Sorry If I oversimplified it a bit. I am really looking at it from a 1 to 1 basis from Microsoft tring to shift their costs around compensate for that loss and bring their profit up again. (which is important to them.) I was not meaning to imply (is this what you meant?) that they could directly report and alocate assets as profit, or even income. I saw the article a few months ago but have not been able to find it again. I think what must have been a five year cumulitive MSFT or annual DOW wide thing. According to a post Greenspan statment on options article, MSFT would go down from 7.3 to 5 billion in profits in 2001. I am really sorry for mistating this.
From that article... "The seemingly arcane accounting debate would have a huge impact on U.S. companies. The Fed has estimated that annual corporate earnings growth between 1995 and 2000 was 2.5 percentage points higher for big companies because they did not have to count options as expenses subtracting from their earnings. "
"I have come seeking knowledge, Things they would not teach me of in college..."
"When you find your servent is your master... You'll be wraped around my finger..."
I think bio-terrorism style nano attacks will come right at the beginning of nanotech. We are only going to be 2-10 years into use of nanotech when people start exploding inside and dropping dead. Unless Moore's law breaks that's 8-13 years from now.
Circulatory nanite attacks will come first because medical use of nanites will come second only to small scale microprocessors. Exclusive patented copyright software rights to cures for cancer, AIDS and all blood borne disease will drive companies to stop at no financial end to adapt dry vacuum based molecular machines and circuitry to the circulatory system. They will succeed in a few years time.
When the first person implodes, we have one maybe two years to build really strong nanite based immune systems and distribute it to everybody we care about before humanity begins to die by the billions. But I'll bet you any amount of money the companies will stall the release of their intellectual property long enough to eliminate all of humanity.
If our government must step in immediately after the first nanite terrorist attack, and suspend all IP penalties for inventors. If not, this will come to bloodshed, and one side will be fighting the IP police not for TV sitcoms but for their lives.
The geeks will survive regardless, ignoring IP law and working together in an underground fashion to build such a supplemental immune system.
People adept at sharing IP and information underground may be the only to survive. We need to limit the scope of patents and the duration of copyright. Most of all we need our government to acknowledge in law that there are circumstances when taking owned IP and releasing it to the public domain for the public good is acceptable. We won't have time to argue about precident later.
"Why? Your liability limit is $50 anyway. I suppose there's also the inconvenience of having your card number stolen, but from a pure cost perspective I'd expect that the lower rate plus the risk of being out $50 would be cheaper."
Two reasons...
Usually I am not effected by interest rate to much because I make paying off my cards a top priority.
I am aware of the $50 but there is nothing in the law that says my account must be credited in 30 days of the report or some such thing. I could theoretically be held accountable for the money pending an investigation, or definatly if contest the card companies findings from an investigation. One of advantages of having a credit card is it's instant loan/buying power for emergancies. That is gone during that time. More credit cards could solve that problem but also mean more risk.
I agree that it would lower the card companies bills over the long run, so I would only accept a higher rate on a temporary basis.
I see what you are saying but I don't want to wait until the government steps in and forces the card companies to eat the cost of updating card info sending equiptment, registers, servers, cards, etc...
Why take the airwaves back? It's only one way of getting Internet.
The more successful a commercial/"pirate" crackdown is, the sooner it will before the first 24 hour free to redistribute streaming video net channel comes about. Their advertising will be all taken care of, all they need to do is say "We won't try to arrest you! We don't care what you do with our content, just don't sell it! Who cares what you watch this on!"
"IWAMOBLAM.com proud member of the openvideo network. The you can't steal this if you try network, now presenting "potato weapons unleashed."
Then how did Microsoft postulate that he was a qualified expert on the removability factors of IE? Wasn't technical feasability a more primary point of contention than fiscal feasabilty? If not why not?
I realize Project Manager has the word manager in it but it has ALOT more to do with CS than traditional management. The wide availibity of more qualified persons at MIT must speak volumes about his relationship with MSFT.
"It would be better if credit cards used a public/private key system, where the acocunt number is sent to the central server which responds with a random encryption challenge, then a chip on the card encrypts the string using it's key and replies. That way no useful security information is being pased around for others to intercept and use."
