The Comet was not a "good airplane", it was an accidnet waiting to happen. It had flawed fuselage/window design that made it extreamly vulnerable to fatigue related failures.
The window problem was very fixable (don't use a design that concentrates the stress) but it design flaw and publicity gave US manufacturers the room they needed to catch and pass the British.
The Electra had a real flaw in it's design as well.
It was a good airplane destroyed by bad press and bad luck.
But not the first - others include the Lockheed Electra (which lives on as the P3) and the Comet whose demise paved the way for the US to become the major supplier of jets.
It is a rip off here in the US, yes. Unbelievable.
Our market is very different than Europe's - in some ways it is better and in others it is worse. The US model is to lock in customers via long term contracts, hence the "free" phones locked to a carrier.Given the high fixed costs or renting tower space and the nearly zero variable costs for minutes used, US operators want a steady stream of income that covers the fixed costs (read lots of users) and pricing plans that have huge margins on the variable (i.e. the cost of giving you 2000 minutes is no more than 200 but they've convinced users that you really need to buy minutes); that's why overages are high - they want you to bump up to the next level since the marginal cost to them is nearly zero so it's almost all marginal revenue.
The US started out with regional providers (much like Europe) and buy the phone - pay as you go plans but evolved into the current nationwide calling system. Part of that may be the more mobile nature of Americans.
I'm not sure why their is no one EU wide mobile carrier with a fixed rate anywhere in the EU (at least I couldn't find one). I'd guess that each country wants to protect its local carriers and the tax revenue; combined with the old PTT monopoly mentality over phone calls.
Different strokes for different folks I guess.
In Europe, you can get decent deals, however. Your prepaid service has a good shelf life, unlike here where you simply MUST buy more minutes every month or they cut you off. You don't get charged for receiving calls (caller pays) and in fact with the service I had you actually got a (very) small kickback when someone called you. The prices were reasonable, and I would prepay roughly $60 and not need to worry about it again for 6 months.
In the US, prepaid is viewed as a way to get customers who don't have the credit to buy a phone a phone - since there is no long term tie (you can always buy a new phone from another provider) companies will simply milk them for whatever they can. They don't want the hassle of serving them or keeping a liability (unused minutes) on the books; they want as much cash up front as possible. It's cheaper for me to simply get a $10 family plan phone and let relatives use it than to find a GSM card from their unlocked phone.
When I came back to the US, I went to try and get service and it was an absolute nightmare. They don't want to just sell you bloody phone service, they want to give you a 'free' (read paid for by you, in the fine print, of course) phone that was loaded with all this crap I don't care about, making it far more complex than it needs to be, they want you to pay at least $60-75 every month, and they're very pushy about it.
That's where they make their money. There are providers such as MetroPCS that offer unlimited one fee calls, but they have limited service areas. OTOH, the US has a huge calling area compared to Europe - I can roam countrywide without paying any roaming charges - and not worry if someone calls me when I am outside of my home service area. I don't have to get a different SIM card and change numbers when I roam to avoid higher cost calls. Same for SMS - we can get unlimited use for a flat fee.
Roaming overseas is problematic for many US customers - a CDMA phone is useless in Europe, and multi-band CDMA GSM phones are hard to find and expensive. GSM phones are carrier locked so you can't switch providers (unless you unlock the phone) If I did enough international travel (fortunately I manage to avoid most of it) I'd probably get a phone that can run Skype and forward calls to a US based Skype number so clients could reach me at a reasonable cost to me. Another alternative is a VIOP phone with reasonable international calling rates and forward that to a mobile number.
Is our system better - that depends on what you want - but the two are different.
and am happy with it. For less than $20 a month, relatives in Europe can cll us; the quality and clarity is fine and the price is a lot less than calling via a landline. Would I use it for a primary line in the US, no; but as a secondary line installed overseas it is great.
Don't worry, the rates they charge make wireless at StarBucks look like a bargain. Even so, I wish that they'd be lower. I don't know what not being connected to the Internet has to do with sanity...
Sounds like we're in violent agreement.
While wireless would be great if it was affordable, I shudder at the thought of sitting next to someone for 10+ hours as they chat on the phone. Fortunately, even if teh rates are low the latency will probably make VOIP next to useless.
You know what else is limited on airlines by cost?
Everything.
You know what would limit the cost of such services on airlines?
Somehow being able to take away the monopoly of an airline catering to its customers aboard its own jet.
AirFone is expensive because it's the only game in town. Making phone calls on airplanes will remain expensive until there are multiple carriers on the same flight. Good luck with that one.
First of all, the airlines are private companies - you can chose to use or not use a specific airline. They have every right to chose what services to offer - and you can pick a different airline if you don't like what they offer.
