Were it not for government bailouts, for which Buffett lobbied hard, many of his company's stock holdings would have been wiped out.
Berkshire Hathaway, in which Buffett owns 27 percent, according to a recent proxy filing, has more than $26 billion invested in eight financial companies that have received bailout money. The TARP at one point had nearly $100 billion invested in these companies and, according to new data released by Thomson Reuters, FDIC backs more than $130 billion of their debt.
He was once the oracle, now he's just another corporate welfare pig at the trough. And a hypocrite.
Turns out his long-term investment strategy was just as much a gamble. How is he any different than anyone else who can't manage their money and ends up on the public dole? Oh, right, his welfare check is BILLIONS!
Were it not for government bailouts, for which Buffett lobbied hard, many of his company's stock holdings would have been wiped out.
Berkshire Hathaway, in which Buffett owns 27 percent, according to a recent proxy filing, has more than $26 billion invested in eight financial companies that have received bailout money. The TARP at one point had nearly $100 billion invested in these companies and, according to new data released by Thomson Reuters, FDIC backs more than $130 billion of their debt.
He was once the oracle, now he's just another corporate welfare pig at the trough. And a hypocrite.
The article says you're all addicted to your posting behaviour... maybe you can find *someone* to sue for being an enabler? After all, you deserve to be rewarded for your lack of impulse control | your bailout | welfare at least as much as GM and Wall Street.
It becomes a problem when people live in the delusion of having a "system" to beat the house and make money that way. It does not work. It simply cannot. If there was such a thing as a "system", casinos and lottery company would have folded a long time ago.
You know that card counters have an advantage over the house in blackjack? That's why the casinos will kick you out if they think you're counting cards - they just want people who can't count to "play."
What kind of foolish idiot walks into a casino in Las Vegas expecting to make money?
The owners, the loan sharks, the payday lenders, the cops, the employees, the hookers, the blackmailers...
As for the stock market, it's legalized gambling only if you're too small to control the market. That's why the small fish get eaten alive every pull-back.
The stock market *is* gambling. All the "technical analysis", etc., is just bullshit. It's a con game, as in "confidence game" - and when gamblers^Winvestors lose confidence, the system collapses, as we've seen. Ban shorts and derivatives, require that all investments be held for a minimum period of 3 months, and I'll start to believe that *maybe* there's some real investing going on.
Oh, don't worry. They will get a cut of everyone's action once the new health care system allows for direct bank account access. This is just small peanuts in comparison.
I was going to say "people will switch to cash", but with a debt-based economy, who has cash any more?
So I'll just posit that people will avoid high taxes by reverting to barter. "That kidney you want? It'll cost you an arm and a leg."
Unless he's writing a tech version of the Da Vinci Code, he's not going to be making enough money to pay the rent...
Tech books with movie options?
"Inside SCC - the Spaceballs Compiler Collection"
"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - C++ and the STL"
"Gone With the Windows - switching users to linux"
"American Idol - Internet Edition Explained" (a For Dummies" book)
"Start Wars - Why you have to click on Start to shut down and other Windowisms explained"
"District 9 - The saga of Alienware"
"Enema of the State - flushing outside attacks from Turing-complete computing devices"
"I Can't Stop Dancing - The Jolt Cola - Red Bull Wars"
"Enemy Mine - Bill Gates Guide to Business Practices" subtitled "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish for fun and PROFIT!"
"Enema Mine - How Bill Gates flushed Netscape down the InnerTubes"
"Inglorious Bastards - Godwin Edition"
"Apress and O'Reilly will treat you fairly and professionally. Wrox and Addison-Wesley will do their best to steal you blind."
... which helps explain why my bookshelves are loaded with O'Reilly and only one piece of crap from Wrox. What goes around comes around (GIGO) - treat your writers like crap, and you get crap back.
The O'Reilly books generally read like the author actually liked what they were writing about. The Wrox book read like shovelware.
or for dictionaries as what they provide is also free
Anyone can produce a Webster's Dictionary or make it freely available - the copyright expired a LONG time ago. What's copyrighted in current editions is the "added value" - maps, pronunciation keys, definitions of new words that have entered the language, etc.