I as a profesional, understanding the issues, would accept a higher rate credit card, say 12% rather than the 10.74% for a public key challenge chip on a major credit card. If people were educated they would understand the value of paying more(not much more) for that little chip. Unfortunatly 48% of people don't know how long it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun.
"Wrong! From this article, [forbes.com] msft has about $5.3b in cash and cash equivalents (that can be quickly liquidated), and, "using a slightly more expansive methodology", about $36b"
Yea 36 billion, unless Congress changes the employee stock option laws in response to the Enron thing. The WORST hurt on the DOW will be MSFT measuring in at 18 billion dollars in the red (from 4 to 7 in black) to shift around before they can show a profit. Microsoft==20 year old Enron.
That gives them about two more years of running off reserve cash with no revenue, not the typically quoted five.
They couldn't get the mafia on murder, the IRS got them on tax evasion. MSFT meet the SEC.
Officially free to watch and copy Internet TV here we come. Sure it won't be the same content, but it will be targeted to an audience that marketers know is smarter anyway. I'm sure a couple of reality shows, a few documentations, and a variation on junkyard wars would be a good cheap start. TV will now have competition, thank you TV police.
"How long will the DMCA be used to trample freedom of speech, expression, and fair use, until Congress gets it into their thick skulls that this is BAD LEGISLATION, and repeals it?"
This leads to another question.
I don't know when corruption will be interupted long enough to adress fundemental differances in what property is valuable and it's effect on distribution of wealth, but I do know we aren't comming out of this recession until such an interuption occurs.
This sixy year cyclical downturn will last as long as our government does not represent the people in it decisions.
To put it another way (roughly)...
/*my appoliges for the defines, lameness filter sucks..:)*/ #Define/* Comment #Define */ EndComment while(Years-Democracy) { if(((Years-Democracy+RandomGlobalEconomyFact ors()) %60)<=0) { while(corruption) Comment recession EndComment { corruption=legislation(corruption+RandomSelflessPa triotLuck()); Comment stuck in recession EndComment Comment this is speculation, never been here EndComment if(recession>=15) { Years-Democracy=-1; corruption=-1; } recession++ } } Years-Democracy++; }
"Why, for cryin' out loud, do we have to waste time on articles published in September and October 2001?"
The second paper was published on 9/10/2001.
Did you forget about the week the world stopped turning? First thing in the morning the day(night?) right after this was published? Did you notice this guy works in Columbia which is located in NYC?
Perhaps we all had better things to do than to submit the two article set that day. That makes it no less valid.
I agree reposting sucks, but this I believe was an exception.
"
Not enough people have switched off their TVs..."
Perhaps it's time we hit our neighbors, friends and faimlies with a quick reality check.
Run on sentence, spoken with accending pitch
"Over half the country is on the Internet using hundereds of different instantanious media sources reporting at contantly increasing levels of detail all run and funded by competing conflicting interests, and you still wait for six o'clock to wade through a half hour of drivel and meaningless commercials that mean nothing to you to get to the one thing of interest on the TV news..."
I think people object more to our data being sold than anything else. A sale of private information should not take place without explicid permision. Since sales are easier to prove and track than any other kind of transaction, lets start there.
Trying to stop all private info transfer is clouding the real issue and distracting Amerian citizens by chasing ghosts.
Passing unenforcible laws divide moral citizens who are working together and speaking out, and creates an opportunity for the real malice the law is supposed to discourage to instuionalize.
Laws not written one crime and one punishment at a time are a shroud for evil. Sort of like an excuse for not doing real work. I would say it to the House and Senate in a heartbeat, but they know it already. The people need to face what programmers already know, spagetti code works to the writers advantage above all others.
"I think it's BS. I don't care if it's a 6yr old girl or a 30,000,000 verticies 3DS Max mesh: if it's lewdly pornographic it should be banned.
The reason, at least to me, is simple. We have enough psychos, rapists and stalkers who get worse because of pornography without adding to the problem 10x over by letting them get their hands on "virtual" children. Read this [thenewamerican.com] for more info."