As for Airfone, they pay he airlines to haul the equipment - in essence they are leasing the space from the airlines; the extra weight of the phones cost the airlines money so unless someone is paying them to haul it they won't. personally, I'm surprised Airfone is still in business - I fly a lot and can't remember they last time I saw one in use - I've used it once - when my flight was horribly delayed and I barely made a later connector and didn't want the person meeting me to wait 6 hours at the airport and worry when I wasn't on my original flight.
Cell phones, OTOH, get whipped out as soon as the plane lands.
Personally, I hope the service providers charge high fees for WiFi acess - that will limit usage and keep some sanity in the skies.
Carbonated beverages - lots of tehm. Thge airlines will even provide the raw materials for free, you just have to do teh processing and delivery of the final product.
What you really need to do is to write to your local lawmakers, explaining why it is wrong that companies such as ATI and nVidia should be allowed to keep the driver details for their video cards secret. Not only does it effectively lock Open Source out of the market, it also hinders competition in the marketplace; denies users the freedom to use their own property to its fullest potential; and allows ATI and nVidia to make mendacious advertising claims which cannot be disproven.
You are free to buy whatever card you want - if your favortie OS is supported, buy a diferent card. ATI and nVidia have no obligation to support any particular type of software - the do it because they can make money. If they can't get a decent return from open source then they will (rightfully) ignore it. If it was important enough, then some company would bring out drivers even if they had to pay the card manufacturers to develop them - but since it isn't happening my guess is there isn't enough money to be made developing drivers.
Video cards are a competitive market - ATI and nVidia need to keep secret what they perceive as giving there cards an advantage.
ATI and nVidia are the robber barons of the display adaptor marketplace, and the best solution to their unacceptable behaviour is legislation. This is why we, as the people who pay their wages, must demand action from the governments of the world.
Legislation is a very dangerous answer - what happens when someone decides that the GPL is anti-competitive and should be legislated into allowing anyone to use GPL code and modify it without releasing their mods?
I don't claim to have all the answers but I think that it involves something like paying people in the US a living wage, increasing the wages on "jobs Americans don't want" to the point where Americans would want them, stop migrating jobs out of the US, stop increasing the national debt, ie stop giving tax cuts with money you don't have. Americans will have to accept that it costs money to maintain our society, country, and way of life. It certainly does not involve smugly saying that if they are not qualified, they get paid "like shit."
Wages are based on supply and demand - as long as enough people will take the job at $7 no one wil pay $10 unless they needed a differnet skill set than what $7 buys.
As for keeping the jobs in the uS, one advantage of outsourcing is you can baseload the skills in the uS and use outsourced labor to fill the cyclic demand. That way, if you need less TS staff you simply fire the offshore peopel first - that has less impact on the US economy. In a sense, you are hiring disposable works at far less of a rate than you can in the US - for example, you pay no unemployment insurance premiums and suffer no increase in its rate if you fire workers (actually cutback on what you pay an Indian outsourcing firm who then must fire workers) in New Delhi rather than in Flagstaff. Plus, once another country is cheaper than India you simply move your operations there.
Germany, for example, used (not sure if they still do) to force stores to sell at the same price
Only for books, magazines and similar 'cultural' items to give publishers more chances to cross-subsidize the 'avantgarde' products with the mass-market ones.
It used to be for much more - things had a richtpreis that was the selling price store to store. Switzerland even limited sales to specific dates and only allowed two per year. Germany and much of teh EU have opened markets to more competition, and I susspect more and more of the small family owned stores will close as the more efficient hyper markets attarct customers with lower prices. (Which WalMart and Aldi are already doing to those stores)
No wonder Germans and other Europeans, when they have a choice, shop at WalMart, Corte Inglais, and other large stores that offer lower prices.
Uhm, Walmart is posting a loss year after year in Germany. Absolutly-no-thrills supermarkets (Aldi, Lidl) grabbed a big part of the market and are now steamrolling the rest of Europe. Germany is considered the most difficult retail market of Europe (the world?) as margins are minimal.
As I pointed out - given a choice the consumers prefer lower prices, wether it's Aldi, Walmart or another store. They were not always afforded that opportunity in most of Europe as government regulations essentially eliminated sicounted of list prices.
And why? Because market regulation prevents the oligopolies to turn into monopolies (well, at least tries to unless overturned by politicians). And oligopolies trying to form trusts are actually fined.
Market regulations usually benefit the companies at the expense of the consumers - by keeping prices higher than if competition were allowed. Want to keep coal miners employed even if it means higher energy prices for consumers beacuse coal from South Africa is cheaper - add a tax onto energy. Competition means that some stores will close and poeple will lose jobs - outcomes politicians, especially in the more paternalistic EU countires, loath.
In simplified terms, American antitrust, like much of our country's regulatory philosophy, aims to create a level playing field on which all companies, small or large, can compete; the focus is on protecting consumers through ensuring competitive markets.
