In this case, however, the author is probably right. America's universities enjoy a distinct advantage when it comes to hiring and retaining professorship. Because a great number of major univiersities here are private, the pay and benefits tends to be MUCH better than abroad. My wife is a PhD in accounting. We've looked at living overseas, but we simply can't justify it. There is no problem finding a job in a number of areas, but the pay is often half of what it is here in the states. This is true (from my admittedly informal investigation) of almost all academic disciplines. America simply invests more in its higher education than the primarily state run schools found throughout the rest of the world.
The incident in Arlington centered around a bunch of idiot teenagers who went around beating the hell out of random people while video taping it. Some of it was consenual, some of it wasn't. It was a fight club in the sense that these kids had formed a group centered around attacking strangers for fun. This kid happened to be one of their (many) victims.
Unfortunately, this is not true. Particularly for the larger manufacturers (such as Nokia and Motorola). They employ large groups of human computer interaction experts that study, design, and test these interfaces. Its incredibly sophisticated in reality.
The problem here is two-fold. The biggest is the overall immaturity of the technology. Symbian has been around for quite awhile, but its base technology is incredibly poor. They've been very slow to embrace modern programming techniques, and the overall quality of their product is quite low. As a result, third party applications end up full of weird little work-arounds that further compromise their stability. This is made worse by requirements (by the symbian signing process) to work in low disk/low memory conditions properly which often destabilizes the OS even further, requiring even more cunning workarounds which inevitably lead to issues under non-standard use cases.
The linux situation is just as bad right now. Motorola is currently using a hacked up version of QTopia at the interface level. Other manufacturers have taken Linux and run with it in their own direction (its not terribly clear what Nokia is planning with Maemo for example). Again, in many cases we have single purpose architecture (the controls and libraries are tested and verified against only a small set of use cases) which leads to more and more issues as these components interact in new ways.
The other big issue is the way phones are currently developed. Nokia (for example) is fragmented into several different 'phone groups', and each group is capable of making arbitrary changes to the base OS. The truly bad UI decisions are made at this level as they face pressure from timelines and mechanical issues. The original UI vision is often compromised for the sake of getting product out the door.
There is a bit of hope, however. Symbian recently released 9.1, and while manufacturers are quite late getting devices out (both Nokia and Sony Ericcson have announced devices at this point) all signs point to an improved experience with this new OS. I expect some more problems for the next 12-18 months as the new Kernel and security model are actually released to users. However, my experiences with this newer technology has been more positive than previous versions. I do question many of their decisions and frusturating problems remain. For example: they do use C++ exceptions now, just wrapped up in their own leave/trap mechanism which means throwing an arbitrary exception object actually brings the whole application down. However, the problems have largely been pushed up a level (the biggest issues seem to be in the UI layers at this point). At the same time, Trolltech seems to be close to bringing out QTopia 4.x which promises to be much more 'turn-key' for OEM's. Hopefully this will eliminate a lot of the Linux fragmentation and create some stability there.
At the same time, most OEM's have recognized the UI issues are going to a MUCH more 'platform-centric' approach in which phone groups must work within the bounds of the overall platform when customizing the OS for a specific phone. I think this will help greatly for future products and should help them to start getting their arms around the complexity of these new devices. I really do think consumers want higher end features, they just want it done in a more coherent (and less bulky) way.
H2 is so damn small that keeping it from escaping through seals and the walls of hoses is very difficult (same reason helium escapes so quickly from balloons, except H2 is even smaller.)
My experience indicates the parent is absolutely correct.
We filed a patent application nearly 4 years ago. We received a rejection about 3 weeks ago, and are in the process of resubmittal. Our patent has been hung up in the system for better than 3 years AND it was rejected initially. This despite the fact that this particular patent is both non-trivial and quite narrow.
2. " Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett has stated that wage differentials aren't the issue and that Intel would hire more U.S. engineers if it could find them."
