For example, it is the season of upper-respiratory infection, caused by a host of bacteria and viruses with very similar effects. The means are available to test phlegm samples and determine an exact diagnosis, but the costs are prohibitive. The GP compares symptoms to the run of illnesses she is seeing recently, prescribes in light of that insight and hopes for the best. If the AB is effective, it was a bacterial infection.
That is the general way a GP practices - they treat symptoms without needing to diagnose the exact cause; and if the symptoms go away then they have solve dteh problem. In general, taht is a good approach since the testing (at a high cost) vs. the practical application of experience (at a far lower cost)results in no better outcomes and a much lighter wallet. The GP has a store of knowledge to tap when making a diagnosis; along with teh simple rule taht when you hear hovves pounding think horses, not zebras.
Specialists, otoh, look for specific cause of illness in order to be able to treat them; teh GP triages teh pateines into teh easy to cure - need help bins and then you go from there.
The practice of medicine, as opposed to medical research, has never been particularly *scientific* in the common sense of the word.
IThere really isn't a need for it to be scientific in practice - as long as a GP can tap a reaasonable store of scientifically sound experience tehy can apply it and use reason and pattern recognition to produce peoistive results.
In many ways, the practice of medicien is no different than automobile repair or any other profession that requires someone to draw on experience to solve problems. The doctor, of course, mostly works on the vehicle while it is running; unlike a mechanic.
I agree that wireless is the killer part of this device - you now have a way to get readable documents to someone instantly via pdfs. No longer do you need to connect a laptop and d/l a file or struggle to read a pdf on a PDA; all you need to do is email it to a Kindle. The question is how well does it do gray scale (no mention of color) so taht you can get reasonable reproductions of documents.
In addition, it'll be interesting to see what is in this for Sprint. While I am interested in the device I don't want to pay for yet another wireless device on a monthly basis; my guess is Sprint will get a cut of the sales. That means the Kindle can't become an exchange documents a lot and browse the internet but buy one or two books a year device without Sprint getting upset over the lack of profits. Maybe they will serve up their own adds on the browser? That would be an interesting proposition since you would be able to narrowly target ads to desired market segments since Amazon / Sprint knows who owns the device.
I wonder if KindleMail will be two way - i.e. can I send a markup of a pdf to someone? Or can I, for a small fee, send a marked page or pages to someone from a copyrighted work?
The cost of "printing" is insanely low and in this case for a large part already paid for by the consumer. The consumer PAYS for the download through his internet connection and PAY for the "paper" through the ebook reader. Would you pay the same for beef at the butchers if you had to bring your own cow? The cost of distribution also plummets, what do you rather send, a paper book or a megabyte (and text books are well under that) of data? Could you even express the cost of transmitting that amount of data in whole cents anymore?
Then there is the fact that the costs remain the same no matter where the ebook is send, that there are no losses or damages in transportation and that there is no wait time for delivery.
The costs of stocking disappear as well, you only need to stock one "copy" of the book and then can sell it through the magic of the computer a million times over. The ebook doesn't get old, can't be stolen from inventory, doesn't get eaten by rats. It just sits there, pristine, ready to be sold anytime there is a buyer. For a company like amazon that stores a great many books going to ebooks would mean a fortune saved in warehouse space.
The cost savings of going to ebooks are gigantic.
Yet we still got a price of $9.99 for an ebook when all that is really left is to pay the author, a bit of hardware and software and electricity?
The cost of production has very little to do with the selling price; it only determines if you can make a profit. People pay for their perceived value; which for a book is the entertainment or information received. That's why some authors sell millions of copies at $30 and others can't give their work away; even though both have the same production costs (assuming the same size print run). Publishers are in the business of maximizing profit. I have no doubt publishers will find ways to do that with ebooks; trading of price for volume. Ebooks may even make that easier as you can dynamically change the price based on demand; who says there needs to be a fixed price on a book? When an unknown author gets hot you can up the price as well as drop it as sales taper off.
As a side note, many people will no doubt chime in that this lets anyone become an author without having to get a publisher to print and distribute a book; that's correct but that's been true for quite some time know. There's still the small matter of an editor - that person that turns a manuscript into a readable document. So it's not just "all that is really left is to pay the author, a bit of hardware and software and electricity."
IMing "OMG - did u c Larry - teh gay!" will only get you fired.
Even better - having a presentation up and in the middle of it an IM pops up - for all the world to see. People tend to forget applications that run in the background.
As for email, it has a permanence and searchability that IM's lack; IM and text messages are much better for spontaneous conversations about ephemeral things.
