Of course they like to obscure their real costs and how much of the total cost was spent marketing the drug rather than actually developing it. If they claim $2 billion to bring a new drug to market then that would be around $500k-$750k for R&D with the remainder going towards marketing (advertising, kick-backs etc.)
This of course assumes that these profit claims are true - why should we trust them? The SA court case clearly demonstrated that the pharmaceutical industry has lied about every aspect of their finances. It was very clear that this industry is totally corrupt.
"country refuses to pay a fair price for drugs to save its own people"
If the day should ever come where pharmaceutical companies charge a fair price.
Want a story that is similar, but on a more "person" level. White farmers losing their property in Zimbabwe, because its not fair that they have it.
Completely spurious - there isn't even any sort of remote resemblance between the two situations.
Reduces the possibility of region specific drugs NOT being developed
You mean less than the zero chance there was before?
Raises spectre of loss of intellectual property on other levels, and more and more are confiscated for the "public good"
Many things are done in the name of the public good, some beneficial, others not. The South African court case against these greedy multinationals was a bold and brave move - why do you think the pharmaceutical industry settled? Because every day more and more evidence was produced that clearly demonstrated that these corporations are lying, thieving scum who are more than happy to actively assist in bringing about the death of millions rather than do the right thing - they even admit that they make almost no money from the third world anyway so they really had nothing to lose, but they did hope the SA government would chicken out and they would be able to bleed dry not only them, but Brazil and numerous other poorer nations.
These are not nice people and they are driven by pure greed. What does it matter if a few hundred million third world people?
Pharmaceutical companies spend at least twice as much on marketing as they do on research. Furthermore even these greedy bastards admit that they make almost all their money from first world countries - it won't hurt them one bit to be a bit charitable.
Not for me though, here the processor prices for AMD CPUs go up in exactly the right increments so there is no premium for a fast CPU, not even the 1.5 Thunderbird.
This isn't new; sometime ago already research indicated that the problem is not the keyboard or the mouse, but the pressure caused by resting your arms on the edge of the desk. There is also evidence that the more sensitive your fingers are the less likely you are to get RSI.
MacOS is good for Desktop Publishing and Graphic design
Historically perhaps, but I've tried it on both in more recent times and could find no reason to spend the money on a Mac.
Personally the more I used the Mac the more I grew to despise the GUI, the ridiculous mouse and the generally obscure places Apple had chosen to hide things, but each to their own; I'm just very, very tired of Mac users claiming their system is somehow inherently superior.
Public schools
Those cultures had public schools (even though you might not consider them as such because they were different to your notion of 'school') and Europeans were not exactly strong on educating anyone other than upper class males.
Codes of Law
They certainly did have codes of law. Again perhaps different to your notion of this concept.
They had no need for agriculture and therefore did not develop it.
Both Africa and India had advanced cultures.
Your reference to tribal warfare merely demonstrates your ignorance of the mess and chaos created, then left behind, by the colonists. This is directly responsible for pretty much all the conflict on the continent.
And let's not forget that European and American corporations continue to inflame for their own gain the tensions left behind by colonialism - they provide weapons, encouraging as much torture and murder as possible so they can rape the countries with impunity - they do not want the wars to end - how will they ever get away with stealing all those natural resources if that happens?
Corporations are more powerful than government if at least one government is too weak to stand up to them. Today the supremely weak government is the US administration. No country can afford to stand up to their local corporations because the corporations just threaten to move their business and capital elsewhere. Naturally business types are quick to defend their right to do so in the name of capitalism and globalisation. The governments of the world need to get together to draft strong global control of corporations.
I want to be able to pay the artists money for their songs
So do I; unfortunately there are criminal middlemen standing between me and the musician. And EMI is as guilty as any of them.
a lot of the best musicians will never happen unless they are able to practice all day, every day
Rubbish. Unless you're a jazz musician technical skill is not specifically important. It could be a factor, but isn't an overwhelming one.
The analogy to athletes is incorrect.
As always I agree that musicians should get paid for their work, but that isn't happening anyway and the ones making all the noise about piracy are those responsible for stealing 90% of every musicians rightful income. There are a number of musicians who have spoken out about the criminal extortion racket referred to as the music industry.
And let's not forget that in the real world music copying is leading to increased music sales. There is always a lot of noise coming from RIAA and it has universally turned out to be lies and misinformation. Let's pass laws to at least eliminate these criminals if not put them where they belong, in a maximum security prison for several hundred years.
Shouldn't that be the bloody struggle of US supported dictators against supposed communism? If you were against communism the US happily provided training in torture and murder along with the implements to carry out all manner of despicable acts; that way you could more efficiently murder your citizens.
Your analogy is wrong, but that aside if above.net want to act as censors then they must be legally required to publish a list of what they're blocking and why; furthermore ISPs must be required to provide details of the backbone they use so that consumers can make an informed choice. Right now some people are paying for a service they are not receiving because above.net are arbitrarily blocking certain addresses.
