Bottom line; The actual value of a stock is what you get if you fire everyone and sell off all assets and then split the proceedings up among the shareholders. Nothing more nothing less. Simply the liquidation worth.
Another alternative 'serious' valuation would be base interest rate plus a few percent for risk as yield off invested money. Not applicable in most tech stocks since, well, what earnings?
The rest of the 'paper worth' of the stock is just dreams and hallucinations, based on a pretend future that may or may not happen. No more real than the average albanian pyramid scheme.
What you can sell the stock for isnt even really interesting. You can sell shares in a pyramid scheme and get rich too. If you sell before it collapses. This isnt called solid wealth, this is just tricking stupid people into paying for nothing. It just isnt entirely obvious to the gullible.
Well... that's pretty much why when I bought three new graphics cards last week none of them was a TNT2, but rather 2 Voodoo 3 cards (one would have been a Matrox G400, but they were slow in getting those in...) for the dual boot workstations and one SiS generic cheapomatic card for the X terminal.
The store guy got educated on exactly why I did not want a TNT card too, and good info on what of their stock was useful to their linux customers.
1. Crash, reboot, PnP detect, crash. 2. Reinstall windows, crash, reboot, crash. 3. Download DirectX, crash, reboot, install DirectX, reboot, crash. 4. Crash, reboot, get to startup screen in game, crash, reboot, go back to 2.
That's usually what seems to happen... but Im sure that someone somewhere has actually installed a piece of hardware and had windows 'just work' with it too...
Its always sad to see people misinterpreting whole ideas this way. Themes, and web design, have originally not at all been about developer control. It has been about taking control over design and layout out of the hands of the developer and putting it in the hands of the _USER_. The theme developers usually understand this, altho the web developers seem to have some difficulty grasping the idea of the users deciding what their page looks like.
The USER is the person doing the interaction with applications and webpages. That is who should ultimately control how things are presented and how the interface works.
Real operating systems have user accounts which can be set up any way the user wants. Ideally, you should be able to just pull your setup with you and have the same UI in another place, whichever OS happens to be running. YOUR UI.
First of all, the GPL is not Linus Torvalds; it is an FSF idea. Second, the GPL does very well enforce ownership of the code. The GPL is a measure used to prevent abuse of the code; freely donated code; by those who would like to appropriate it for themselves. Any GPL code I release is mine and mine alone, and you may only distribute it if you follow the license agreement.
Free software does not care wether or not corporations can make money off code. It is irrelevant. The freedom and evolution of the code is by far more important; if corporations cannot compete with what is to large amounts developed by enthusiasts in their spare time then they have some serious problems and should try in a less competetive buisness.
Sure you can attempt to put some sort of socialist/capitalist/whatever perspective onto it, but you end up with a fundamentally flawed argument because political leanings or economic theories arent what it is about. It is about freedom and knowledge and software that works.
The GPL has not been challanged in court, but it has not been without its attempted violations. In those cases the lawyers of the parties involved have chosen not to even attempt to challange the GPL...
But do you not understand this? It is _Microsoft_ who choses this for you. It is they who chose to violate the law. It is they who chose to engage in illegal behaviour. And they have far more capability to contemplate their actions than the average criminal. The court merely ascertains that they have violated the law and attempts to provide an appropriate sentance.
So, how does it feel when again _Microsofts_ choices result in problems for you?
Actually, without Microsoft, the computer industry would likely have been twice the size it is today.
Microsoft played an important part in the suppression of computers as everyday items that anyone could use. All Microsofts competitors (Apple, Atari, Commodore, Acorn) in the late 80's and early 90's had operating systems that were vastly easier to use and ran on cheaper and far more capable computers.
Truly, IBM was probably worse at that time, but Microsoft has done nothing to advance ease of use and computing for the population at all.
Oh, but isnt it intuitive and nice to *add* REMOVE entries to remove things from the panel that are in the systemwide config? Egh, yah, and dtterm and the eternal 'you have to keep the stuff you want to copy marked until you paste it'.
*sigh* I could list probably a hundred annoyances with CDE. Which is why I went to the extreme bother of getting gnome compiled under HP-UX, which, in the betas wasnt that easy.
True, but having menubars in each window allows you to access other application menus without first making the application 'active'.
With multiple workspaces, desktop space isnt at such a premium that it would be worth the sacrifice to exchange multiple clicks more to access various menus for a few more pixels desktop space.
First Mr Daher complains that Redhats certification costs more than Microsoft, then he complains that his employees become employable anywhere with it?