Actually, much of our regulatory philosophy is to support existing companies and keep out new competitors by introducing barriers to entry; this neither protects consumers nor ensures competitive markets. Regulation keeps sugar prices high; limits the number of barbers (we license them yet no one has ever died from a bad haircut); and limits taxi medallions to keep the number of cabs down (ever wonder why someone will lend millions to a cabbie in NY to buy a medallion? Since NYC controls the number of medallions the collateral is rock solid even if the cabbie is a poor credit risk; VA limits who can pickup and drop off at IAD and DCA). I don't think paying higher prices makes a consumer better off.
Nor is a monopoly automatically bad even if they force others out of the market - if they keep prices below where a competitor can enter the market and make money then I spend less than I would in a more competitive marketplace - and I am better off since I can save or spend the difference.
In Europe, antitrust laws focus less on consumer protection than on competitor protection; the ability of companies to compete, regardless of whether their existence helps consumers, is what's important. From the European perspective, a near-monopoly market share is almost always a bad thing; furthermore, even if a big company is playing by the rules, it has an obligation to make sure it doesn't crowd out smaller competitors.
Which is why EU consumers are generally worse off than American - my European friends pay significantly more for everything, from clothes to cars than I do, and generally make less as well. Look at the row over Tax Free shopping. Germany, for example, used (not sure if they still do) to force stores to sell at the same price and limited operating hours - that helped the small stores but not the average German. No wonder Germans and other Europeans, when they have a choice, shop at WalMart, Corte Inglais, and other large stores that offer lower prices. If the EU ever really embraces competition over protecting entrenched interests they will spark a social and economic revolution (whether that is good or bad is open to debate); if they don't they will lose out to those who do.
Does this mean that if I read out copies of Harry Potter over the radio (someone was sued for doing that some years ago), it's within my rights, since I have a right to free speech?
Free speech - sure. In the US the government can't exercise prior restraint. Copyright violation - the owner of the work can sue you into oblivion - free speech has nothing to do with it, at least in the US.
Oh, yeah -- this is fantastic! It may be buggy and useless as it's currently sold, but the important thing is that they're giving discounts to GNOME developers who will hopefully then fix it for them! I'd better buy one right now!
I love the discount offer - 500 Euros (with a planned shipping price of $350).
Wetehr or not consumers trust Microsoft is irrelevant to the buying decision - at least for most PC buyers. Microsft's products are defacto standards in the marketplace which gives them a hugh advantage over the competion. People buy what is on the shelf - and in retail it's mostly MS Windows based PCs' at a wide range of proce points that reach the broadest range of consumers. What other choices are there?
Apple - great product but there is no low end machine to compete with cheap Windows boxes; the Mac Mini starts at $600 and you still need to add a keyboard and mouse Liniux - virtualy no one sells it at retail and besides most consumers don't want to have to search for programs after they buy; and there's no Linux boxed games etc (to compete for mindshare)showing up on shelves to give retailers an incnetive to sell cheap low margin Linux boxes hoping to sell higher margin software to go with it.
Low trust will have no impact on MS' OS or software sales; but it will hurt them as they move to more comeptitive areas and start bumping up against Google (search); Sony / Apple (digital music); etc where the purchasing decsion is more intangable and teh consumer has choices.
Yep, I think you pretty much summed it up. Theaters are claiming they offer a better experience, but at the same time they're desperately begging for a temporary 'monopoly' on showing films, before they go out on DVD.
(snip)
The theaters are clinging to a business model that worked well before people had other choices. Now people have those choices, and they're going elsewhere. If movie theaters want to be around for another generation, they need to put some hard and creative thought into what it is that they offer, and what consumers want and are willing to pay for. Getting a six-week monopoly on a new film is a shoddy way to stay in business, and I think in the long run, consumers will find other ways to spend their time while they're waiting for the DVD to come out.
As you pointed out technology has caught up with the theater business model but it is even worse than wanting to keep a monopoly:
Theaters make very little money on new releases early on - the payment structure favors longer runs - which DVD's threaten since after a movie is on DVD the audience will start to drop. Distributors, OTOH , get a lot more early on and less later - so starting the DVD revenue stream earlier benefits them. So , in the end it's about profits; and DVDs are shifting power even more to the distributors.
The theater's problems is they have large fixed but low variable costs - they can't let the building sit between releases; nor hire and fire staff to match demand. They need longer profitable runs (box plus concession sales) to stay profitable.
For the distributor it's about cash flow - they have huge up front cost to make the movie, now they need to get the cash flow pumped up as quickly as possible; exchanging the theater revenue for even greater DVD revenue is a good deal for them.
As a side note, I think the drive for cash flow will speed up the model that's being tested in the UK - buy the DVD, get electronic versions and then a DVD in the mail - the production company can cut out the retailer and retain a greater share of the profits. I wouldn't be surprised to see DVDs coming in small cardboard slip cases instead of the pretty cover art plastic cases as well - once it's sold there is no reason to have a fancy cover to hook people into noticing your DVD on the shelf.