I only watch the TV I do because I can time-shift it. Without that I won't watch TV anymore. Perhaps this is the way to break this stupidity - no time-shifting means loss of viewers.
While there is a small amount of evidence that movie violence can have a negative influence on children, there is no evidence that seeing sex is any way harmful and the very notion that it could harm them is itself depraved; and let's not forget that the lunatics who put forward this notion also believe that nudity is somehow harmful to children (clearly they must be born immune to their own nudity). Exposure to real violence is by far the most important factor followed by seeing violence in the news; movies and television programs, which are fantasy, come in a very, very distant third. Of course it is easier for politicians to point fingers at movies than it is to carry out the long term work required to remove exposure to real violence.
This is part of a general trend in the US to crush curiosity, intelligence, innovation and creative thinking. The very things that made the US a major source of scientific knowledge are now being systematically destroyed by lazy parents and teachers combined with simple-minded attitudes. And surprise, surprise every day the effort to re-merge church and state continues. A classic example being states that legislate the teaching of fantasies like creation in their schools.
Nothing stopping you from installing Netscape or RealPlayer. I have them installed in parallel with the ones MS provides; they're not as good, but I do require them occasionally. I hope MS provides further quality applications so I don't have to spend extra money on Norton etc. Symantec will have to compete as they have been for quite a while - by providing something that doesn't come with the system.
You should release the details via someone else anyway. The public should know to avoid this bank and remove their funds if they currently use the bank.
On the other hand if business executives insist on displaying their general stupidity with the backing of the FBI moron-scum perhaps you should just leave these idiots to get hacked and pay the consequences.
Cheating successfully is about innovation, ingenuity and creative thinking. Sorry to tell you guys, but the genuinely successful cheater will also turn out to be an exceptional developer.
Exactly and if you're going to cheat do it properly. That means copying the ideas not the text. People who get caught cheating are those that are too stupid to cheat well.
Speaking as a prof, I ban them. Indeed, I ban all calculators.
I'd rather have the students think about the answer than sit there pushing buttons on the magic box and taking whatever it gives as the truth.
That's a pretty stupid attitude. In a time-limited exam (a dumb idea in the first place, but universities cling to this one with a death grip) they save you wasting time doing calculations on paper or in your head. They also force you to sanity-check all results.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course they like to obscure their real costs and how much of the total cost was spent marketing the drug rather than actually developing it. If they claim $2 billion to bring a new drug to market then that would be around $500k-$750k for R&D with the remainder going towards marketing (advertising, kick-backs etc.)
They make all their money in wealthy countries. Only the truly gullible believe anything the industry has to say.
This of course assumes that these profit claims are true - why should we trust them? The SA court case clearly demonstrated that the pharmaceutical industry has lied about every aspect of their finances. It was very clear that this industry is totally corrupt.
If the day should ever come where pharmaceutical companies charge a fair price.
Want a story that is similar, but on a more "person" level. White farmers losing their property in Zimbabwe, because its not fair that they have it.
Completely spurious - there isn't even any sort of remote resemblance between the two situations.
Reduces the possibility of region specific drugs NOT being developed
You mean less than the zero chance there was before?
Raises spectre of loss of intellectual property on other levels, and more and more are confiscated for the "public good"
Many things are done in the name of the public good, some beneficial, others not. The South African court case against these greedy multinationals was a bold and brave move - why do you think the pharmaceutical industry settled? Because every day more and more evidence was produced that clearly demonstrated that these corporations are lying, thieving scum who are more than happy to actively assist in bringing about the death of millions rather than do the right thing - they even admit that they make almost no money from the third world anyway so they really had nothing to lose, but they did hope the SA government would chicken out and they would be able to bleed dry not only them, but Brazil and numerous other poorer nations.
These are not nice people and they are driven by pure greed. What does it matter if a few hundred million third world people?
Pharmaceutical companies spend at least twice as much on marketing as they do on research. Furthermore even these greedy bastards admit that they make almost all their money from first world countries - it won't hurt them one bit to be a bit charitable.
Not for me though, here the processor prices for AMD CPUs go up in exactly the right increments so there is no premium for a fast CPU, not even the 1.5 Thunderbird.
Audiophiles are a great source of income, especially if you sell cables - they'll buy all sorts of overpriced rubbish.
This isn't new; sometime ago already research indicated that the problem is not the keyboard or the mouse, but the pressure caused by resting your arms on the edge of the desk. There is also evidence that the more sensitive your fingers are the less likely you are to get RSI.
Historically perhaps, but I've tried it on both in more recent times and could find no reason to spend the money on a Mac.
Personally the more I used the Mac the more I grew to despise the GUI, the ridiculous mouse and the generally obscure places Apple had chosen to hide things, but each to their own; I'm just very, very tired of Mac users claiming their system is somehow inherently superior.