I wonder if anyone will ever conclusivly prove a predominant harm or benefit on a vast majority society from exposure and or availibilty to extra-normal situations of any sort. I'm not talking about actual occourances but simulations of actual occourances. I'm also not talking about the harm to any real human simulator/actors.
I'm thinking of visual/audios like cartoons and (increasingly) realistic 3d simulations, but reality mutilation has been happening since orginized entertainment. Some examples of similar situations possibly without human actors.
Violence - Violence in video games and on TV. Absurd explosions, ridiculous physical strenth and agility. Brutality rarly seen day to day.
Virtual Porn- child sex, monster sex, impossible adult situations with just about everything.
Impossible bodies- Human beings with proportions and apendages that just can't happen. Instant genetic mutiation, clones with orginals memory.
Impossible social situations- Angels saving people, aliens abducting and probing, homeless people becomming richer than rich in weeks.
Whatever we do about one of these things, we should do about all of them.
They all warp reality and can have devistating effects for some indivduals. How can we best educate them or protect them from themselves, and others from them.
Some people are definatly strong/intelligent/stable enough to view these reality mutilations as what they are, not true to life. Any restriction puts undue burden on them.
Just becuase there are tons of stupid (and hysterically funny) flash cartoons out there doesn't mean it doesn't kick ass for Cisco's entire certification curriculum.
I'm sure anyone who has taken any CCNA class will agree, it's at least very good.
One problem, I would hate to be Cisco(or someone alot poorer) if Macromedia ever achives global bundling status. The closed source shakedown would commith hard and fast. (que: High hat, wa wa, 70's chase music)
"I couldn't let this one slip by. Ever heard of EverQuest? That's a Sony property, and it's headed to PS2."
I do not run Windows. If I can connect a PS2 to my lan via ethernet (Linux served DHCP or static private NATed), I will buy one for Everquest. I am interested, but I refuse to buy and run Windows just for one particular game, when I have so many other choices.
Two points...
A non-upgrade non-continuing-exploitation licence for a gaming Windows is just as expensive as a PS/2
Your post is very well thought out. The kind of retoric the inspires peoples imaginations.
I think I have the answer, a 10 percent unemployment rate.
We are at the end of a 60 year cycle. This is a manditory recession. During ordinary times companies do little retooling because they don't want to compete with themselves. Well now that the herd is being thinned they have little choice.
Usually the severity of these dips can vary from small resesion(1870s) to huge depression(1930). I believe the severity has to directly how corrupt the government is at the time. Durring the 1930s there was a lot of favor given to helping companies contributing to politcians campains. Thats why the depresion dragged on for 11 years. Part of the recovery from the great depression hinged on reform of campian finance. Sounds familiar dosn't it?
So how does the govemnment doing favors for money for the "big loser" companies enlongate the recession? Simple the CBDTPA is passed(perhaps in a lesser form) and butchers the new market (PCs- unscarce info movers/1000 billion) for the old Market (scarce disc based music and movies/100 billion) Huge amounts of skilled labor hits the street and can't find new jobs.
If anthing the threat to put off the CBDTPA until next year just assures that the economy will not any better until after the issue is revisited. Foolish investors went broke in the market (the guy that bought RHAT for 300$ a share without even reading the GPL) But the smarter more dedicated investors remain. They will see the CBDTPA for what it is, a money pit economy buster retooling prolonger, and hold on to or pull their money out of the market. That and similar events in other markets combined with the the impending mass tech sector layoff (post usefull-PC) will drain new and old VC out of the market and put it under mattreses. Once the motivated inteligent capible people start displacing the labor pool for the steel mill jobs the Joe sixpacks of the world are displaced. When Joe is displaced and jobless he smashes store windows marches on Washinton and participates in complete civil unrest.
Now the fat cats in DC have a real problem, it's hard to get relected when your state is rioting.
So there is no simple and revolutionary event leading to this catastropy (depression) but a series of events all leading back to campain finance.
Simply Put: The end of the 60 year cycle (now) is the worst possible time for companies with extinct business models to buy legislation. While it may buy them time, the more time they buy the more damage they do, and the deeper into recession the US economy goes.