What is the point and what does he want? A $2000 certification which is guaranteed not to make his employees more skilled? Or a $5000 that makes them attractive? I dont quite get the logic. Or, even worse, I do get the logic.
In the Real Computers world we usually go to courses to actually learn and become more valuable to the company (and the rest of the market), rather than to get a pretty paper. I can print my own pretty papers saying Im a certified whatever if I felt the need. Im sure Redhat could sell pretty papers too, and they probably will, once they realize that customers like Mr Daher arent interested in his employees being skilled (ouch, expensive to pay), just in them being 'certified' (good selling point). It's a classical scheme, selling unskilled personell straight from a 'want fries with that' job, slapping a certification on them and pretending they are 'computer consultants'.
Congratulations. For the final question in this $2000 certification program, once you have passed this exam you will become a certified:
Of course, there is the slight problem that you'd get very little pay and probably be fired because if you dont approve loads of junkpatents you'd be 'unproductive'.
The USPTO employees lack of knowledge in the field is only a small part of the problem, the builtin approval of everything policy is the bigger part.
But they wont be able to stop it. These kinds of pictures are _pervasive_ in society, it isnt just on the web you'll find them.
Even worse, what if there is chance they will end up in a picture like that? Or end up causing a picture like that? Which is the best plan, teach them that bad things happen in the world and how to avoid it or fight against it, or keep them ignorant until they're faced with it?
For violent teenagers, after getting caught in violent crime, actually _showing_ them the real damage their kicks and battery causes, the faces of their battered and bruised victims, educating them on what violence really looks like, has been shown to decrease repeat crime. Looking at the average 'censored' action flick you'd think you can beat someone up pretty bad without consequences. Faced with the brutal reality they are less likely to do it.
I remember in psych class, we were shown a few studies where _cartoons_ showed up to be the most likely to cause violence in small children. Why? Because the 'morals' of a cartoon says you can smash someone with a door and they'll just get flat for a while.
Censoring sometimes does more harm than good. Less reality in a tv fight truly causes less of trauma, but it also teaches the wrong interpretation of the consequences of violence. The natural reaction _is_ natural and it teaches something.
I agree, nobody, wether kids or adults should ever have to see such things, on images or in real life. But the energy should be spent fighting the causes, rather than pretending it isnt there.
Disturbing indeed. I've seen pretty much the same stuff on the evening news tho. Those war victims and accident/starvation/disease images never look nice.
The problem, of course, is that censorware wont block it. What you end up with is an arbitrary list of sites to be blocked for some arbitrary reason decided without human intervention a few months to years after something is on the net.
Face it, the world isnt a happy happy joy joy place, in fact, it pretty much stinks.
Sometimes I wonder how much of adolescents problems are due to the fact that their parents cant lie and decieve them anymore, and they're left without sufficient psychological defences when they are confronted with the actual reality of life. I dont know, but experience tells me you deal with problems much better when you are informed, so Ive never quite understood the 'keep em ignorant until they see through it and never trust us again' approach.
By using the software, parents are implicitly agreeing that they agree with the censorware's author's idea of what and what is not acceptable.
Actually, its painfully apparent that that isnt correct. What the parents are actually implicitly agreeing to is that they agree with some form of automated scripts idea of what is and is not acceptable.
The question is, would the parents agree if they knew what their children could or could not watch was entirely up to a computer, and very few, if any, sites were actually inspected manually?
Well, I could go down into the computer hall, but its a bit of a bother, so I may not remember exactly. Wyse made several models that were pretty close to the same shape as the iMac, I know we have one terminal, maybe Digital, that is almost exactly iMac shaped. Some of the older Sun machines were pretty close, but a lot bigger.
Transparent cases, first one I saw must have been at CeBit in 90 or 91. Not many of the big vendors have sold them, but they've been common as 'designer cases' for roll-your-own peecees.
>Was anyone else designing iMac like computers before the iMac came out?
Well, not the _exact_ same design that I know of the top of my head, but...
Basic shape; yep, been done. Its an almost exact clone of several terminal types, and pretty close to a shrunken version of several computer types that have been around since late 80's early 90's.
Transparent cases (in colors); yep, been done. Been around since a loooong time.
A combination? Hmmm... is that really a design innovation? Would the Basic shape or Transparent cases people be able to sue? If it is, does it apply to putting a Mac inside such a case, or any computer? Would putting an x86 computer in a transparent case of that shape be a new thing or not?