I like just about everything gratis, but I will say this: A good book is worth every penny.
I have a lot of really tremendous books that you could only pry from my cold dead hands.
You must have GIGANTIC hands to hold a lot of books. Most of us mere mortals would have to use bookshelves.
I luv my dead-tree books, but as age creeps up, I'm thinking it would be nice to have an electronic format as well so that I can change the font size at will.
US law doesn't apply - the guy is based in London.
The very terms used indicate it was what you would term "work for hire" - he admits he "was commissioned to" render the objects in question. In other words, the work was done in exchange for money. How is this different from you accepting a fee for producing some of the artwork for a video game? The contract is the governing document, and not any later emails from him to the client trying to retroactively withhold more rights.
We need to see the actual contract - and the guy has pretty much admitted that all the references to his retaining any rights are NOT in the contract, but in one-sided correspondence from him to the client. Sounds like someone trying to get "read in" something that's not in the original agreement, and the client basically ignored the attempt.
The client lost money on the whole adventure. Sure, it would have been the right thing to give the guy credit for the original work on the new site, but a DMCA takedown notice is not the way to go about it when you've been PAID for the work. We don't know what additional rights the client retained - again, because we don't see the contract.
Get it in writing. Get it in writing. Get it in writing. Because if it isn't in writing, it's a can of worms - and it sounds in this case like he didn't get the additional rights in writing. The client obviously has the right to maintain a copy of the work - they paid for it, and it was to be maid available to the public, with temporary copies also on any user's computer in RAM, as well as intermediary copies of all or part on hard disks, etc. If the client decided to move it from second life to open life because she was losing money on second life, unless there's a prohibition in the contract, tough shit.
In other words, the guy should show the contract or STFU.
The designer is based in London. "Work for hire" doesn't mean the same thing as in the US. Also, we don't know until we see the contract, and if the person doing the bellyaching was in the right, why don't they just show us the agreement?
Their stance reminds me of the "If the facts are against you, pound on the table" school of argument. I want to see the contract, or they're just blowing hot air.
Does ODF use XML format? Because if it does, it's also technically in trouble just as much as the DOCX format is for Word.
...
I would suggest we all hope for Microsoft's lawyers to prevail in this case. It will be a victory for all of us, even if you dislike Microsoft and think they should get their comeuppance. Please save your schadenfreude for another case.
Nice shilling - you don't get out much, do you? This has NOTHING to do with xml. i4i made an add-in that Microsoft refused to license for $20 million, copied the functionality and called it "custom xml" (which is another way of saying it's NOT part of the xml standard) and now has to pay 10 times as much for WILLFULLY infringing.
You want us to hope Microsoft gets a pass for that? You work there or something?
If Microsoft had stuck to the standard rather than trying another "embrace, extend, extinguish", they wouldn't be in this boat right now. Then again, it's only by bringing out incompatible "features" such as "custom xml" (which, since it doesn't conform to the standard for xml, is really a misnomer), that Microsoft can keep people locked in.
FTFA, it sounds like a "work for hire." (can't tell for sure, since we don't get to see the actual contract, but if the contract was clear that it wasn't work for hire, then why not post it and resolve this matter?) Work for hire == shit out of luck..
So it was as a real-life businessman that he was careful to communicate the terms of his commission with his client, on more than one occasion, to ensure he would retain and protect his creative rights and credit.
If it isn't in the actual contract (and it doesn't sound like it - sounds more like he wrote some emails after the fact, which mean nothing, since you can't retroactively change the terms of the contract without the other party's approval), he's simply screwed himself.
If your parents are stupid enough to pay for this, you're obviously from the shallow end of the gene pool as well, though you can be assured that the parents will ALL be told that their kids are above average - which is a statistical impossibility in a large-enough sample, but hey, there's one born every minute... or in China's case 34.69 every minute*
* 1,330,044,544 / 1000 * 13.71 / 365 / 24 / 60 (chinese pop / 1000 / birth rate per thousand per annum / 365 days / 24 hours / 60 minutes:-)
Sears also operates in Canada (and other countries), and we don't have the DMCA here. My suggestion would be to fix the abuses of the DMCA and PATRIOT, but that's not going to happen.