That quote is a bald-faced lie. There is no shortage of engineers at the proper salary. Intel management can find plenty of American engineers if Intel management doubled salaries and boosted working conditions by, for example, eliminating the bell curve that managers use to "grade" employees. See quote #1 above. Quote #1 contradicts quote #2.
Intel simply does not want to raise salaries or to boost working conditions.
Intel's lie takes us to the third quote.
I'm a hiring manager for a company in Dallas Tx. Let me assure you that we can not even BEGIN to find enough qualified applicants to fill our programming positions (c++) in this area. We've had positions that have taken more than 8 months to fill. Our resume-to-interview ratio is under 10% (most resumes we get are VERY weak) and our interview-to-hire ratio is about the same. Meaning that even when we get a candidate that meets even the most basic of our qualifications they very rarely have the knowledge we need in our developers.
This is not an experience issue. We've hired multiple developers more or less directly out of school (along with several developers who have many years of experience). We simply look for smart people who truly understand the science of software development that can actually apply those principles to their work. The pool of developers that meet that basic criteria is VERY small from what I can tell. If they where out there, we would hire them (We're currently trying to fill 3 linux positions right now).
This phenemenon is not isolated to the U.S. Our London office is having similiar issues, finding qualified people is nearly impossible.
It is interesting to note that the H-1B visas do very little for us. We have 1 H-1B employee (holds a doctorate in computer science) and have screened quite a few. For the most part our results with H-1B have been very much the same.
The point being, there is a real shortage of competent programmers.
Here thieves gained access to the encrypted 'pin block' in which a lot of terminals store the actual PIN codes of the users who used their debit cards. They've apparently managed to extract valid PIN info from these are now happily withdrawing money from victims account with impunity.
This is the most compelling argument to me. An estate tax is a way of limiting the formation of a 'ruling class' in the form of a monetary aristocracy. There are trade-offs however.
Limit Innovation
Rich kids have a funny habit of spending a lot of money. While they are 'travelling around collection art work', they are REALLY putting a lot of money into the economy which will eventually find its way into investment. The money that the family fortune is built on is also not sitting still, in most cases the vast majority of that money is being invested in a number of places. That investment money is the fuel is for innovation as the whole point of an investment is to increase the 'value' of your wad of cash by owning something that is going to become more valuable. A good chunk of venture capital is directly tied to large amounts of cash available as part of a particular families fortune. Innovation, after all, earns the highest rewards for money invested.
You also have to look at the flip side. By collecting money in taxes government is not in a particularly strong position to encourage innovation. I would argue the opposite, actually. By concentrating wealth in the hands of government you are putting money in an organization that has the LEAST incentive to grow that money. Instead it gets doled out in various welfare programs, public works, and other projects (note: I'm not arguing that these things aren't neccesary are good, just that they provide remarkably little in the way of innovation or wealth creation). The money is not being invested in growth, but rather in stability. This is not the recipe for innovation.
Govt research and investments
This is not an argument for an estate tax, but rather for taxes in general. The question is: When does government have 'enough' money? History has shown that more taxes does not mean a better investment in government research and education, but rather a swelling of the overall government bureaucracy. I would argue that we would better served by LIMITING government, rather than further extending its reach. Liberalizing social law (we spend BILLIONS on enforcing 'moral' like prostitution every year), limiting welfare, and limiting our expensive habits (such as nation building) make the need for high levels of tax simply go away.
You only had to read the SUMMARY to know that this statement is wrong, and yet there are like 5 replies all chiming in taking it to even further extremes.
The bill (which I strongly disagree with) proposes to ban games which meet a test of objectionability (not unlike restrictions on hardcore adult films).. one of which is games which limit the player to a range of violent options. Clearly the Sims, final fantasy, and the ilk fall outside of this. What is more interesting are games like GTA, which are no more violent than your average rap video. They would likely fail the 'objectionability' test and even those games would be ok. There is a mountain of case law involved here, and it makes banning the sale of conent virtuall impossible, and regulation very difficult.