It is interesting to see how quickly things move from cutting edge to common; in the days before it was always September somewhere on the net and email addresses had bang paths it was something to be able to communicate almost with someone around the world and not have to worry about time zones, long distance fees or waiting for the postal service.
Something tells me that would be a problem when trying to become a pilot.
Personally, I am terrified when at the edge of a bridge or the roof of a building, but love flying and I have no problem looking straight down when in plane or helicopter. I guess for me it's more of a fear of falling.
Not really. I am extremely afraid of heights but have flown supersonic jets and jumped out of a/c; it's all a matter of surroundings.
Section 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.
It seems to me that unless Congress mandates e-voting the DOJ has no power to force it upon a state. The HAVA appears to provide funds for but does not mandate electronic voting. Even if it did, a state could mandate voting for Senators at a place with no electrical outlets and Congress could not change that; alternatively, is a voting both a "place?"
You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."
As soon as you see your content being used for advertising, you can remove it and thereby automatically revoke Facebook's right to use it. that could be a logistical nightmare; and why would any company open themselevs up to a suit simply becasue tehy did not know that the license has expired?
"When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."
So, you gave them permission, good luck fighting it.
Can minors enter into binding contracts? AIR, in many states minors can't be held to terms of a contract so Facebook may not have a valid contract with many of its users.
I saw one for military use that liquefied metal and deposited it in fine drops to build up a final piece. It was intended to build replacement parts in theatre so they didn't have to be shipped. The machine size was about that of a washing machine, and the company claimed it parts were as good as a machined original. You had to machine the final piece to get a usable say disk brake rotor but still very impressive.
1) Look at the development costs and segment by skills required. 2) Identify those skill that can be done elsewhere for less (art, coding for example) 3) Offshore those jobs 4) Pay CEO big bonus for saving money 5) Decide to ride the gravy train as long as you can with expensive games 6) Bail out of the company stock when it become obvious you are going to start losing money 7) CEO gets new job at another company for more money 8) Consultant pockets hefty fees
That's true, but the 107 million dollars 'invested' in tickets would raise the hypothetical $150 million to about $203.5 million (50% of income goes out as payouts), right? If it were $165 million originally and the 'investment' brought it up to $218.5, you could share the winnings with one other person and still be ahead in the end.
There is a second problem with that approach - the time value of money. Let's say you are the only winner and get $260 million on your$107 million investment. You have essentially bought a 26 year cash flow. So, for the next 26 years you get 10 million a year.
Given a slightly better than 50% cash value payout, you'd net about 23 million if you were the only winner, so a split would cost you money.
TiVo is rumored to have a deal with NetFlix, and they already have a deal in place with Amazon-UnBox (who also has a Windows based player).
Amazon is where I usually get the episode or two I miss due to technical reasons (cable channel changed without notice, news break-in).
Blockbuster has one advantage - Brick and mortar stores when people can return movies from online and get another rental in return, plus you get one free game a month. I find I use the online for stuff I can't get in stores and B&M for the latest flicks. TIVO is great but the limited portability, compared to DVD's.
How can NBC distribute content in iPod-compatible formats without using iTunes unless they also forgo DRM (which they won't do)? As far as I'm aware, there is no such thing as "non-iTunes DRM content" that plays on an iPod.
That's the rub, eh? They can distribute it with no DRM, reverse engineer Apple's DRM or license it. Given the iPod's markethare I doubt they can ignore it.
Re:Content industry = criminal price fixing cartel
on
NBC Chief Slamming Apple
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· Score: 4, Interesting
At least in my country, saying "lets all get together to drive this guy out of business" is criminal, plain and simple. I hope these comments expose the "content industry" for the illegal price-fixing cartel it is. I also hope Steve laughs himself to sleep.
Except that's not what he did. NBC's explained why they left iTunes and how they think the content sales model should be structured. Other companies are free to follow their lead or ignore it; most will probably sit on the side lines and watch how this plays out. If Apple wins they will stay put; if NBC builds a viable and profitable product they will copy it.
The key issues are: 1) How bad does Apple need the content to sell iPods? As a hardware company they seem to view the content as a tool to drive profitable hardware sales and want it to be as cheap as possible to lock people into their hardware. OTOH, they are not stupid and if they can raise prices without significantly impacting sales then probably would do so.
2) How bad does NBC need the iPods to drive content sales? Given they can distribute content in iPod compatible formats independent of Apple not being on iTunes doesn't seem to be that much of an issue; but that means they are at Apple's mercy for compatibility. Apple could "break" something in an iTunes upgrade that makes it impossible to load non-iTunes DRM content onto an iPod, just as they changed the way video out works so that devices need new electronics to still work with iPods (a strange move given how neat the Philip's DVD / iPod player combo is).