That said, I have zero interest in modding my Wii. First, I don't even have the time to play the games I bought (bought the new Wii Resort + Motion Plus yesterday, and I probably won't have time to play it again for several weeks - I must have almost a dozen games I bought months ago that I haven't even put the disk in the console yet). Second, if I want to play PC-type games (yeah, like I have time) - I'd rather play them on my computer - dual 26" screens is MUCH more screen real estate (3840x1200, as opposed to 1920x1080 - 222% more).
Different tools for different purposes. The Wii is for fun, not to replace a general-purpose computer.
Yeah let's see if we can think of any more ways to make our products cost more.
It's a reasonable trade-off between paying someone overtime or hiring another body. Don't want to hire another body, even though one's needed? Then pay overtime. Don't want to pay overtime? Then properly staff the project/job/whatever.
This is a management screw-up, not a worker screw-up.
I don't even think there is a thousand dollars worth of games worth playing on the Wii
I could say the same about the Xbox or the PlayStation. the simple fact is that each has their target market - I hadn't bought a game console since the SNES because there was no compelling reason to, until the Wii. They were continually out of stock until this year (and I refused to buy from a scalper), otherwise I would have bought long before February. There's a broader selection of game types with the Wii than with the other 2 consoles - it's not mostly FPS slash-n-burn.
Your downloaded content isn't completely tied to the hardware - if your hardware goes bad, and you send it to them, they'll fix it up so that you can re-download it to another console.
That's not the point. I should be able to re-sell it just like any other piece of my property, as a matter of principle. I have refused to buy anything from the Wii Shop Channel for this reason.
Well, you can always resell it - just consider the Wii console as a big-ass dongle:-) - but I somehow doubt anyone will buy a console just to get a $5 browser, or that there's enough market demand for a browser distributed via DVD (which would have to be at least double the price, and a lot less convenient).
And there's nothing stopping you from plugging a laptop into your TV if you want to play other games - each device has its' strengths and weaknesses, and its' own particular compromises and target markets. From the sales figures for the Wii, it's easy to conclude they know their target market.
The interesting thing will be "what happens when the Wii2 comes out". Many current owners will upgrade, and then connect both Wiis to two different TVs in the same home for really neat gameplay (you can already do this with up to 8 wiis and TVs, but most people stop at one of each:-). Expect to see at least some people buy second copies of at least some games, either new or used.
Context for moderators: We're trying to choose among A. an Internet-enabled HDTV, B. a plain HDTV with a PC, and C. a plain HDTV with a Wii. Only choice B is designed to play native indie games.
Your "context to moderators" is both patronizing to the mods and also, in context to the rest of your quote, a bit of BS..
Naughty, naughty... you said:
Play indie games and other PC games.
A few points:
Your "choice B" was not "designed to play indie games" - it's a general-purpose personal computer;
Those "other PC games" are not mostly javascript and flash 7 - most of the big titles are native binaries - so the situation is the same as the Wii - native code for performance reasons.
The wii is good enough for someone who wants to play games and surf the web off their TV. The inevitable upgrade to 1080p in the Wii2, along with the fact that the Wii is a lot quieter than most homebrew media PCs, makes it a no-brainer - if you can afford a 50" TV, you can afford to buy a Wii and spend a few bucks on games - and if you want to play indie games on it, you can buy a second and run a home-brew set6up off it and still come out ahead $-wise, compared to most "media pcs".
Slashdot Mirror
Buffet got his bailout.
He was once the oracle, now he's just another corporate welfare pig at the trough. And a hypocrite.
Turns out his long-term investment strategy was just as much a gamble. How is he any different than anyone else who can't manage their money and ends up on the public dole? Oh, right, his welfare check is BILLIONS!
He was once the oracle, now he's just another corporate welfare pig at the trough. And a hypocrite.
The article says you're all addicted to your posting behaviour ... maybe you can find *someone* to sue for being an enabler? After all, you deserve to be rewarded for your lack of impulse control | your bailout | welfare at least as much as GM and Wall Street.
You know that card counters have an advantage over the house in blackjack? That's why the casinos will kick you out if they think you're counting cards - they just want people who can't count to "play."