I'm a "IT Professional" (lead technical architect) in a fairly top-end professional environment. I interact with quite a few top level business development/sales/engineers at a number of large companies around the world.
I own a Dell XPS Generation 2. Giant machine with LED lights and everything. Its a large desktop replacement machine, but reaction is always quite good from the people I work with. They love the screen, but not the size. I love the horsepower and the fact that I can play a few games while I travel and I don't have to own a dedicated gaming machine at my house.
Point being, the parent is absolutely right. There are corporate cultures that are quite tolerant of things that are not neccesarily 'normal'.
It IS absolutely mind boggling that here we are in 2006 and Windows is just now arriving at the fact that device drivers really should run in User mode.
It received $10 million in venture funding. That's not money to be given away as prize money, but rather money to grow the league into an actual profitable organization. I'm assuming Ritchie capital expects to see some kind of return on its investment rather than giving it all away as prize money.
Lets say company X has a share price of $100 and a market capitilization (total 'worth') of 1 billion dollars. The current shares outstanding is 10 million ($1,000,000,000 / $100).
They decide to split. Now company X has a share price of $50 and 20 million shares outstanding. However, the market capitilization is unchanged. X is still worth 1 billion dollars overall.
Lets suppose you can currently only afford 1 share of Google stock at $400. Now lets suppose Google where to split 3 times, taking the price from $400 a share to $50. Now you can buy 8 shares! Yet the total market value of Google remains unchanged.. so even though you own 8 shares they are shares worth 1/8 of the original price you could have bought before.
The decision to split a stock is pure black magic. Often a company will split to make the stock more affordable to smaller invsetors, but only in the sense that the price has become so expensive they won't even buy ONE share. Splitting doesn't change the fact that they own only a pittance in the company, but it does at least make it possible to own that pittance.
It is also common for a company to split to increase its own float of available stock for employee compensation and the like.
*note: I recognize that the above is simplistic. I also recognize that companies do tend to see a bump in overall valuation on a split, but over the long term the market cap tends to adjust to its proper levels. But I do think the overall point remains valid.
I'm not exactly sure of the details, but a system very similiar to this already in use along most tollways. When you go through the toll stop with one of those RFID toll-tags (That just let you drive through and automatically deduct the toll from an account) they also snap your license plate. If the tag does not match the license plate then nothing is deducted and that car is fined for running the toll. The idea was to cut down on toll-tag theft by making a stolen toll-tag worthless (unless you steal the car too:) ).
I don't really know much about the system. I do know that it works.. but I'm not sure if its a fully automated process or requires manual intervention or not.
Except of course that this article is nothing like what you describe. It is extremely light on details as its more or less a synposis of what I'm supposing was a on-air story. It portrays the plaintiff as more of a victim of his own ignorance.. I would expect that a giant media conspiracy would want to portray him slightly differently.
Of course this IS Slashdot, idiot conspiracy theories are all the rage around here I suppose.
"I can understand why BellSouth would be upset about this, being a taxpayer funded competition"
This statement just screams of irony.. after all Bellsouth owes its very existence to taxpayer funding and many years of legalized monopoly. They just bit the very hand that made them in the first place. First deregulation (in many areas anyways) and now this. Poor Bellsouth.
Oh yes.. because its so hard to find booth babes for the thousands of floor shows being held every week? Hooters seems to be having a hell of a time finding girls to work for them too.
Fact is there are plenty of pretty women willing to make a living convincing men that they have a shot with them to sell a product.
Yes, but doesn't that also give you a chance to 'build' that content into a front page resource. That's the point.. Google isn't making the rich richer, its making (assuming the algorithm is sound) the most useful richer. It SHOULD be difficult to displace a highly useful site for a particular topic from the front page.