My guess is that Apples suit would not have been upheld in the end, theres far too much previous art, just like the bellbottoms. Then again, the emachines and daewoo clones were _obviously_ trying to make a buck off it, so maybe it would have been upheld. Had someone come around a year or two later with the same design? No way would Apple have a case.
Apple has always been worse than Microsoft in that specific aspect of behaviour, at least dating back to their famous look and feel lawsuit. They were during that time blacklisted by the FSF who asked people not to port GNU applications to the Macintosh platform. Microsoft is bad, mostly because they fight dirty, but Apple would be far worse because they love suing to the right and left. Of course, Sun would probably be on par with Apple, altho Sun is suffering from a bit of a split personality when it comes to litigation.
Actually, this case had nothing whatsoever to do with patentable designs. It is a (sortof extended) trademark issue.
Apples design may in some way be new. Then again, packaging electronics in shiny curved transparent cases isnt exactly a new thing, so who knows. What we do know is that Emachines and Daewoo didnt consider it worth the trouble to find out.
Well, for Emachines and Daewoo settling was probably a wise move. The Imac design isnt a 'hot' thing anymore and bothering to pursue it in court wether or not the case has any merit would be a waste of money. Like all design fads it gets popular for a day then goes away.
As far as Apple goes, they should learn that these cases arent really helping them in the public eye. They have time after time proven that they would be far worse than Microsoft if they were a dominant player. If they could concentrate on doing creative thinking, which they obviously are capable of, rather than litigation they would fare better. Wasting resources and goodwill from potential allies on useless bickering in court isnt a good idea.
Frankly, about how sequencers are going to protect their buisness, I dont care. Investment does not equal payoff. If they choose to go into a buisness that is their choice. If they end up losing all their money because the buisness was not something the rest of the world considers ethically supportable, thats their problem.
The human genome isnt a recipie for chicken soup. Its going to get done wether or not some money grubbing biotech company wannabe does it or not (which ultimately proves it isnt patentable, because then it would not be just a question of time).
Several years delay is far far preferable to faster results plus decades of patent issues.
Slashdot Mirror
Bottom line; The actual value of a stock is what you get if you fire everyone and sell off all assets and then split the proceedings up among the shareholders. Nothing more nothing less. Simply the liquidation worth.
Another alternative 'serious' valuation would be base interest rate plus a few percent for risk as yield off invested money. Not applicable in most tech stocks since, well, what earnings?
The rest of the 'paper worth' of the stock is just dreams and hallucinations, based on a pretend future that may or may not happen. No more real than the average albanian pyramid scheme.
What you can sell the stock for isnt even really interesting. You can sell shares in a pyramid scheme and get rich too. If you sell before it collapses. This isnt called solid wealth, this is just tricking stupid people into paying for nothing. It just isnt entirely obvious to the gullible.
Everquest works fine, and even better, two machines running everquest works fine too, and with no more lag on a 56K modem than with a single client.
Well... that's pretty much why when I bought three new graphics cards last week none of them was a TNT2, but rather 2 Voodoo 3 cards (one would have been a Matrox G400, but they were slow in getting those in...) for the dual boot workstations and one SiS generic cheapomatic card for the X terminal.
The store guy got educated on exactly why I did not want a TNT card too, and good info on what of their stock was useful to their linux customers.
Shape up NVIDIA. You lose sales.
You mean;
1. Crash, reboot, PnP detect, crash.
2. Reinstall windows, crash, reboot, crash.
3. Download DirectX, crash, reboot, install DirectX, reboot, crash.
4. Crash, reboot, get to startup screen in game, crash, reboot, go back to 2.
That's usually what seems to happen... but Im sure that someone somewhere has actually installed a piece of hardware and had windows 'just work' with it too...
Its always sad to see people misinterpreting whole ideas this way. Themes, and web design, have originally not at all been about developer control. It has been about taking control over design and layout out of the hands of the developer and putting it in the hands of the _USER_. The theme developers usually understand this, altho the web developers seem to have some difficulty grasping the idea of the users deciding what their page looks like.
The USER is the person doing the interaction with applications and webpages. That is who should ultimately control how things are presented and how the interface works.
Real operating systems have user accounts which can be set up any way the user wants. Ideally, you should be able to just pull your setup with you and have the same UI in another place, whichever OS happens to be running. YOUR UI.
Been there. Done it. Unlike Unix System Services (IBM S/390 unix lookalike) it actually looks and behaves rather like Unix.
:).
Y'know, theres us corporate sysadmins who actually get to play with these toys
Ah, but you miss several points entirely.