The owners, the loan sharks, the payday lenders, the cops, the employees, the hookers, the blackmailers ...
As for the stock market, it's legalized gambling only if you're too small to control the market. That's why the small fish get eaten alive every pull-back.
The stock market *is* gambling. All the "technical analysis", etc., is just bullshit. It's a con game, as in "confidence game" - and when gamblers^Winvestors lose confidence, the system collapses, as we've seen. Ban shorts and derivatives, require that all investments be held for a minimum period of 3 months, and I'll start to believe that *maybe* there's some real investing going on.
I was going to say "people will switch to cash", but with a debt-based economy, who has cash any more?
So I'll just posit that people will avoid high taxes by reverting to barter. "That kidney you want? It'll cost you an arm and a leg."
This is slashdot - you HAVE to mention "The Camel Book"
I don't like perl as a language, but the Camel Book is an excellent example of how a tech book SHOULD be written.
Tech books with movie options?
"Inside SCC - the Spaceballs Compiler Collection"
"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - C++ and the STL"
"Gone With the Windows - switching users to linux"
"American Idol - Internet Edition Explained" (a For Dummies" book)
"Start Wars - Why you have to click on Start to shut down and other Windowisms explained"
"District 9 - The saga of Alienware"
"Enema of the State - flushing outside attacks from Turing-complete computing devices"
"I Can't Stop Dancing - The Jolt Cola - Red Bull Wars"
"Enemy Mine - Bill Gates Guide to Business Practices" subtitled "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish for fun and PROFIT!"
"Enema Mine - How Bill Gates flushed Netscape down the InnerTubes"
"Inglorious Bastards - Godwin Edition"
The O'Reilly books generally read like the author actually liked what they were writing about. The Wrox book read like shovelware.
Anyone can produce a Webster's Dictionary or make it freely available - the copyright expired a LONG time ago. What's copyrighted in current editions is the "added value" - maps, pronunciation keys, definitions of new words that have entered the language, etc.
Where is this free beer you speak of?
-- signed: your local ATF inspector.
You must have GIGANTIC hands to hold a lot of books. Most of us mere mortals would have to use bookshelves.
I luv my dead-tree books, but as age creeps up, I'm thinking it would be nice to have an electronic format as well so that I can change the font size at will.
US law doesn't apply - the guy is based in London.
The very terms used indicate it was what you would term "work for hire" - he admits he "was commissioned to" render the objects in question. In other words, the work was done in exchange for money. How is this different from you accepting a fee for producing some of the artwork for a video game? The contract is the governing document, and not any later emails from him to the client trying to retroactively withhold more rights.
We need to see the actual contract - and the guy has pretty much admitted that all the references to his retaining any rights are NOT in the contract, but in one-sided correspondence from him to the client. Sounds like someone trying to get "read in" something that's not in the original agreement, and the client basically ignored the attempt.
The client lost money on the whole adventure. Sure, it would have been the right thing to give the guy credit for the original work on the new site, but a DMCA takedown notice is not the way to go about it when you've been PAID for the work. We don't know what additional rights the client retained - again, because we don't see the contract.
Get it in writing. Get it in writing. Get it in writing. Because if it isn't in writing, it's a can of worms - and it sounds in this case like he didn't get the additional rights in writing. The client obviously has the right to maintain a copy of the work - they paid for it, and it was to be maid available to the public, with temporary copies also on any user's computer in RAM, as well as intermediary copies of all or part on hard disks, etc. If the client decided to move it from second life to open life because she was losing money on second life, unless there's a prohibition in the contract, tough shit.
In other words, the guy should show the contract or STFU.
Their stance reminds me of the "If the facts are against you, pound on the table" school of argument. I want to see the contract, or they're just blowing hot air.
Nice shilling - you don't get out much, do you? This has NOTHING to do with xml. i4i made an add-in that Microsoft refused to license for $20 million, copied the functionality and called it "custom xml" (which is another way of saying it's NOT part of the xml standard) and now has to pay 10 times as much for WILLFULLY infringing.
You want us to hope Microsoft gets a pass for that? You work there or something?