3) What level of pricing are consumers willing to pay? NBC could, for example, develop a tiered pricing model - free for ad laden content up to a premium price for an ad free version. In addition, they could do a bundle where the original purchaser of the DVD gets online content as well, such as additional scenes or an iPod ready version of the movie in an attempt to limit the value of used DVDs in the resale market.
In the end, it is not unusual this rift occurred - both sides want to maximize their slice of what the consumer wants to pay. So far Apple has done that better than the content providers; now that the market has matured the content providers will start flexing their muscle and trying to get a bigger slice of the pie.
Personally, I think we will see a resurgence of the subscription based model; with a slightly different look. Consider a content provider / MS / Blockbuster / Tivo alliance - MS produces a player OS (and hardware in conjunction with other manufacturers) with strong DRM; Blockbuster expands it's online offerings to include a subscription to d/l content as well as keeps the DVD by mail/ return to store get a new movie model, Tivo provides the set top box to play d/l content on the TV and the content providers provide content. Getting everyone to play nice will be a challenge but the pieces are already there.
Blockbuster already has the content via subscription model with their Blockbuster Online operation; TIVO has the pieces for d/l and storing content for TV viewing; and MS makes cell phone OS's so they are familiar with the loss leader hardware to sell services model.
The question is will Apple do this with the content providers or will someone else?
As has already been mentioned, a basic cable connection is often included in apartment prices. When these contracts are done away with, perhaps renters will be able to insist on not getting the connection and can go find a cheaper option themselves. Or, barring that, the apartment complex will be able to offer cheaper packages. Not that they will, but...
Not really, the landlords will just say "The government made us take away your free cable, so no you'll have to pay for it yourself." and still charge the same rent.
While there are a number of reasons I can think of why someone would do that - offer ad free versions of a verified content Wiki; that was not my question.
I am curious how they plan to make their ad supported site compelling enough to keep people coming back *if* there are equivalent non-ad supported sites.
How do they plan to maintain ad revenue? Given Wiki's license any site could mirror an ad free version, and let Veripedia do all the leg work and then siphon off users by offering an ad free experience.
I'm not supporting granparent's exaggerations, but there's a big difference between the chinese economy and the american economy: the chinese are exporters and a weak Yuan makes them more competitive, and the USA is, relatively to the size of the economy, a smaller exporter. America benefits from a weak dollar as it makes debt smaller and exports bigger, but at the same time it means America is losing international weight and buying power.
The USA can't afford a very weak dollar, because many things aren't even made in the USA anymore. Inflation would sky-rocket and the economy would collapse.
A couple of points:
Inflation is a money supply issue; currency exchange rates alone are not inflationary. As import prices rise consumers can either buy less (or delay buying) imported products or replace them with US made products where they are available. Raising prices would result in fewer sales of foreign goods, resulting in contraction of their economies. The US economy would experience pain as well, as oil prices rise and force us to make choices about how we consume energy.
A very weak dollar would have global impact beyond the US (just as a very weak Euro would have beyond the EU - 1).
>I>Do you know that the average programmer already makes more in Britain than in America? A weaker dollar could cause a big migration of skilled workers from the USA for the first time in american history.
Salaries alone are a poor indicator of standard of living - the cost of living must be factored in as well. If salaries alone drove migration places like Omaha Neb and Boise Id would be empty while NYC and SF would be bursting at the seems with people moving in from those places.
The last time I was in London prices were the same numerically as in the US; except the denomination was Pounds not Dollars.
Tube Ride - 2.40 (or about 1.30 with the card) vs 1.35 in DC. Beer in pub - 3 pounds vs 3 dollars.
Even though you might make more in Britain unless it is significantly more your standard of living would go down.
Then there is is the issue of getting work authorization in the EU.
have a feeling that the helping of a couple of autistic children is not going to offset the massive use by 'nannies.' Saying that it can allow freedom *as much* as restricting it is only trying to put a good face on a device that has massive civil liberty concerns.
Unless it is used by government for tracking purposes your massive civil liberty concerns simply do not exist.
Private individuals have the right to decide how they want to employee such a device; and I would agree there are privacy concerns if companies wanted to use that to keep track of employees outside of the bounds of employment.
However, in general, the monitoring of minor children by their parents or legal guardians; or of patients by care facilities, is a reasonable use of the device.
I'm going to propose two reasons, both are quite laughable.