The issue, of course, is how we measure how useful content is. Since computers currently aren't that good at analyzing the actual content we have to instead rely on other metrics. Such as popularity, number of links, referrals, and whatever other madness google is currently using. It may not be optimal, but it's certainly much better than other systems we may have. Being on the front page of google for a mainstream subject is certainly rewarding. However, it is still POSSIBLE to displace a page by increasing the visibility of your content organically (such as getting it into the blogosphere) and thus eventually moving yourself onto that highly valuable first page.
For proof of the process you only need to look at the various lawsuits filed against google by companies/individuals who saw their page moved from the front by other more useful sites. I think that google is a highly valuable tool that brings a lot of order to an otherwise chaotic web.
I guess there is a reason there is economics 102 (although that rule was never taught to me in any of my economics classes, go figure).
After all, what about loss leaders? You know, products intentionally priced under cost (much lass profit maximizing) in order to sell ANOTHER product at higher volume and better margin?
Or, what about a company pricing competitive products well below market value in order to generate more traffic in their stores to sell products that aren't so competitive?
Or, what about a software company that more or less gives a product away to embedded in an operating system to generate brand recognition or a distribution path in order to sell much higher volumes of other products in their portfolio.
The author is making a very sound economic argument by arguing that record labels can use pricing strategy to manipulate the market value of the artists themselves. They are essentially trying to control costs and stratetigcally protect their business by controlling the relative value of a single artist. I have no idea if this is actually occuring, but its definitely a valid argument.
Of course.. seeing how Apple makes a lot of money from this Itunes thing, openly being combative the RIAA (particularly when so many competitors are popping up) runs a great risk to the business model. Make no mistake, iTunes is very much a part of this RIAA mess.
Slashdot Mirror
In this case, however, the author is probably right. America's universities enjoy a distinct advantage when it comes to hiring and retaining professorship. Because a great number of major univiersities here are private, the pay and benefits tends to be MUCH better than abroad. My wife is a PhD in accounting. We've looked at living overseas, but we simply can't justify it. There is no problem finding a job in a number of areas, but the pay is often half of what it is here in the states. This is true (from my admittedly informal investigation) of almost all academic disciplines. America simply invests more in its higher education than the primarily state run schools found throughout the rest of the world.
The article was accurate, your ramblings are not.
The incident in Arlington centered around a bunch of idiot teenagers who went around beating the hell out of random people while video taping it. Some of it was consenual, some of it wasn't. It was a fight club in the sense that these kids had formed a group centered around attacking strangers for fun. This kid happened to be one of their (many) victims.
Unfortunately, this is not true. Particularly for the larger manufacturers (such as Nokia and Motorola). They employ large groups of human computer interaction experts that study, design, and test these interfaces. Its incredibly sophisticated in reality.
The problem here is two-fold. The biggest is the overall immaturity of the technology. Symbian has been around for quite awhile, but its base technology is incredibly poor. They've been very slow to embrace modern programming techniques, and the overall quality of their product is quite low. As a result, third party applications end up full of weird little work-arounds that further compromise their stability. This is made worse by requirements (by the symbian signing process) to work in low disk/low memory conditions properly which often destabilizes the OS even further, requiring even more cunning workarounds which inevitably lead to issues under non-standard use cases.
The linux situation is just as bad right now. Motorola is currently using a hacked up version of QTopia at the interface level. Other manufacturers have taken Linux and run with it in their own direction (its not terribly clear what Nokia is planning with Maemo for example). Again, in many cases we have single purpose architecture (the controls and libraries are tested and verified against only a small set of use cases) which leads to more and more issues as these components interact in new ways.
The other big issue is the way phones are currently developed. Nokia (for example) is fragmented into several different 'phone groups', and each group is capable of making arbitrary changes to the base OS. The truly bad UI decisions are made at this level as they face pressure from timelines and mechanical issues. The original UI vision is often compromised for the sake of getting product out the door.