First of all, the GPL is not Linus Torvalds; it is an FSF idea. Second, the GPL does very well enforce ownership of the code. The GPL is a measure used to prevent abuse of the code; freely donated code; by those who would like to appropriate it for themselves. Any GPL code I release is mine and mine alone, and you may only distribute it if you follow the license agreement.
Free software does not care wether or not corporations can make money off code. It is irrelevant. The freedom and evolution of the code is by far more important; if corporations cannot compete with what is to large amounts developed by enthusiasts in their spare time then they have some serious problems and should try in a less competetive buisness.
Sure you can attempt to put some sort of socialist/capitalist/whatever perspective onto it, but you end up with a fundamentally flawed argument because political leanings or economic theories arent what it is about. It is about freedom and knowledge and software that works.
The GPL has not been challanged in court, but it has not been without its attempted violations. In those cases the lawyers of the parties involved have chosen not to even attempt to challange the GPL...
But do you not understand this? It is _Microsoft_ who choses this for you. It is they who chose to violate the law. It is they who chose to engage in illegal behaviour. And they have far more capability to contemplate their actions than the average criminal. The court merely ascertains that they have violated the law and attempts to provide an appropriate sentance.
So, how does it feel when again _Microsofts_ choices result in problems for you?
Actually, without Microsoft, the computer industry would likely have been twice the size it is today.
Microsoft played an important part in the suppression of computers as everyday items that anyone could use. All Microsofts competitors (Apple, Atari, Commodore, Acorn) in the late 80's and early 90's had operating systems that were vastly easier to use and ran on cheaper and far more capable computers.
Truly, IBM was probably worse at that time, but Microsoft has done nothing to advance ease of use and computing for the population at all.
Oh, but isnt it intuitive and nice to *add* REMOVE entries to remove things from the panel that are in the systemwide config? Egh, yah, and dtterm and the eternal 'you have to keep the stuff you want to copy marked until you paste it'.
*sigh* I could list probably a hundred annoyances with CDE. Which is why I went to the extreme bother of getting gnome compiled under HP-UX, which, in the betas wasnt that easy.
True, but having menubars in each window allows you to access other application menus without first making the application 'active'.
With multiple workspaces, desktop space isnt at such a premium that it would be worth the sacrifice to exchange multiple clicks more to access various menus for a few more pixels desktop space.
First Mr Daher complains that Redhats certification costs more than Microsoft, then he complains that his employees become employable anywhere with it?
What is the point and what does he want? A $2000 certification which is guaranteed not to make his employees more skilled? Or a $5000 that makes them attractive? I dont quite get the logic. Or, even worse, I do get the logic.
In the Real Computers world we usually go to courses to actually learn and become more valuable to the company (and the rest of the market), rather than to get a pretty paper. I can print my own pretty papers saying Im a certified whatever if I felt the need. Im sure Redhat could sell pretty papers too, and they probably will, once they realize that customers like Mr Daher arent interested in his employees being skilled (ouch, expensive to pay), just in them being 'certified' (good selling point). It's a classical scheme, selling unskilled personell straight from a 'want fries with that' job, slapping a certification on them and pretending they are 'computer consultants'.
Congratulations. For the final question in this $2000 certification program, once you have passed this exam you will become a certified:
a) Doughnut.
b) Peanut.
c) Nutcase.
d) RebootMonkey(tm)
Of course, there is the slight problem that you'd get very little pay and probably be fired because if you dont approve loads of junkpatents you'd be 'unproductive'.
The USPTO employees lack of knowledge in the field is only a small part of the problem, the builtin approval of everything policy is the bigger part.
But they wont be able to stop it. These kinds of pictures are _pervasive_ in society, it isnt just on the web you'll find them.
Even worse, what if there is chance they will end up in a picture like that? Or end up causing a picture like that? Which is the best plan, teach them that bad things happen in the world and how to avoid it or fight against it, or keep them ignorant until they're faced with it?
For violent teenagers, after getting caught in violent crime, actually _showing_ them the real damage their kicks and battery causes, the faces of their battered and bruised victims, educating them on what violence really looks like, has been shown to decrease repeat crime. Looking at the average 'censored' action flick you'd think you can beat someone up pretty bad without consequences. Faced with the brutal reality they are less likely to do it.
I remember in psych class, we were shown a few studies where _cartoons_ showed up to be the most likely to cause violence in small children. Why? Because the 'morals' of a cartoon says you can smash someone with a door and they'll just get flat for a while.
Censoring sometimes does more harm than good. Less reality in a tv fight truly causes less of trauma, but it also teaches the wrong interpretation of the consequences of violence. The natural reaction _is_ natural and it teaches something.