The first is the driving force behind all of Microsoft's actions (and, in fact, almost everyone's): money.
I agree with many of your points, especially about MS developing Windows X2OP to run only on XO laptops and use it to seed the future for "real" Windows.
My guess for an approach would be to simply give away the XO version (they could license it to a country for a fee that includes tech support and allow anyone from that country to run it on an XO) so as to get it into as many hands as possible. If they charge for it a significant percentage would be pirated anyway, so why not achieve a goal of deeper market penetration while being "generous."
The only cost to MS is the marginal cost of porting XP - distributing the software could be via the internet or by the government involved. Support costs - nil - no support unless a country pays for it; and the MS could training locals to be the support call center - creating jobs in countries where the XO is distributed and building the infrastructure for future expansion if users migrate from the XO to Windows.
It essentially becomes a sales and marketing expense; something MS is good at.
Now, the real question is should Apple develop MacOSXO? That would be a real interesting development.
of non-commercial OSS programs. Everyone who sells OSS will have to pay a fee; and it only applies to interoperability patents. Sure, MS only gets a fraction of the revenue cut they wanted; but it still means they get money from vendors.
I wonder if the EU defined what is "revenue from OSS projects that infringe on MS patents."
While the agrement will help protect developers it still leaves a lot of open questions concerning the sale and use of the resultant programs.
For example:
What is commercial use? What limitations are placed on end users? If they modify an OSS product and use it in their business what fees must they pay to avoid a patent suit? What constitute "interoperabilty?"
While we all may have ideas on what the agreement means I'd guess MS' lawyers have alread decided how to use it to their advantage.
If Nintendo is 0% successful at this, they will have wasted a lot of money and time for nothing.
If Nintendo is 100% successful, on the other hand, they will save some revenue, but at the cost of pissing off a lot of users, legitimate and otherwise, who might decide to take their business elsewhere.
I disaggre - Nintendo has sold 50 million DS units worldwide, and only confiscated 10,000 mod chips (of wich some fraction were for the Wii) Even if you assume that is only say 10% of world wide mod chip production only about 2% of the DS market. What this does is stop the expansion of modchips into the mainstream - where the real money is at risk.
People will still by DS's - because they want the games. they don't really care if they can or cannot get a modchip.
I'm from Australia and I don't believe we have any salt mines. Unless they've started mining Lake Eyre. Perhaps you mean Austria? Lotsa salt mines there.
No wonder Arnold doesn't sound like Crocodile Dundee
I started flying in 1960 when the whole US industry was regulated -- for its own good. There was no hub-and-spoke system. The whole nation was well-covered -- a ticket to Podunk, Iowa didn't cost $1000 simply because it was a low-traffic route. A ticket from A to B cost the same on ANY carrier.
Part of the reason that flights to Podunk didn't reflect the cost of service was that the longer flights subsidized them - Congress pressured airlines to keep service to their districts, in exchange for a price structure that allowed the airlines to make up for losses on other flights. Not very efficient.
Because they couldn't compete on price, they had to compete on service, and the service was damn good. Decent food, bigger seats than now, toys for the kids, free decks of cards, pens, and note-paper for the adults. A single thunderstorm in Chicago didn't screw up the whole nation. Flight attendants weren't horribly overworked on jam-packed flights.
You can get that today - fly on an air charter or fractional jet service, as long as you are willing to pay for the service. You actually have more choices today than you did under regulation; at widely different price points.
Midwest offers Signature Seating (all leather 2 abreast cabins) on many flights but is moving away from that on leisure routes - a good sign that enough people don't want to pay extra for service to make it a viable long term strategy for a scheduled domestic airline. If Midwest could keep a price differential that made up for the lower capacity I bet they would offer that service everywhere they flew.
Yeah, it cost a lot more in real dollars. Yeah, not so many people flew in those days (they took the train or the bus, duh). But look what would happen if we implemented it now. The higher prices would drive people back to ground transportation, reducing their carbon footprint.
It would also have a serious impact on our economy.
Higher prices would also mean companies in the service industry would need staff within driving distance - as opposed to having staff that live where they want and fly to the client.
Vacation destinations would become more regional since the cost of flying a family of 4 would rise significantly; and driving two days to visit Disney World would become a once in a lifetime (if that) trip for many families.
Visit families overseas? Forget about it.
Yes, I remember when you got served on real china in economy class; and the 707 had to land in Shannon before going on to the continent; but in real dollars I can fly the same route in Business Class for the same as I paid then for coach; with about the same level of service.