Lets hope the Supreme Court does not strike down the campain finance law, if they do things are going to get pretty bad for the geeks, but even worse for Joe Six.
No due process, no need for judges. Self preservation will kick in. What judge would take away his/her own power like that. What got 30 states attention in the MSFT monoply case? Setting a precident taking away their right to proceed over interstate commerce.
The DMCA is really is a big fat due process violation, a play for the courts power if you will. If you want to shut down a website you should have to visit a judge, get a warrant, and have the cops serve it. Just like homicide investigations have to do for every mass-murderer.
But of course ebooks anywhere anytime are worse than mass-murder.... and the constituion is dated and unshiny... so they might have a case...
Slashdot Mirror
Greenspan's Friday anouncment on moving stock options to the business expense coulmn.
From that article... "The seemingly arcane accounting debate would have a huge impact on U.S. companies. The Fed has estimated that annual corporate earnings growth between 1995 and 2000 was 2.5 percentage points higher for big companies because they did not have to count options as expenses subtracting from their earnings. "
Also check out this news.com article. It shows that I messed up that loss estimate but there still is a big difference.
This is defiantly still pertinant, but I do owe people an apology.
They currently report 4-7 billon a year profit.
When they can no longer report employee stock options as income... 17 billion dollar annual loss.
At that rate 40 billion dosn't last very long.
You know, deflecting frivilous lawsuits 302.
How does that Police song go?
"I have come seeking knowledge, Things they would not teach me of in college..."
"When you find your servent is your master... You'll be wraped around my finger..."
Maybe it's like a test..
Does he get extra credit if he wins the suit?
I think bio-terrorism style nano attacks will come right at the beginning of nanotech. We are only going to be 2-10 years into use of nanotech when people start exploding inside and dropping dead. Unless Moore's law breaks that's 8-13 years from now.
Circulatory nanite attacks will come first because medical use of nanites will come second only to small scale microprocessors. Exclusive patented copyright software rights to cures for cancer, AIDS and all blood borne disease will drive companies to stop at no financial end to adapt dry vacuum based molecular machines and circuitry to the circulatory system. They will succeed in a few years time.
When the first person implodes, we have one maybe two years to build really strong nanite based immune systems and distribute it to everybody we care about before humanity begins to die by the billions. But I'll bet you any amount of money the companies will stall the release of their intellectual property long enough to eliminate all of humanity.
If our government must step in immediately after the first nanite terrorist attack, and suspend all IP penalties for inventors. If not, this will come to bloodshed, and one side will be fighting the IP police not for TV sitcoms but for their lives.
The geeks will survive regardless, ignoring IP law and working together in an underground fashion to build such a supplemental immune system.
People adept at sharing IP and information underground may be the only to survive. We need to limit the scope of patents and the duration of copyright. Most of all we need our government to acknowledge in law that there are circumstances when taking owned IP and releasing it to the public domain for the public good is acceptable. We won't have time to argue about precident later.
Of course if we survive that we will need to re-adapt to a life of sword play. What? You think bullets will slow someone with 150 times the oxegen content of a normal human?
Two reasons...
Usually I am not effected by interest rate to much because I make paying off my cards a top priority.
I am aware of the $50 but there is nothing in the law that says my account must be credited in 30 days of the report or some such thing. I could theoretically be held accountable for the money pending an investigation, or definatly if contest the card companies findings from an investigation. One of advantages of having a credit card is it's instant loan/buying power for emergancies. That is gone during that time. More credit cards could solve that problem but also mean more risk.
I agree that it would lower the card companies bills over the long run, so I would only accept a higher rate on a temporary basis.
I see what you are saying but I don't want to wait until the government steps in and forces the card companies to eat the cost of updating card info sending equiptment, registers, servers, cards, etc...
Why take the airwaves back? It's only one way of getting Internet.
The more successful a commercial/"pirate" crackdown is, the sooner it will before the first 24 hour free to redistribute streaming video net channel comes about. Their advertising will be all taken care of, all they need to do is say "We won't try to arrest you! We don't care what you do with our content, just don't sell it! Who cares what you watch this on!"