There is a bit of hope, however. Symbian recently released 9.1, and while manufacturers are quite late getting devices out (both Nokia and Sony Ericcson have announced devices at this point) all signs point to an improved experience with this new OS. I expect some more problems for the next 12-18 months as the new Kernel and security model are actually released to users. However, my experiences with this newer technology has been more positive than previous versions. I do question many of their decisions and frusturating problems remain. For example: they do use C++ exceptions now, just wrapped up in their own leave/trap mechanism which means throwing an arbitrary exception object actually brings the whole application down. However, the problems have largely been pushed up a level (the biggest issues seem to be in the UI layers at this point). At the same time, Trolltech seems to be close to bringing out QTopia 4.x which promises to be much more 'turn-key' for OEM's. Hopefully this will eliminate a lot of the Linux fragmentation and create some stability there.
At the same time, most OEM's have recognized the UI issues are going to a MUCH more 'platform-centric' approach in which phone groups must work within the bounds of the overall platform when customizing the OS for a specific phone. I think this will help greatly for future products and should help them to start getting their arms around the complexity of these new devices. I really do think consumers want higher end features, they just want it done in a more coherent (and less bulky) way.
H2 is so damn small that keeping it from escaping through seals and the walls of hoses is very difficult (same reason helium escapes so quickly from balloons, except H2 is even smaller.)
Hydrodgen just wants to be free.
My experience indicates the parent is absolutely correct.
We filed a patent application nearly 4 years ago. We received a rejection about 3 weeks ago, and are in the process of resubmittal. Our patent has been hung up in the system for better than 3 years AND it was rejected initially. This despite the fact that this particular patent is both non-trivial and quite narrow.
2. " Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett has stated that wage differentials aren't the issue and that Intel would hire more U.S. engineers if it could find them ."
That quote is a bald-faced lie. There is no shortage of engineers at the proper salary. Intel management can find plenty of American engineers if Intel management doubled salaries and boosted working conditions by, for example, eliminating the bell curve that managers use to "grade" employees. See quote #1 above. Quote #1 contradicts quote #2.
Intel simply does not want to raise salaries or to boost working conditions.
Intel's lie takes us to the third quote.
I'm a hiring manager for a company in Dallas Tx. Let me assure you that we can not even BEGIN to find enough qualified applicants to fill our programming positions (c++) in this area. We've had positions that have taken more than 8 months to fill. Our resume-to-interview ratio is under 10% (most resumes we get are VERY weak) and our interview-to-hire ratio is about the same. Meaning that even when we get a candidate that meets even the most basic of our qualifications they very rarely have the knowledge we need in our developers.
This is not an experience issue. We've hired multiple developers more or less directly out of school (along with several developers who have many years of experience). We simply look for smart people who truly understand the science of software development that can actually apply those principles to their work. The pool of developers that meet that basic criteria is VERY small from what I can tell. If they where out there, we would hire them (We're currently trying to fill 3 linux positions right now).
This phenemenon is not isolated to the U.S. Our London office is having similiar issues, finding qualified people is nearly impossible.
It is interesting to note that the H-1B visas do very little for us. We have 1 H-1B employee (holds a doctorate in computer science) and have screened quite a few. For the most part our results with H-1B have been very much the same.
The point being, there is a real shortage of competent programmers.
Further proof of concept:
0 0.asp
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,125053,
Here thieves gained access to the encrypted 'pin block' in which a lot of terminals store the actual PIN codes of the users who used their debit cards. They've apparently managed to extract valid PIN info from these are now happily withdrawing money from victims account with impunity.
There are also good opposition arguments:
Continued concentrate of power in the elite
This is the most compelling argument to me. An estate tax is a way of limiting the formation of a 'ruling class' in the form of a monetary aristocracy. There are trade-offs however.