Slashdot Mirror
For example, it is the season of upper-respiratory infection, caused by a host of bacteria and viruses with very similar effects. The means are available to test phlegm samples and determine an exact diagnosis, but the costs are prohibitive. The GP compares symptoms to the run of illnesses she is seeing recently, prescribes in light of that insight and hopes for the best. If the AB is effective, it was a bacterial infection.
That is the general way a GP practices - they treat symptoms without needing to diagnose the exact cause; and if the symptoms go away then they have solve dteh problem. In general, taht is a good approach since the testing (at a high cost) vs. the practical application of experience (at a far lower cost)results in no better outcomes and a much lighter wallet. The GP has a store of knowledge to tap when making a diagnosis; along with teh simple rule taht when you hear hovves pounding think horses, not zebras.
Specialists, otoh, look for specific cause of illness in order to be able to treat them; teh GP triages teh pateines into teh easy to cure - need help bins and then you go from there.
The practice of medicine, as opposed to medical research, has never been particularly *scientific* in the common sense of the word.
IThere really isn't a need for it to be scientific in practice - as long as a GP can tap a reaasonable store of scientifically sound experience tehy can apply it and use reason and pattern recognition to produce peoistive results.
In many ways, the practice of medicien is no different than automobile repair or any other profession that requires someone to draw on experience to solve problems. The doctor, of course, mostly works on the vehicle while it is running; unlike a mechanic.
I agree that wireless is the killer part of this device - you now have a way to get readable documents to someone instantly via pdfs. No longer do you need to connect a laptop and d/l a file or struggle to read a pdf on a PDA; all you need to do is email it to a Kindle. The question is how well does it do gray scale (no mention of color) so taht you can get reasonable reproductions of documents.
In addition, it'll be interesting to see what is in this for Sprint. While I am interested in the device I don't want to pay for yet another wireless device on a monthly basis; my guess is Sprint will get a cut of the sales. That means the Kindle can't become an exchange documents a lot and browse the internet but buy one or two books a year device without Sprint getting upset over the lack of profits. Maybe they will serve up their own adds on the browser? That would be an interesting proposition since you would be able to narrowly target ads to desired market segments since Amazon / Sprint knows who owns the device.
I wonder if KindleMail will be two way - i.e. can I send a markup of a pdf to someone? Or can I, for a small fee, send a marked page or pages to someone from a copyrighted work?
The cost of "printing" is insanely low and in this case for a large part already paid for by the consumer. The consumer PAYS for the download through his internet connection and PAY for the "paper" through the ebook reader. Would you pay the same for beef at the butchers if you had to bring your own cow? The cost of distribution also plummets, what do you rather send, a paper book or a megabyte (and text books are well under that) of data? Could you even express the cost of transmitting that amount of data in whole cents anymore?
Then there is the fact that the costs remain the same no matter where the ebook is send, that there are no losses or damages in transportation and that there is no wait time for delivery.
The costs of stocking disappear as well, you only need to stock one "copy" of the book and then can sell it through the magic of the computer a million times over. The ebook doesn't get old, can't be stolen from inventory, doesn't get eaten by rats. It just sits there, pristine, ready to be sold anytime there is a buyer. For a company like amazon that stores a great many books going to ebooks would mean a fortune saved in warehouse space.
The cost savings of going to ebooks are gigantic.
Yet we still got a price of $9.99 for an ebook when all that is really left is to pay the author, a bit of hardware and software and electricity?
The cost of production has very little to do with the selling price; it only determines if you can make a profit. People pay for their perceived value; which for a book is the entertainment or information received. That's why some authors sell millions of copies at $30 and others can't give their work away; even though both have the same production costs (assuming the same size print run). Publishers are in the business of maximizing profit. I have no doubt publishers will find ways to do that with ebooks; trading of price for volume. Ebooks may even make that easier as you can dynamically change the price based on demand; who says there needs to be a fixed price on a book? When an unknown author gets hot you can up the price as well as drop it as sales taper off.
As a side note, many people will no doubt chime in that this lets anyone become an author without having to get a publisher to print and distribute a book; that's correct but that's been true for quite some time know. There's still the small matter of an editor - that person that turns a manuscript into a readable document. So it's not just "all that is really left is to pay the author, a bit of hardware and software and electricity."
Wait until they have to get a job....
IMing "OMG - did u c Larry - teh gay!" will only get you fired.
Even better - having a presentation up and in the middle of it an IM pops up - for all the world to see. People tend to forget applications that run in the background.
As for email, it has a permanence and searchability that IM's lack; IM and text messages are much better for spontaneous conversations about ephemeral things.