> Open office stuff may work fine for casual emailers and memo writers
You're right with most of your post, but OOo is good for a whole lot more than that and you know it. Even if "bean counters" need Office (and indeed they might at this point), most business desktop users should be able to use OOo. Sharing docs with the bean counters wouldn't be an issue.
Actually, it's not just the "bean counters"; plugins give users access to a wide array of corporate data, from Excel, that can be analyzed using standard Excel tools. A corporate strategy group, for example, could extract sales data for further analysis.
> So when will adapter add-ins be available for Open Office from PeopleSoft, Hyperion, JDEdwards, Oracle financial apps,.... ?
If they see a demand for an OOo version, they'll write it.
The problem is that forces them to support one more, and much smaller, user base; plus the product (OO) code base can change on a random basis, so either they must stay up with the latest version to be sure it doesn't break their code or provide a standard release they support which may be behind other releases.
One could also consider starting an Open Source project to do something similar, but I'm not sure there would be a lot of motivation. It's not exactly an itch to scratch for the average geek.
That's the strength and weakness of OSS - you get tools geeks want; but there is no motivator to appeal to a larger audience.
"for Google's corporate image. I wonder when Google makes the Dow Jones? Seems like how Google's stock goes is a big indicator of how the market goes."
No individual stock (or group for that matter) is a good indicator of how the market will perform. The best that can be said is the market generally outperforms bonds in the long run (as it should, based on the market's higher risk).
Not to mention that the companies paying him have reporting requirements as well. So either they can be nailed as well or the IRS has the abu=ility to start finding potential under reporters.
One of the topics listed in the book is the raw file format. Why do camera manufacturer encrypt our pictures? Our pictures belong to us. We are the copyright holders of our pictures, not the manufacturers of cameras. There is probably no acceptable answer. So, let's just list the culprits. I start with one of them: Nikon.
Nikon has an SDK that lets developers use all of the features of their NEF (Nikon's raw file format)raw files so that 3rd parties can create convertors. Nikon chose to keep their file format for whatever reason and still make it possible for other companies to create conversion software. In addition, there are a variety of converters and plugins available that cann read Nikon NEF files. Nikon is hardly limiting anyone's creative rights.
Please explain to me exactly how, in this case, the customers who rent the most, and therefore spend the most amount of money, are NOT the best customers? I'd love to know how exactly more sales != more profit. Especially as those customers who rent on a regular basis, who are clearly happy with the service, require less marketing than those who rent less frequently.
Everyone pays a flat fee - so the most profitable customer rents zero movies in a month, and the profitability declines from there. At some point, the costs of sending the DVDs exceeds the amount the customer pays; that customer is unprofitable to NF.
NF no doubt has some magic average rental / customer number that represents the threshold where profitability dips below what they believe is acceptable and they try to run the system to stay below that number. If every NF customer simply dropped the DVD in the mail the same day it was received NF would be screwed - they can't make money shipping 20 plus disks / month to all of their customers.
Personally, I think their model is not viable in the long run unless a significant technological change occurs. The adoption of high speed internet access will make the direct delivery model better since it cuts out the shipping and handling costs; once the studios develop a licensing scheme that makes prices close to NF viable you'll see competition spring up. Eventually the DVD player will be supplanted by the movie player that attaches to the internet and gets the movies you want when you want them.
The self destructing DVD would be a bone to NF - if you could get the cost of that disk less than the cost of handling a return it would be more profitable. Demand estimation would be vital to avoid getting stuck with too many or too few disks and you'd need regular versions to maintain the catalog once the movie is no longer new. For the initial demand when it is a new release though it might make sense; NF would need a TOS that limits how often you'd get a self destructing DVD.
Some how Verizon would find a way to sue them and force them to give it back... they could probably get some female employee to scream sex descrimination or something and get a worthless jury to side with her. McDonalds coffee ALL OVER AGAIN!
Except of ocurse, McD's actually did soemthing wrong and paid for it - and paid a lot less than most people realize.
At any rate, Google would be free to say that they don't want to pay nor have Verizon customers experience a slow Google and so block Verizon. In a free market, Verizon would throttle Google and a cable competitor would advertise Google - at the speed of light and get Verizon's customers to switch. Alternatively, Google could demand payment from Verizon (as others point out)for using their services to sell bandwidth. In the end, they could simply swap fees - no momney gets exchanegd and both get "paid" for content or bandwidth.
The real danger is if Verizon suceeds, then other conteht providers may feel the need to buckle - or, more likely, run to Congress to protect their "right" to the internet.
Next up - mail relays charging to carry your email. Film at 11...
(snip)...one of the two fusion reactor projects produces cheap energy, we could eliminate all conventional and all fission reactors entirely and have just two or three fusion reactors per continent.
Hardly - the problem of transmission and distribution remain; plus what happens when 1/3 of your power goes offline unexpectedly?
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The Comet was not a "good airplane", it was an accidnet waiting to happen. It had flawed fuselage/window design that made it extreamly vulnerable to fatigue related failures.