Limit Innovation
Rich kids have a funny habit of spending a lot of money. While they are 'travelling around collection art work', they are REALLY putting a lot of money into the economy which will eventually find its way into investment. The money that the family fortune is built on is also not sitting still, in most cases the vast majority of that money is being invested in a number of places. That investment money is the fuel is for innovation as the whole point of an investment is to increase the 'value' of your wad of cash by owning something that is going to become more valuable. A good chunk of venture capital is directly tied to large amounts of cash available as part of a particular families fortune. Innovation, after all, earns the highest rewards for money invested.
You also have to look at the flip side. By collecting money in taxes government is not in a particularly strong position to encourage innovation. I would argue the opposite, actually. By concentrating wealth in the hands of government you are putting money in an organization that has the LEAST incentive to grow that money. Instead it gets doled out in various welfare programs, public works, and other projects (note: I'm not arguing that these things aren't neccesary are good, just that they provide remarkably little in the way of innovation or wealth creation). The money is not being invested in growth, but rather in stability. This is not the recipe for innovation.
Govt research and investments
This is not an argument for an estate tax, but rather for taxes in general. The question is: When does government have 'enough' money? History has shown that more taxes does not mean a better investment in government research and education, but rather a swelling of the overall government bureaucracy. I would argue that we would better served by LIMITING government, rather than further extending its reach. Liberalizing social law (we spend BILLIONS on enforcing 'moral' like prostitution every year), limiting welfare, and limiting our expensive habits (such as nation building) make the need for high levels of tax simply go away.
You only had to read the SUMMARY to know that this statement is wrong, and yet there are like 5 replies all chiming in taking it to even further extremes.
The bill (which I strongly disagree with) proposes to ban games which meet a test of objectionability (not unlike restrictions on hardcore adult films).. one of which is games which limit the player to a range of violent options. Clearly the Sims, final fantasy, and the ilk fall outside of this. What is more interesting are games like GTA, which are no more violent than your average rap video. They would likely fail the 'objectionability' test and even those games would be ok. There is a mountain of case law involved here, and it makes banning the sale of conent virtuall impossible, and regulation very difficult.
I'm a "IT Professional" (lead technical architect) in a fairly top-end professional environment. I interact with quite a few top level business development/sales/engineers at a number of large companies around the world.
I own a Dell XPS Generation 2. Giant machine with LED lights and everything. Its a large desktop replacement machine, but reaction is always quite good from the people I work with. They love the screen, but not the size. I love the horsepower and the fact that I can play a few games while I travel and I don't have to own a dedicated gaming machine at my house.
Point being, the parent is absolutely right. There are corporate cultures that are quite tolerant of things that are not neccesarily 'normal'.
It IS absolutely mind boggling that here we are in 2006 and Windows is just now arriving at the fact that device drivers really should run in User mode.
Unbeleivable really.
It received $10 million in venture funding. That's not money to be given away as prize money, but rather money to grow the league into an actual profitable organization. I'm assuming Ritchie capital expects to see some kind of return on its investment rather than giving it all away as prize money.
"... release the vulnerabilities and offers no incentive for them to do so"
What does that mean exactly? In this case it sure sounds like 'no incentive' really means 'no money'.
No true at all.
Lets say company X has a share price of $100 and a market capitilization (total 'worth') of 1 billion dollars. The current shares outstanding is 10 million ($1,000,000,000 / $100).
They decide to split. Now company X has a share price of $50 and 20 million shares outstanding. However, the market capitilization is unchanged. X is still worth 1 billion dollars overall.
Lets suppose you can currently only afford 1 share of Google stock at $400. Now lets suppose Google where to split 3 times, taking the price from $400 a share to $50. Now you can buy 8 shares! Yet the total market value of Google remains unchanged.. so even though you own 8 shares they are shares worth 1/8 of the original price you could have bought before.
The decision to split a stock is pure black magic. Often a company will split to make the stock more affordable to smaller invsetors, but only in the sense that the price has become so expensive they won't even buy ONE share. Splitting doesn't change the fact that they own only a pittance in the company, but it does at least make it possible to own that pittance.
It is also common for a company to split to increase its own float of available stock for employee compensation and the like.
