty as well.
Who do you want to be?
Okay, let me just introduce you to a place I once knew well. It was a place called the internet, circa 1999. ... ALL OF IT. ... all of my kitchen appliances were bought online. My espresso machine. My coffee grinder. My pot rack. My blender.
Back then, apparently, I was a pioneer. I bought all my software and some of my computer hardware online.
In 2001, I spent four figures online, when no-one else spent much of anything (according to the stats, anyway).
One year after that, I spent five figures online. Just barely, but still.
Today, if I don't need to eat it, or test it, I don't even shop locally, and I spend $20K online every year. That is roughly 70% of my disposable income.
No, really. I buy everything online. I buy all my clothes online; all my electronics; all my music, all my movies. Not some
This year
Did I mention I don't live in the US? Did I mention that at least 50% of all that spending was with US merchants?
Okay, let me put it this way. Introduce 10-year ad contracts. You can sign up for whatever, but the guys who sign up for 10 years get a break today and a guarantee that I will have ad space for you in 2019. Everyone else? Not so much.
Now tell me that you are losing money, and that there is no value in catering to those "money losing" second and third world countries.
Trust me ... Amazon knew what they were doing. Everyone else plays catchup today. A smart social network plays the reality of future eyes to advertisers versus building a presence today. Those who think only of today are welcome to today, because today turns into yesterday at a very predictable rate.
Sure, there is no money in it in 2009. This just in ... 2009 turns into 2010, and not at some random moment (like the stock market) but in exactly x number of days.
If you can't see the profit in that, you deserve to be left behind. And you will.
I'm aware of the current thinking regarding the origin of the 1918/1919 Pandemic as originating from Avian Flu. However, for all of the 20th century it was believed to be swine flu, the strain is active in swine today.
The easy confidence of Wikipedia contributors notwithstanding, the recently proposed link to avian flu is currently considered viable, due to the somewhat recent exhuming of a 1918/1919 victim, but un-proven in the current literature. As such, you can go with what the textbooks say (swine flu) or add the disclaimer (but recent information casts doubt and it may be avian flu, but nobody can say for sure at this point).
Someday, one or the other will be proven correct. Not today, though.
" ... You obviously don't remember, but the reason for the big push to go electronic was because of Florida in the 2000 election. It came down to election officials' opinions on whether the hanging/pregnant/dimpled chad constituted a vote for one candidate or not. ..."
I obviously do remember, and the election in Florida with voting machines that have been used in the US for decades and that punch chads is in no way similar to paper ballots marked with an X, as is done everywhere else, including Ireland.
It's irrelevant to the parent and just barely relevant to paper ballots vs computer-based voting machines as the US has not used paper ballots marked with pencil in decades.