The window problem was very fixable (don't use a design that concentrates the stress) but it design flaw and publicity gave US manufacturers the room they needed to catch and pass the British.
The Electra had a real flaw in it's design as well.
It was a good airplane destroyed by bad press and bad luck.
But not the first - others include the Lockheed Electra (which lives on as the P3) and the Comet whose demise paved the way for the US to become the major supplier of jets.
It's International Organization for Standardization, despite what the article says.
It is a rip off here in the US, yes. Unbelievable.
Our market is very different than Europe's - in some ways it is better and in others it is worse. The US model is to lock in customers via long term contracts, hence the "free" phones locked to a carrier.Given the high fixed costs or renting tower space and the nearly zero variable costs for minutes used, US operators want a steady stream of income that covers the fixed costs (read lots of users) and pricing plans that have huge margins on the variable (i.e. the cost of giving you 2000 minutes is no more than 200 but they've convinced users that you really need to buy minutes); that's why overages are high - they want you to bump up to the next level since the marginal cost to them is nearly zero so it's almost all marginal revenue.
The US started out with regional providers (much like Europe) and buy the phone - pay as you go plans but evolved into the current nationwide calling system. Part of that may be the more mobile nature of Americans.
I'm not sure why their is no one EU wide mobile carrier with a fixed rate anywhere in the EU (at least I couldn't find one). I'd guess that each country wants to protect its local carriers and the tax revenue; combined with the old PTT monopoly mentality over phone calls.
Different strokes for different folks I guess.
In Europe, you can get decent deals, however. Your prepaid service has a good shelf life, unlike here where you simply MUST buy more minutes every month or they cut you off. You don't get charged for receiving calls (caller pays) and in fact with the service I had you actually got a (very) small kickback when someone called you. The prices were reasonable, and I would prepay roughly $60 and not need to worry about it again for 6 months.
In the US, prepaid is viewed as a way to get customers who don't have the credit to buy a phone a phone - since there is no long term tie (you can always buy a new phone from another provider) companies will simply milk them for whatever they can. They don't want the hassle of serving them or keeping a liability (unused minutes) on the books; they want as much cash up front as possible. It's cheaper for me to simply get a $10 family plan phone and let relatives use it than to find a GSM card from their unlocked phone.
When I came back to the US, I went to try and get service and it was an absolute nightmare. They don't want to just sell you bloody phone service, they want to give you a 'free' (read paid for by you, in the fine print, of course) phone that was loaded with all this crap I don't care about, making it far more complex than it needs to be, they want you to pay at least $60-75 every month, and they're very pushy about it.
That's where they make their money. There are providers such as MetroPCS that offer unlimited one fee calls, but they have limited service areas. OTOH, the US has a huge calling area compared to Europe - I can roam countrywide without paying any roaming charges - and not worry if someone calls me when I am outside of my home service area. I don't have to get a different SIM card and change numbers when I roam to avoid higher cost calls. Same for SMS - we can get unlimited use for a flat fee.
Roaming overseas is problematic for many US customers - a CDMA phone is useless in Europe, and multi-band CDMA GSM phones are hard to find and expensive. GSM phones are carrier locked so you can't switch providers (unless you unlock the phone) If I did enough international travel (fortunately I manage to avoid most of it) I'd probably get a phone that can run Skype and forward calls to a US based Skype number so clients could reach me at a reasonable cost to me. Another alternative is a VIOP phone with reasonable international calling rates and forward that to a mobile number.
Is our system better - that depends on what you want - but the two are different.
and am happy with it. For less than $20 a month, relatives in Europe can cll us; the quality and clarity is fine and the price is a lot less than calling via a landline. Would I use it for a primary line in the US, no; but as a secondary line installed overseas it is great.
Don't worry, the rates they charge make wireless at StarBucks look like a bargain. Even so, I wish that they'd be lower. I don't know what not being connected to the Internet has to do with sanity...
Sounds like we're in violent agreement.
While wireless would be great if it was affordable, I shudder at the thought of sitting next to someone for 10+ hours as they chat on the phone. Fortunately, even if teh rates are low the latency will probably make VOIP next to useless.
You know what else is limited on airlines by cost?
Everything.
You know what would limit the cost of such services on airlines?
Somehow being able to take away the monopoly of an airline catering to its customers aboard its own jet.
AirFone is expensive because it's the only game in town. Making phone calls on airplanes will remain expensive until there are multiple carriers on the same flight. Good luck with that one.
First of all, the airlines are private companies - you can chose to use or not use a specific airline. They have every right to chose what services to offer - and you can pick a different airline if you don't like what they offer.
As for Airfone, they pay he airlines to haul the equipment - in essence they are leasing the space from the airlines; the extra weight of the phones cost the airlines money so unless someone is paying them to haul it they won't. personally, I'm surprised Airfone is still in business - I fly a lot and can't remember they last time I saw one in use - I've used it once - when my flight was horribly delayed and I barely made a later connector and didn't want the person meeting me to wait 6 hours at the airport and worry when I wasn't on my original flight.