I agree, nobody, wether kids or adults should ever have to see such things, on images or in real life. But the energy should be spent fighting the causes, rather than pretending it isnt there.
Disturbing indeed. I've seen pretty much the same stuff on the evening news tho. Those war victims and accident/starvation/disease images never look nice.
The problem, of course, is that censorware wont block it. What you end up with is an arbitrary list of sites to be blocked for some arbitrary reason decided without human intervention a few months to years after something is on the net.
Face it, the world isnt a happy happy joy joy place, in fact, it pretty much stinks.
Sometimes I wonder how much of adolescents problems are due to the fact that their parents cant lie and decieve them anymore, and they're left without sufficient psychological defences when they are confronted with the actual reality of life. I dont know, but experience tells me you deal with problems much better when you are informed, so Ive never quite understood the 'keep em ignorant until they see through it and never trust us again' approach.
Actually, its painfully apparent that that isnt correct. What the parents are actually implicitly agreeing to is that they agree with some form of automated scripts idea of what is and is not acceptable.
The question is, would the parents agree if they knew what their children could or could not watch was entirely up to a computer, and very few, if any, sites were actually inspected manually?
It is exceedingly obvious. The reason we arent using this sort of technology in our web browsers is it _stinks_, for various reasons mentioned.
Well, I could go down into the computer hall, but its a bit of a bother, so I may not remember exactly. Wyse made several models that were pretty close to the same shape as the iMac, I know we have one terminal, maybe Digital, that is almost exactly iMac shaped. Some of the older Sun machines were pretty close, but a lot bigger.
Transparent cases, first one I saw must have been at CeBit in 90 or 91. Not many of the big vendors have sold them, but they've been common as 'designer cases' for roll-your-own peecees.
>Was anyone else designing iMac like computers before the iMac came out?
Well, not the _exact_ same design that I know of the top of my head, but...
Basic shape; yep, been done. Its an almost exact clone of several terminal types, and pretty close to a shrunken version of several computer types that have been around since late 80's early 90's.
Transparent cases (in colors); yep, been done. Been around since a loooong time.
A combination? Hmmm... is that really a design innovation? Would the Basic shape or Transparent cases people be able to sue? If it is, does it apply to putting a Mac inside such a case, or any computer? Would putting an x86 computer in a transparent case of that shape be a new thing or not?
My guess is that Apples suit would not have been upheld in the end, theres far too much previous art, just like the bellbottoms. Then again, the emachines and daewoo clones were _obviously_ trying to make a buck off it, so maybe it would have been upheld. Had someone come around a year or two later with the same design? No way would Apple have a case.
Apple has always been worse than Microsoft in that specific aspect of behaviour, at least dating back to their famous look and feel lawsuit. They were during that time blacklisted by the FSF who asked people not to port GNU applications to the Macintosh platform. Microsoft is bad, mostly because they fight dirty, but Apple would be far worse because they love suing to the right and left. Of course, Sun would probably be on par with Apple, altho Sun is suffering from a bit of a split personality when it comes to litigation.
Actually, this case had nothing whatsoever to do with patentable designs. It is a (sortof extended) trademark issue.
Apples design may in some way be new. Then again, packaging electronics in shiny curved transparent cases isnt exactly a new thing, so who knows. What we do know is that Emachines and Daewoo didnt consider it worth the trouble to find out.
Well, for Emachines and Daewoo settling was probably a wise move. The Imac design isnt a 'hot' thing anymore and bothering to pursue it in court wether or not the case has any merit would be a waste of money. Like all design fads it gets popular for a day then goes away.
As far as Apple goes, they should learn that these cases arent really helping them in the public eye. They have time after time proven that they would be far worse than Microsoft if they were a dominant player. If they could concentrate on doing creative thinking, which they obviously are capable of, rather than litigation they would fare better. Wasting resources and goodwill from potential allies on useless bickering in court isnt a good idea.
What patent? There is no patent, neither would it be likely to be patentable. This was a settlement over a possible trademark infringement.
Frankly, about how sequencers are going to protect their buisness, I dont care. Investment does not equal payoff. If they choose to go into a buisness that is their choice. If they end up losing all their money because the buisness was not something the rest of the world considers ethically supportable, thats their problem.
The human genome isnt a recipie for chicken soup. Its going to get done wether or not some money grubbing biotech company wannabe does it or not (which ultimately proves it isnt patentable, because then it would not be just a question of time).
Several years delay is far far preferable to faster results plus decades of patent issues.