"IWAMOBLAM.com proud member of the openvideo network. The you can't steal this if you try network, now presenting "potato weapons unleashed."
Mouth agape...
Then how did Microsoft postulate that he was a qualified expert on the removability factors of IE? Wasn't technical feasability a more primary point of contention than fiscal feasabilty? If not why not?
I realize Project Manager has the word manager in it but it has ALOT more to do with CS than traditional management. The wide availibity of more qualified persons at MIT must speak volumes about his relationship with MSFT.
I as a profesional, understanding the issues, would accept a higher rate credit card, say 12% rather than the 10.74% for a public key challenge chip on a major credit card. If people were educated they would understand the value of paying more(not much more) for that little chip. Unfortunatly 48% of people don't know how long it takes for the earth to revolve around the sun.
Yea 36 billion, unless Congress changes the employee stock option laws in response to the Enron thing. The WORST hurt on the DOW will be MSFT measuring in at 18 billion dollars in the red (from 4 to 7 in black) to shift around before they can show a profit. Microsoft==20 year old Enron.
That gives them about two more years of running off reserve cash with no revenue, not the typically quoted five.
They couldn't get the mafia on murder, the IRS got them on tax evasion. MSFT meet the SEC.
"Look Dexter, I got a new camera, isn't it cooooool??"
*-FLASH-*
"Dee Dee, You are a geeeniuuuuss!"
All Success in this kind of activity can acomplish is to popularize arts under open licences.
I see efforts by the RIAA like this like I see the BSA, it is the symptom of a problem raising peoples awareness of the negitive impact of itself. The problem being lenghty(infinate) copyright stay and binding contracts you don't have to physically see or sign prior to purchase.
Officially free to watch and copy Internet TV here we come. Sure it won't be the same content, but it will be targeted to an audience that marketers know is smarter anyway. I'm sure a couple of reality shows, a few documentations, and a variation on junkyard wars would be a good cheap start. TV will now have competition, thank you TV police.
How much interaction can a movie have before it becomes a game? (dvd)
Aren't movies free speech?
What about screenplays?
What about books?
What about oral stories?
How about verbal instructions on how to polish my jackboots?
I had better polish them now while I still can!
It's getting awfully slippery.
This leads to another question.
I don't know when corruption will be interupted long enough to adress fundemental differances in what property is valuable and it's effect on distribution of wealth, but I do know we aren't comming out of this recession until such an interuption occurs.
This sixy year cyclical downturn will last as long as our government does not represent the people in it decisions.
To put it another way (roughly)...
The second paper was published on 9/10/2001.
Did you forget about the week the world stopped turning? First thing in the morning the day(night?) right after this was published? Did you notice this guy works in Columbia which is located in NYC?
Perhaps we all had better things to do than to submit the two article set that day. That makes it no less valid.
I agree reposting sucks, but this I believe was an exception.
:)
Perhaps it's time we hit our neighbors, friends and faimlies with a quick reality check.
Run on sentence, spoken with accending pitch
"Over half the country is on the Internet using hundereds of different instantanious media sources reporting at contantly increasing levels of detail all run and funded by competing conflicting interests, and you still wait for six o'clock to wade through a half hour of drivel and meaningless commercials that mean nothing to you to get to the one thing of interest on the TV news..."
"...uh huh..."
feel free to use :).
I think people object more to our data being sold than anything else. A sale of private information should not take place without explicid permision. Since sales are easier to prove and track than any other kind of transaction, lets start there.
Trying to stop all private info transfer is clouding the real issue and distracting Amerian citizens by chasing ghosts.
Passing unenforcible laws divide moral citizens who are working together and speaking out, and creates an opportunity for the real malice the law is supposed to discourage to instuionalize.
Laws not written one crime and one punishment at a time are a shroud for evil. Sort of like an excuse for not doing real work. I would say it to the House and Senate in a heartbeat, but they know it already. The people need to face what programmers already know, spagetti code works to the writers advantage above all others.
The reason, at least to me, is simple. We have enough psychos, rapists and stalkers who get worse because of pornography without adding to the problem 10x over by letting them get their hands on "virtual" children. Read this [thenewamerican.com] for more info."