It is interesting to see how quickly things move from cutting edge to common; in the days before it was always September somewhere on the net and email addresses had bang paths it was something to be able to communicate almost with someone around the world and not have to worry about time zones, long distance fees or waiting for the postal service.
Something tells me that would be a problem when trying to become a pilot.
Personally, I am terrified when at the edge of a bridge or the roof of a building, but love flying and I have no problem looking straight down when in plane or helicopter. I guess for me it's more of a fear of falling.
Not really. I am extremely afraid of heights but have flown supersonic jets and jumped out of a/c; it's all a matter of surroundings.
Section 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.
It seems to me that unless Congress mandates e-voting the DOJ has no power to force it upon a state. The HAVA appears to provide funds for but does not mandate electronic voting. Even if it did, a state could mandate voting for Senators at a place with no electrical outlets and Congress could not change that; alternatively, is a voting both a "place?"
Another thought:
You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."
As soon as you see your content being used for advertising, you can remove it and thereby automatically revoke Facebook's right to use it. that could be a logistical nightmare; and why would any company open themselevs up to a suit simply becasue tehy did not know that the license has expired?
"When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content."
So, you gave them permission, good luck fighting it.
Can minors enter into binding contracts? AIR, in many states minors can't be held to terms of a contract so Facebook may not have a valid contract with many of its users.
I saw one for military use that liquefied metal and deposited it in fine drops to build up a final piece. It was intended to build replacement parts in theatre so they didn't have to be shipped. The machine size was about that of a washing machine, and the company claimed it parts were as good as a machined original. You had to machine the final piece to get a usable say disk brake rotor but still very impressive.
The consultant solution:
1) Look at the development costs and segment by skills required.
2) Identify those skill that can be done elsewhere for less (art, coding for example)
3) Offshore those jobs
4) Pay CEO big bonus for saving money
5) Decide to ride the gravy train as long as you can with expensive games
6) Bail out of the company stock when it become obvious you are going to start losing money
7) CEO gets new job at another company for more money
8) Consultant pockets hefty fees
That's true, but the 107 million dollars 'invested' in tickets would raise the hypothetical $150 million to about $203.5 million (50% of income goes out as payouts), right? If it were $165 million originally and the 'investment' brought it up to $218.5, you could share the winnings with one other person and still be ahead in the end.
There is a second problem with that approach - the time value of money. Let's say you are the only winner and get $260 million on your$107 million investment. You have essentially bought a 26 year cash flow. So, for the next 26 years you get 10 million a year.
Given a slightly better than 50% cash value payout, you'd net about 23 million if you were the only winner, so a split would cost you money.
BlockBuster is late to the party.
TiVo is rumored to have a deal with NetFlix, and they already have a deal in place with Amazon-UnBox (who also has a Windows based player).
Amazon is where I usually get the episode or two I miss due to technical reasons (cable channel changed without notice, news break-in).
Blockbuster has one advantage - Brick and mortar stores when people can return movies from online and get another rental in return, plus you get one free game a month. I find I use the online for stuff I can't get in stores and B&M for the latest flicks. TIVO is great but the limited portability, compared to DVD's.
How can NBC distribute content in iPod-compatible formats without using iTunes unless they also forgo DRM (which they won't do)? As far as I'm aware, there is no such thing as "non-iTunes DRM content" that plays on an iPod.
That's the rub, eh? They can distribute it with no DRM, reverse engineer Apple's DRM or license it. Given the iPod's markethare I doubt they can ignore it.
At least in my country, saying "lets all get together to drive this guy out of business" is criminal, plain and simple. I hope these comments expose the "content industry" for the illegal price-fixing cartel it is. I also hope Steve laughs himself to sleep.
Except that's not what he did. NBC's explained why they left iTunes and how they think the content sales model should be structured. Other companies are free to follow their lead or ignore it; most will probably sit on the side lines and watch how this plays out. If Apple wins they will stay put; if NBC builds a viable and profitable product they will copy it.
The key issues are:
1) How bad does Apple need the content to sell iPods? As a hardware company they seem to view the content as a tool to drive profitable hardware sales and want it to be as cheap as possible to lock people into their hardware. OTOH, they are not stupid and if they can raise prices without significantly impacting sales then probably would do so.
2) How bad does NBC need the iPods to drive content sales? Given they can distribute content in iPod compatible formats independent of Apple not being on iTunes doesn't seem to be that much of an issue; but that means they are at Apple's mercy for compatibility. Apple could "break" something in an iTunes upgrade that makes it impossible to load non-iTunes DRM content onto an iPod, just as they changed the way video out works so that devices need new electronics to still work with iPods (a strange move given how neat the Philip's DVD / iPod player combo is).