Cell phones, OTOH, get whipped out as soon as the plane lands.
Personally, I hope the service providers charge high fees for WiFi acess - that will limit usage and keep some sanity in the skies.
Ah, to be able to fart at will...
Carbonated beverages - lots of tehm. Thge airlines will even provide the raw materials for free, you just have to do teh processing and delivery of the final product.
What you really need to do is to write to your local lawmakers, explaining why it is wrong that companies such as ATI and nVidia should be allowed to keep the driver details for their video cards secret. Not only does it effectively lock Open Source out of the market, it also hinders competition in the marketplace; denies users the freedom to use their own property to its fullest potential; and allows ATI and nVidia to make mendacious advertising claims which cannot be disproven.
You are free to buy whatever card you want - if your favortie OS is supported, buy a diferent card. ATI and nVidia have no obligation to support any particular type of software - the do it because they can make money. If they can't get a decent return from open source then they will (rightfully) ignore it. If it was important enough, then some company would bring out drivers even if they had to pay the card manufacturers to develop them - but since it isn't happening my guess is there isn't enough money to be made developing drivers.
Video cards are a competitive market - ATI and nVidia need to keep secret what they perceive as giving there cards an advantage.
ATI and nVidia are the robber barons of the display adaptor marketplace, and the best solution to their unacceptable behaviour is legislation. This is why we, as the people who pay their wages, must demand action from the governments of the world.
Legislation is a very dangerous answer - what happens when someone decides that the GPL is anti-competitive and should be legislated into allowing anyone to use GPL code and modify it without releasing their mods?
I don't claim to have all the answers but I think that it involves something like paying people in the US a living wage, increasing the wages on "jobs Americans don't want" to the point where Americans would want them, stop migrating jobs out of the US, stop increasing the national debt, ie stop giving tax cuts with money you don't have. Americans will have to accept that it costs money to maintain our society, country, and way of life. It certainly does not involve smugly saying that if they are not qualified, they get paid "like shit."
Wages are based on supply and demand - as long as enough people will take the job at $7 no one wil pay $10 unless they needed a differnet skill set than what $7 buys.
As for keeping the jobs in the uS, one advantage of outsourcing is you can baseload the skills in the uS and use outsourced labor to fill the cyclic demand. That way, if you need less TS staff you simply fire the offshore peopel first - that has less impact on the US economy. In a sense, you are hiring disposable works at far less of a rate than you can in the US - for example, you pay no unemployment insurance premiums and suffer no increase in its rate if you fire workers (actually cutback on what you pay an Indian outsourcing firm who then must fire workers) in New Delhi rather than in Flagstaff. Plus, once another country is cheaper than India you simply move your operations there.
Let's not forget our lawyer friends in AZ:
Cantor and Siegel:The Green Card Spammers
Been there, seen that, got the T-shirt....
Germany, for example, used (not sure if they still do) to force stores to sell at the same price
Only for books, magazines and similar 'cultural' items to give publishers more chances to cross-subsidize the 'avantgarde' products with the mass-market ones.
It used to be for much more - things had a richtpreis that was the selling price store to store. Switzerland even limited sales to specific dates and only allowed two per year. Germany and much of teh EU have opened markets to more competition, and I susspect more and more of the small family owned stores will close as the more efficient hyper markets attarct customers with lower prices. (Which WalMart and Aldi are already doing to those stores)
No wonder Germans and other Europeans, when they have a choice, shop at WalMart, Corte Inglais, and other large stores that offer lower prices.
Uhm, Walmart is posting a loss year after year in Germany. Absolutly-no-thrills supermarkets (Aldi, Lidl) grabbed a big part of the market and are now steamrolling the rest of Europe. Germany is considered the most difficult retail market of Europe (the world?) as margins are minimal.
As I pointed out - given a choice the consumers prefer lower prices, wether it's Aldi, Walmart or another store. They were not always afforded that opportunity in most of Europe as government regulations essentially eliminated sicounted of list prices.
And why? Because market regulation prevents the oligopolies to turn into monopolies (well, at least tries to unless overturned by politicians). And oligopolies trying to form trusts are actually fined.
Market regulations usually benefit the companies at the expense of the consumers - by keeping prices higher than if competition were allowed. Want to keep coal miners employed even if it means higher energy prices for consumers beacuse coal from South Africa is cheaper - add a tax onto energy. Competition means that some stores will close and poeple will lose jobs - outcomes politicians, especially in the more paternalistic EU countires, loath.
In simplified terms, American antitrust, like much of our country's regulatory philosophy, aims to create a level playing field on which all companies, small or large, can compete; the focus is on protecting consumers through ensuring competitive markets.