If Microsoft had stuck to the standard rather than trying another "embrace, extend, extinguish", they wouldn't be in this boat right now. Then again, it's only by bringing out incompatible "features" such as "custom xml" (which, since it doesn't conform to the standard for xml, is really a misnomer), that Microsoft can keep people locked in.
This would remove the "extend" from "embrace, extend, extinguish (the competition)".
Also, anyone who read the judgment already knew this. This is NOT news.
FTFA, it sounds like a "work for hire." (can't tell for sure, since we don't get to see the actual contract, but if the contract was clear that it wasn't work for hire, then why not post it and resolve this matter?) Work for hire == shit out of luck..
If it isn't in the actual contract (and it doesn't sound like it - sounds more like he wrote some emails after the fact, which mean nothing, since you can't retroactively change the terms of the contract without the other party's approval), he's simply screwed himself.
Also, a quick search - sure looks like his "windrider" virtual watches are a ripoff of^W^W^Ware derived from a Rolex.
If your parents are stupid enough to pay for this, you're obviously from the shallow end of the gene pool as well, though you can be assured that the parents will ALL be told that their kids are above average - which is a statistical impossibility in a large-enough sample, but hey, there's one born every minute ... or in China's case 34.69 every minute*
* 1,330,044,544 / 1000 * 13.71 / 365 / 24 / 60 (chinese pop / 1000 / birth rate per thousand per annum / 365 days / 24 hours / 60 minutes :-)
Sears also operates in Canada (and other countries), and we don't have the DMCA here. My suggestion would be to fix the abuses of the DMCA and PATRIOT, but that's not going to happen.
That said, I have zero interest in modding my Wii. First, I don't even have the time to play the games I bought (bought the new Wii Resort + Motion Plus yesterday, and I probably won't have time to play it again for several weeks - I must have almost a dozen games I bought months ago that I haven't even put the disk in the console yet). Second, if I want to play PC-type games (yeah, like I have time) - I'd rather play them on my computer - dual 26" screens is MUCH more screen real estate (3840x1200, as opposed to 1920x1080 - 222% more).
Different tools for different purposes. The Wii is for fun, not to replace a general-purpose computer.
It's a reasonable trade-off between paying someone overtime or hiring another body. Don't want to hire another body, even though one's needed? Then pay overtime. Don't want to pay overtime? Then properly staff the project/job/whatever.
This is a management screw-up, not a worker screw-up.
I could say the same about the Xbox or the PlayStation. the simple fact is that each has their target market - I hadn't bought a game console since the SNES because there was no compelling reason to, until the Wii. They were continually out of stock until this year (and I refused to buy from a scalper), otherwise I would have bought long before February. There's a broader selection of game types with the Wii than with the other 2 consoles - it's not mostly FPS slash-n-burn.
Plays Youtube videos just fine on my cable modem ... maybe you have connectivity issues?
Well, you can always resell it - just consider the Wii console as a big-ass dongle :-) - but I somehow doubt anyone will buy a console just to get a $5 browser, or that there's enough market demand for a browser distributed via DVD (which would have to be at least double the price, and a lot less convenient).
And there's nothing stopping you from plugging a laptop into your TV if you want to play other games - each device has its' strengths and weaknesses, and its' own particular compromises and target markets. From the sales figures for the Wii, it's easy to conclude they know their target market.
The interesting thing will be "what happens when the Wii2 comes out". Many current owners will upgrade, and then connect both Wiis to two different TVs in the same home for really neat gameplay (you can already do this with up to 8 wiis and TVs, but most people stop at one of each :-). Expect to see at least some people buy second copies of at least some games, either new or used.
Your "context to moderators" is both patronizing to the mods and also, in context to the rest of your quote, a bit of BS ..
Naughty, naughty ... you said:
A few points:
The wii is good enough for someone who wants to play games and surf the web off their TV. The inevitable upgrade to 1080p in the Wii2, along with the fact that the Wii is a lot quieter than most homebrew media PCs, makes it a no-brainer - if you can afford a 50" TV, you can afford to buy a Wii and spend a few bucks on games - and if you want to play indie games on it, you can buy a second and run a home-brew set6up off it and still come out ahead $-wise, compared to most "media pcs".