Those cultures had public schools (even though you might not consider them as such because they were different to your notion of 'school') and Europeans were not exactly strong on educating anyone other than upper class males. Codes of Law
They certainly did have codes of law. Again perhaps different to your notion of this concept.
They had no need for agriculture and therefore did not develop it.
Both Africa and India had advanced cultures.
Your reference to tribal warfare merely demonstrates your ignorance of the mess and chaos created, then left behind, by the colonists. This is directly responsible for pretty much all the conflict on the continent.
And let's not forget that European and American corporations continue to inflame for their own gain the tensions left behind by colonialism - they provide weapons, encouraging as much torture and murder as possible so they can rape the countries with impunity - they do not want the wars to end - how will they ever get away with stealing all those natural resources if that happens?
Corporations are more powerful than government if at least one government is too weak to stand up to them. Today the supremely weak government is the US administration. No country can afford to stand up to their local corporations because the corporations just threaten to move their business and capital elsewhere. Naturally business types are quick to defend their right to do so in the name of capitalism and globalisation. The governments of the world need to get together to draft strong global control of corporations.
So do I; unfortunately there are criminal middlemen standing between me and the musician. And EMI is as guilty as any of them.
a lot of the best musicians will never happen unless they are able to practice all day, every dayRubbish. Unless you're a jazz musician technical skill is not specifically important. It could be a factor, but isn't an overwhelming one.
The analogy to athletes is incorrect.
As always I agree that musicians should get paid for their work, but that isn't happening anyway and the ones making all the noise about piracy are those responsible for stealing 90% of every musicians rightful income. There are a number of musicians who have spoken out about the criminal extortion racket referred to as the music industry.
And let's not forget that in the real world music copying is leading to increased music sales. There is always a lot of noise coming from RIAA and it has universally turned out to be lies and misinformation. Let's pass laws to at least eliminate these criminals if not put them where they belong, in a maximum security prison for several hundred years.
Surely when policy is decided in favour of business due to business control of government then that meets the definition of corporatism?
Shouldn't that be the bloody struggle of US supported dictators against supposed communism? If you were against communism the US happily provided training in torture and murder along with the implements to carry out all manner of despicable acts; that way you could more efficiently murder your citizens.
Your analogy is wrong, but that aside if above.net want to act as censors then they must be legally required to publish a list of what they're blocking and why; furthermore ISPs must be required to provide details of the backbone they use so that consumers can make an informed choice. Right now some people are paying for a service they are not receiving because above.net are arbitrarily blocking certain addresses.
I only watch the TV I do because I can time-shift it. Without that I won't watch TV anymore. Perhaps this is the way to break this stupidity - no time-shifting means loss of viewers.
While there is a small amount of evidence that movie violence can have a negative influence on children, there is no evidence that seeing sex is any way harmful and the very notion that it could harm them is itself depraved; and let's not forget that the lunatics who put forward this notion also believe that nudity is somehow harmful to children (clearly they must be born immune to their own nudity). Exposure to real violence is by far the most important factor followed by seeing violence in the news; movies and television programs, which are fantasy, come in a very, very distant third. Of course it is easier for politicians to point fingers at movies than it is to carry out the long term work required to remove exposure to real violence.
StarOffice sucks. Not as much as OpenOffice though.
This is part of a general trend in the US to crush curiosity, intelligence, innovation and creative thinking. The very things that made the US a major source of scientific knowledge are now being systematically destroyed by lazy parents and teachers combined with simple-minded attitudes. And surprise, surprise every day the effort to re-merge church and state continues. A classic example being states that legislate the teaching of fantasies like creation in their schools.
Nothing stopping you from installing Netscape or RealPlayer. I have them installed in parallel with the ones MS provides; they're not as good, but I do require them occasionally. I hope MS provides further quality applications so I don't have to spend extra money on Norton etc. Symantec will have to compete as they have been for quite a while - by providing something that doesn't come with the system.
Or you could turn the TV up above a whisper and then you can't hear the fan anyway.
You should release the details via someone else anyway. The public should know to avoid this bank and remove their funds if they currently use the bank.
On the other hand if business executives insist on displaying their general stupidity with the backing of the FBI moron-scum perhaps you should just leave these idiots to get hacked and pay the consequences.
Cheating successfully is about innovation, ingenuity and creative thinking. Sorry to tell you guys, but the genuinely successful cheater will also turn out to be an exceptional developer.
Exactly and if you're going to cheat do it properly. That means copying the ideas not the text. People who get caught cheating are those that are too stupid to cheat well.
That's a pretty stupid attitude. In a time-limited exam (a dumb idea in the first place, but universities cling to this one with a death grip) they save you wasting time doing calculations on paper or in your head. They also force you to sanity-check all results.