3) What level of pricing are consumers willing to pay? NBC could, for example, develop a tiered pricing model - free for ad laden content up to a premium price for an ad free version. In addition, they could do a bundle where the original purchaser of the DVD gets online content as well, such as additional scenes or an iPod ready version of the movie in an attempt to limit the value of used DVDs in the resale market.
In the end, it is not unusual this rift occurred - both sides want to maximize their slice of what the consumer wants to pay. So far Apple has done that better than the content providers; now that the market has matured the content providers will start flexing their muscle and trying to get a bigger slice of the pie.
Personally, I think we will see a resurgence of the subscription based model; with a slightly different look. Consider a content provider / MS / Blockbuster / Tivo alliance - MS produces a player OS (and hardware in conjunction with other manufacturers) with strong DRM; Blockbuster expands it's online offerings to include a subscription to d/l content as well as keeps the DVD by mail/ return to store get a new movie model, Tivo provides the set top box to play d/l content on the TV and the content providers provide content. Getting everyone to play nice will be a challenge but the pieces are already there.
Blockbuster already has the content via subscription model with their Blockbuster Online operation; TIVO has the pieces for d/l and storing content for TV viewing; and MS makes cell phone OS's so they are familiar with the loss leader hardware to sell services model.
The question is will Apple do this with the content providers or will someone else?
As has already been mentioned, a basic cable connection is often included in apartment prices. When these contracts are done away with, perhaps renters will be able to insist on not getting the connection and can go find a cheaper option themselves. Or, barring that, the apartment complex will be able to offer cheaper packages. Not that they will, but...
Not really, the landlords will just say "The government made us take away your free cable, so no you'll have to pay for it yourself." and still charge the same rent.
While there are a number of reasons I can think of why someone would do that - offer ad free versions of a verified content Wiki; that was not my question.
I am curious how they plan to make their ad supported site compelling enough to keep people coming back *if* there are equivalent non-ad supported sites.
How do they plan to maintain ad revenue? Given Wiki's license any site could mirror an ad free version, and let Veripedia do all the leg work and then siphon off users by offering an ad free experience.
I'm not supporting granparent's exaggerations, but there's a big difference between the chinese economy and the american economy: the chinese are exporters and a weak Yuan makes them more competitive, and the USA is, relatively to the size of the economy, a smaller exporter. America benefits from a weak dollar as it makes debt smaller and exports bigger, but at the same time it means America is losing international weight and buying power.
The USA can't afford a very weak dollar, because many things aren't even made in the USA anymore. Inflation would sky-rocket and the economy would collapse.
A couple of points:
Inflation is a money supply issue; currency exchange rates alone are not inflationary. As import prices rise consumers can either buy less (or delay buying) imported products or replace them with US made products where they are available. Raising prices would result in fewer sales of foreign goods, resulting in contraction of their economies. The US economy would experience pain as well, as oil prices rise and force us to make choices about how we consume energy.
A very weak dollar would have global impact beyond the US (just as a very weak Euro would have beyond the EU - 1).
>I>Do you know that the average programmer already makes more in Britain than in America? A weaker dollar could cause a big migration of skilled workers from the USA for the first time in american history.
Salaries alone are a poor indicator of standard of living - the cost of living must be factored in as well. If salaries alone drove migration places like Omaha Neb and Boise Id would be empty while NYC and SF would be bursting at the seems with people moving in from those places.
The last time I was in London prices were the same numerically as in the US; except the denomination was Pounds not Dollars.
Tube Ride - 2.40 (or about 1.30 with the card) vs 1.35 in DC.
Beer in pub - 3 pounds vs 3 dollars.
Even though you might make more in Britain unless it is significantly more your standard of living would go down.
Then there is is the issue of getting work authorization in the EU.
have a feeling that the helping of a couple of autistic children is not going to offset the massive use by 'nannies.' Saying that it can allow freedom *as much* as restricting it is only trying to put a good face on a device that has massive civil liberty concerns.
Unless it is used by government for tracking purposes your massive civil liberty concerns simply do not exist.
Private individuals have the right to decide how they want to employee such a device; and I would agree there are privacy concerns if companies wanted to use that to keep track of employees outside of the bounds of employment.
However, in general, the monitoring of minor children by their parents or legal guardians; or of patients by care facilities, is a reasonable use of the device.
I'm going to propose two reasons, both are quite laughable.
The first is the driving force behind all of Microsoft's actions (and, in fact, almost everyone's): money.