I wonder if anyone will ever conclusivly prove a predominant harm or benefit on a vast majority society from exposure and or availibilty to extra-normal situations of any sort. I'm not talking about actual occourances but simulations of actual occourances. I'm also not talking about the harm to any real human simulator/actors.
I'm thinking of visual/audios like cartoons and (increasingly) realistic 3d simulations, but reality mutilation has been happening since orginized entertainment. Some examples of similar situations possibly without human actors.
Whatever we do about one of these things, we should do about all of them.
Just becuase there are tons of stupid (and hysterically funny) flash cartoons out there doesn't mean it doesn't kick ass for Cisco's entire certification curriculum.
I'm sure anyone who has taken any CCNA class will agree, it's at least very good.
One problem, I would hate to be Cisco(or someone alot poorer) if Macromedia ever achives global bundling status. The closed source shakedown would commith hard and fast. (que: High hat, wa wa, 70's chase music)
I do not run Windows. If I can connect a PS2 to my lan via ethernet (Linux served DHCP or static private NATed), I will buy one for Everquest. I am interested, but I refuse to buy and run Windows just for one particular game, when I have so many other choices.
Two points...
Jimmy Hoffa was featured in popular mechanics?
Your post is very well thought out. The kind of retoric the inspires peoples imaginations.
I think I have the answer, a 10 percent unemployment rate.
We are at the end of a 60 year cycle. This is a manditory recession. During ordinary times companies do little retooling because they don't want to compete with themselves. Well now that the herd is being thinned they have little choice.
Usually the severity of these dips can vary from small resesion(1870s) to huge depression(1930). I believe the severity has to directly how corrupt the government is at the time. Durring the 1930s there was a lot of favor given to helping companies contributing to politcians campains. Thats why the depresion dragged on for 11 years. Part of the recovery from the great depression hinged on reform of campian finance. Sounds familiar dosn't it?
So how does the govemnment doing favors for money for the "big loser" companies enlongate the recession? Simple the CBDTPA is passed(perhaps in a lesser form) and butchers the new market (PCs- unscarce info movers/1000 billion) for the old Market (scarce disc based music and movies/100 billion) Huge amounts of skilled labor hits the street and can't find new jobs.
If anthing the threat to put off the CBDTPA until next year just assures that the economy will not any better until after the issue is revisited. Foolish investors went broke in the market (the guy that bought RHAT for 300$ a share without even reading the GPL) But the smarter more dedicated investors remain. They will see the CBDTPA for what it is, a money pit economy buster retooling prolonger, and hold on to or pull their money out of the market. That and similar events in other markets combined with the the impending mass tech sector layoff (post usefull-PC) will drain new and old VC out of the market and put it under mattreses. Once the motivated inteligent capible people start displacing the labor pool for the steel mill jobs the Joe sixpacks of the world are displaced. When Joe is displaced and jobless he smashes store windows marches on Washinton and participates in complete civil unrest.
Now the fat cats in DC have a real problem, it's hard to get relected when your state is rioting.
So there is no simple and revolutionary event leading to this catastropy (depression) but a series of events all leading back to campain finance.
Simply Put: The end of the 60 year cycle (now) is the worst possible time for companies with extinct business models to buy legislation. While it may buy them time, the more time they buy the more damage they do, and the deeper into recession the US economy goes.
Lets hope the Supreme Court does not strike down the campain finance law, if they do things are going to get pretty bad for the geeks, but even worse for Joe Six.
Congress Breaks Democracy, Takes Peoples America.
No due process, no need for judges. Self preservation will kick in. What judge would take away his/her own power like that. What got 30 states attention in the MSFT monoply case? Setting a precident taking away their right to proceed over interstate commerce.
The DMCA is really is a big fat due process violation, a play for the courts power if you will. If you want to shut down a website you should have to visit a judge, get a warrant, and have the cops serve it. Just like homicide investigations have to do for every mass-murderer.
But of course ebooks anywhere anytime are worse than mass-murder.... and the constituion is dated and unshiny... so they might have a case...