Actually, much of our regulatory philosophy is to support existing companies and keep out new competitors by introducing barriers to entry; this neither protects consumers nor ensures competitive markets. Regulation keeps sugar prices high; limits the number of barbers (we license them yet no one has ever died from a bad haircut); and limits taxi medallions to keep the number of cabs down (ever wonder why someone will lend millions to a cabbie in NY to buy a medallion? Since NYC controls the number of medallions the collateral is rock solid even if the cabbie is a poor credit risk; VA limits who can pickup and drop off at IAD and DCA). I don't think paying higher prices makes a consumer better off.
Nor is a monopoly automatically bad even if they force others out of the market - if they keep prices below where a competitor can enter the market and make money then I spend less than I would in a more competitive marketplace - and I am better off since I can save or spend the difference.
In Europe, antitrust laws focus less on consumer protection than on competitor protection; the ability of companies to compete, regardless of whether their existence helps consumers, is what's important. From the European perspective, a near-monopoly market share is almost always a bad thing; furthermore, even if a big company is playing by the rules, it has an obligation to make sure it doesn't crowd out smaller competitors.
Which is why EU consumers are generally worse off than American - my European friends pay significantly more for everything, from clothes to cars than I do, and generally make less as well. Look at the row over Tax Free shopping. Germany, for example, used (not sure if they still do) to force stores to sell at the same price and limited operating hours - that helped the small stores but not the average German. No wonder Germans and other Europeans, when they have a choice, shop at WalMart, Corte Inglais, and other large stores that offer lower prices. If the EU ever really embraces competition over protecting entrenched interests they will spark a social and economic revolution (whether that is good or bad is open to debate); if they don't they will lose out to those who do.
Does this mean that if I read out copies of Harry Potter over the radio (someone was sued for doing that some years ago), it's within my rights, since I have a right to free speech?
Free speech - sure. In the US the government can't exercise prior restraint.
Copyright violation - the owner of the work can sue you into oblivion - free speech has nothing to do with it, at least in the US.
Oh, yeah -- this is fantastic! It may be buggy and useless as it's currently sold, but the important thing is that they're giving discounts to GNOME developers who will hopefully then fix it for them! I'd better buy one right now!
I love the discount offer - 500 Euros (with a planned shipping price of $350).
sane? wrote:
(BTW i before e except after c)
That's weird.
Wetehr or not consumers trust Microsoft is irrelevant to the buying decision - at least for most PC buyers. Microsft's products are defacto standards in the marketplace which gives them a hugh advantage over the competion. People buy what is on the shelf - and in retail it's mostly MS Windows based PCs' at a wide range of proce points that reach the broadest range of consumers. What other choices are there?
Apple - great product but there is no low end machine to compete with cheap Windows boxes; the Mac Mini starts at $600 and you still need to add a keyboard and mouse
Liniux - virtualy no one sells it at retail and besides most consumers don't want to have to search for programs after they buy; and there's no Linux boxed games etc (to compete for mindshare)showing up on shelves to give retailers an incnetive to sell cheap low margin Linux boxes hoping to sell higher margin software to go with it.
Low trust will have no impact on MS' OS or software sales; but it will hurt them as they move to more comeptitive areas and start bumping up against Google (search); Sony / Apple (digital music); etc where the purchasing decsion is more intangable and teh consumer has choices.
Yep, I think you pretty much summed it up. Theaters are claiming they offer a better experience, but at the same time they're desperately begging for a temporary 'monopoly' on showing films, before they go out on DVD.
(snip)
The theaters are clinging to a business model that worked well before people had other choices. Now people have those choices, and they're going elsewhere. If movie theaters want to be around for another generation, they need to put some hard and creative thought into what it is that they offer, and what consumers want and are willing to pay for. Getting a six-week monopoly on a new film is a shoddy way to stay in business, and I think in the long run, consumers will find other ways to spend their time while they're waiting for the DVD to come out.
As you pointed out technology has caught up with the theater business model but it is even worse than wanting to keep a monopoly:
Theaters make very little money on new releases early on - the payment structure favors longer runs - which DVD's threaten since after a movie is on DVD the audience will start to drop. Distributors, OTOH , get a lot more early on and less later - so starting the DVD revenue stream earlier benefits them. So , in the end it's about profits; and DVDs are shifting power even more to the distributors.
The theater's problems is they have large fixed but low variable costs - they can't let the building sit between releases; nor hire and fire staff to match demand. They need longer profitable runs (box plus concession sales) to stay profitable.
For the distributor it's about cash flow - they have huge up front cost to make the movie, now they need to get the cash flow pumped up as quickly as possible; exchanging the theater revenue for even greater DVD revenue is a good deal for them.
As a side note, I think the drive for cash flow will speed up the model that's being tested in the UK - buy the DVD, get electronic versions and then a DVD in the mail - the production company can cut out the retailer and retain a greater share of the profits. I wouldn't be surprised to see DVDs coming in small cardboard slip cases instead of the pretty cover art plastic cases as well - once it's sold there is no reason to have a fancy cover to hook people into noticing your DVD on the shelf.