*note: I recognize that the above is simplistic. I also recognize that companies do tend to see a bump in overall valuation on a split, but over the long term the market cap tends to adjust to its proper levels. But I do think the overall point remains valid.
So the software exposed you to a entirely new set of books that you would have not otherwise read?
Sounds like a complete failure to me.
Since its down.. does that mean we win?
I'm not exactly sure of the details, but a system very similiar to this already in use along most tollways. When you go through the toll stop with one of those RFID toll-tags (That just let you drive through and automatically deduct the toll from an account) they also snap your license plate. If the tag does not match the license plate then nothing is deducted and that car is fined for running the toll. The idea was to cut down on toll-tag theft by making a stolen toll-tag worthless (unless you steal the car too:) ).
I don't really know much about the system. I do know that it works.. but I'm not sure if its a fully automated process or requires manual intervention or not.
What nazi regime do you live under? I mean the entire Disney store would be out under a idiot law like that.
Except of course that this article is nothing like what you describe. It is extremely light on details as its more or less a synposis of what I'm supposing was a on-air story. It portrays the plaintiff as more of a victim of his own ignorance.. I would expect that a giant media conspiracy would want to portray him slightly differently.
Of course this IS Slashdot, idiot conspiracy theories are all the rage around here I suppose.
"I can understand why BellSouth would be upset about this, being a taxpayer funded competition"
This statement just screams of irony.. after all Bellsouth owes its very existence to taxpayer funding and many years of legalized monopoly. They just bit the very hand that made them in the first place. First deregulation (in many areas anyways) and now this. Poor Bellsouth.
Oh yes.. because its so hard to find booth babes for the thousands of floor shows being held every week? Hooters seems to be having a hell of a time finding girls to work for them too.
Fact is there are plenty of pretty women willing to make a living convincing men that they have a shot with them to sell a product.
Yes, but doesn't that also give you a chance to 'build' that content into a front page resource. That's the point.. Google isn't making the rich richer, its making (assuming the algorithm is sound) the most useful richer. It SHOULD be difficult to displace a highly useful site for a particular topic from the front page.
The issue, of course, is how we measure how useful content is. Since computers currently aren't that good at analyzing the actual content we have to instead rely on other metrics. Such as popularity, number of links, referrals, and whatever other madness google is currently using. It may not be optimal, but it's certainly much better than other systems we may have. Being on the front page of google for a mainstream subject is certainly rewarding. However, it is still POSSIBLE to displace a page by increasing the visibility of your content organically (such as getting it into the blogosphere) and thus eventually moving yourself onto that highly valuable first page.
For proof of the process you only need to look at the various lawsuits filed against google by companies/individuals who saw their page moved from the front by other more useful sites. I think that google is a highly valuable tool that brings a lot of order to an otherwise chaotic web.
I guess there is a reason there is economics 102 (although that rule was never taught to me in any of my economics classes, go figure).
After all, what about loss leaders? You know, products intentionally priced under cost (much lass profit maximizing) in order to sell ANOTHER product at higher volume and better margin?
Or, what about a company pricing competitive products well below market value in order to generate more traffic in their stores to sell products that aren't so competitive?
Or, what about a software company that more or less gives a product away to embedded in an operating system to generate brand recognition or a distribution path in order to sell much higher volumes of other products in their portfolio.
The author is making a very sound economic argument by arguing that record labels can use pricing strategy to manipulate the market value of the artists themselves. They are essentially trying to control costs and stratetigcally protect their business by controlling the relative value of a single artist. I have no idea if this is actually occuring, but its definitely a valid argument.
Of course.. seeing how Apple makes a lot of money from this Itunes thing, openly being combative the RIAA (particularly when so many competitors are popping up) runs a great risk to the business model. Make no mistake, iTunes is very much a part of this RIAA mess.
PLEASE look up the definition of 'patent' and the definition of 'copyright'. I'll give you a hint, they're not the same.