I agree with many of your points, especially about MS developing Windows X2OP to run only on XO laptops and use it to seed the future for "real" Windows.
My guess for an approach would be to simply give away the XO version (they could license it to a country for a fee that includes tech support and allow anyone from that country to run it on an XO) so as to get it into as many hands as possible. If they charge for it a significant percentage would be pirated anyway, so why not achieve a goal of deeper market penetration while being "generous."
The only cost to MS is the marginal cost of porting XP - distributing the software could be via the internet or by the government involved.
Support costs - nil - no support unless a country pays for it; and the MS could training locals to be the support call center - creating jobs in countries where the XO is distributed and building the infrastructure for future expansion if users migrate from the XO to Windows.
It essentially becomes a sales and marketing expense; something MS is good at.
Now, the real question is should Apple develop MacOSXO? That would be a real interesting development.
of non-commercial OSS programs. Everyone who sells OSS will have to pay a fee; and it only applies to interoperability patents. Sure, MS only gets a fraction of the revenue cut they wanted; but it still means they get money from vendors.
I wonder if the EU defined what is "revenue from OSS projects that infringe on MS patents."
While the agrement will help protect developers it still leaves a lot of open questions concerning the sale and use of the resultant programs.
For example:
What is commercial use?
What limitations are placed on end users? If they modify an OSS product and use it in their business what fees must they pay to avoid a patent suit?
What constitute "interoperabilty?"
While we all may have ideas on what the agreement means I'd guess MS' lawyers have alread decided how to use it to their advantage.
In response to:
Ah, so you're a slave to your own desires then? Honestly, man, get some self-control.
the following materialized out of the ether:
Oh dear. We have ourselves a religious nut here.
I do belive you missed the tag.
If Nintendo is 0% successful at this, they will have wasted a lot of money and time for nothing.
If Nintendo is 100% successful, on the other hand, they will save some revenue, but at the cost of pissing off a lot of users, legitimate and otherwise, who might decide to take their business elsewhere.
I disaggre - Nintendo has sold 50 million DS units worldwide, and only confiscated 10,000 mod chips (of wich some fraction were for the Wii) Even if you assume that is only say 10% of world wide mod chip production only about 2% of the DS market. What this does is stop the expansion of modchips into the mainstream - where the real money is at risk.
People will still by DS's - because they want the games. they don't really care if they can or cannot get a modchip.
I'm from Australia and I don't believe we have any salt mines. Unless they've started mining Lake Eyre. Perhaps you mean Austria? Lotsa salt mines there.
No wonder Arnold doesn't sound like Crocodile Dundee
I started flying in 1960 when the whole US industry was regulated -- for its own good. There was no hub-and-spoke system. The whole nation was well-covered -- a ticket to Podunk, Iowa didn't cost $1000 simply because it was a low-traffic route. A ticket from A to B cost the same on ANY carrier.
Part of the reason that flights to Podunk didn't reflect the cost of service was that the longer flights subsidized them - Congress pressured airlines to keep service to their districts, in exchange for a price structure that allowed the airlines to make up for losses on other flights. Not very efficient.
Because they couldn't compete on price, they had to compete on service, and the service was damn good. Decent food, bigger seats than now, toys for the kids, free decks of cards, pens, and note-paper for the adults. A single thunderstorm in Chicago didn't screw up the whole nation. Flight attendants weren't horribly overworked on jam-packed flights.
You can get that today - fly on an air charter or fractional jet service, as long as you are willing to pay for the service. You actually have more choices today than you did under regulation; at widely different price points.
Midwest offers Signature Seating (all leather 2 abreast cabins) on many flights but is moving away from that on leisure routes - a good sign that enough people don't want to pay extra for service to make it a viable long term strategy for a scheduled domestic airline. If Midwest could keep a price differential that made up for the lower capacity I bet they would offer that service everywhere they flew.
Yeah, it cost a lot more in real dollars. Yeah, not so many people flew in those days (they took the train or the bus, duh). But look what would happen if we implemented it now. The higher prices would drive people back to ground transportation, reducing their carbon footprint.
It would also have a serious impact on our economy.
Higher prices would also mean companies in the service industry would need staff within driving distance - as opposed to having staff that live where they want and fly to the client.
Vacation destinations would become more regional since the cost of flying a family of 4 would rise significantly; and driving two days to visit Disney World would become a once in a lifetime (if that) trip for many families.
Visit families overseas? Forget about it.
Yes, I remember when you got served on real china in economy class; and the 707 had to land in Shannon before going on to the continent; but in real dollars I can fly the same route in Business Class for the same as I paid then for coach; with about the same level of service.