> Open office stuff may work fine for casual emailers and memo writers
.... ?
You're right with most of your post, but OOo is good for a whole lot more than that and you know it. Even if "bean counters" need Office (and indeed they might at this point), most business desktop users should be able to use OOo. Sharing docs with the bean counters wouldn't be an issue.
Actually, it's not just the "bean counters"; plugins give users access to a wide array of corporate data, from Excel, that can be analyzed using standard Excel tools. A corporate strategy group, for example, could extract sales data for further analysis.
> So when will adapter add-ins be available for Open Office from PeopleSoft, Hyperion, JDEdwards, Oracle financial apps,
If they see a demand for an OOo version, they'll write it.
The problem is that forces them to support one more, and much smaller, user base; plus the product (OO) code base can change on a random basis, so either they must stay up with the latest version to be sure it doesn't break their code or provide a standard release they support which may be behind other releases.
One could also consider starting an Open Source project to do something similar, but I'm not sure there would be a lot of motivation. It's not exactly an itch to scratch for the average geek.
That's the strength and weakness of OSS - you get tools geeks want; but there is no motivator to appeal to a larger audience.
"for Google's corporate image. I wonder when Google makes the Dow Jones? Seems like how Google's stock goes is a big indicator of how the market goes."
No individual stock (or group for that matter) is a good indicator of how the market will perform. The best that can be said is the market generally outperforms bonds in the long run (as it should, based on the market's higher risk).
Not to mention that the companies paying him have reporting requirements as well. So either they can be nailed as well or the IRS has the abu=ility to start finding potential under reporters.
One of the topics listed in the book is the raw file format. Why do camera manufacturer encrypt our pictures? Our pictures belong to us. We are the copyright holders of our pictures, not the manufacturers of cameras. There is probably no acceptable answer. So, let's just list the culprits. I start with one of them:
Nikon.
Nikon has an SDK that lets developers use all of the features of their NEF (Nikon's raw file format)raw files so that 3rd parties can create convertors. Nikon chose to keep their file format for whatever reason and still make it possible for other companies to create conversion software. In addition, there are a variety of converters and plugins available that cann read Nikon NEF files. Nikon is hardly limiting anyone's creative rights.
Please explain to me exactly how, in this case, the customers who rent the most, and therefore spend the most amount of money, are NOT the best customers? I'd love to know how exactly more sales != more profit. Especially as those customers who rent on a regular basis, who are clearly happy with the service, require less marketing than those who rent less frequently.
Everyone pays a flat fee - so the most profitable customer rents zero movies in a month, and the profitability declines from there. At some point, the costs of sending the DVDs exceeds the amount the customer pays; that customer is unprofitable to NF.
NF no doubt has some magic average rental / customer number that represents the threshold where profitability dips below what they believe is acceptable and they try to run the system to stay below that number. If every NF customer simply dropped the DVD in the mail the same day it was received NF would be screwed - they can't make money shipping 20 plus disks / month to all of their customers.
Personally, I think their model is not viable in the long run unless a significant technological change occurs. The adoption of high speed internet access will make the direct delivery model better since it cuts out the shipping and handling costs; once the studios develop a licensing scheme that makes prices close to NF viable you'll see competition spring up. Eventually the DVD player will be supplanted by the movie player that attaches to the internet and gets the movies you want when you want them.
The self destructing DVD would be a bone to NF - if you could get the cost of that disk less than the cost of handling a return it would be more profitable. Demand estimation would be vital to avoid getting stuck with too many or too few disks and you'd need regular versions to maintain the catalog once the movie is no longer new. For the initial demand when it is a new release though it might make sense; NF would need a TOS that limits how often you'd get a self destructing DVD.
Some how Verizon would find a way to sue them and force them to give it back... they could probably get some female employee to scream sex descrimination or something and get a worthless jury to side with her. McDonalds coffee ALL OVER AGAIN!
Except of ocurse, McD's actually did soemthing wrong and paid for it - and paid a lot less than most people realize.
At any rate, Google would be free to say that they don't want to pay nor have Verizon customers experience a slow Google and so block Verizon. In a free market, Verizon would throttle Google and a cable competitor would advertise Google - at the speed of light and get Verizon's customers to switch. Alternatively, Google could demand payment from Verizon (as others point out)for using their services to sell bandwidth. In the end, they could simply swap fees - no momney gets exchanegd and both get "paid" for content or bandwidth.
The real danger is if Verizon suceeds, then other conteht providers may feel the need to buckle - or, more likely, run to Congress to protect their "right" to the internet.
Next up - mail relays charging to carry your email. Film at 11...
(snip) ...one of the two fusion reactor projects produces cheap energy, we could eliminate all conventional and all fission reactors entirely and have just two or three fusion reactors per continent.
Hardly - the problem of transmission and distribution remain; plus what happens when 1/3 of your power goes offline unexpectedly?