If it is Sony's business to sell Trinitrons with toasters popping out but not sell ones without, why can't they? We should allow the market place of the consumers to decide what's best.
How far should we go? Should pens not come with pen caps, because that limits the competition on pen caps? Should cars not come with radios? etc etc...
If you go to the store, and you buy a DVD, and the clerk does not charge you sales tax, is it then your responsibility to pay the sales tax? There are laws in the US that requires the vendor to charge sales tax. [there's a special case of interstate sales that where the individual is responsible for]. For a company to do business in a country, it is _their_ responsibility to make sure they follow the laws of the country that they are doing business with. This is the same reason that Yahoo got sued because they allowed people to auction Nazi memorbilia on a site that can be access from Germany.
It is the responsibility of the company to make sure they comply with all local laws that they do business with.
Now you are right. It is very difficult, if not impossible to enforce this. That is partially the problem with the US attempt to tax the internet.
How can you pay for education if you don't get tax revenue? How bout roads? Or technology research funding? (remember, the internet was funded by tax dollars) Should you expect the government to take a step back and not get involved in the affairs of the citizens? People in general expect the gov. to provide a certain level of support and this can't be done without tax revenue.
Just think, how much money are states losing from tax revenues due to online purchases?
The economics of this is rather high for companies. Think about it. A company now has to hire a legal team to check whether they can sell to a certain country and how much tax to charge. This was the main issue that was holding back the sales tax of the internet a few years ago. It was far too difficult for interstate sales to calculate how much tax should be charged. It is even more difficult on a country level.
Now as you pointed out, the Customs service taxes goods coming into and out of a country. Let's say that you purchased a product online from a Brazilian site. They get taxed for it. Now the custom services adds additional tax on it. You are now double taxed on a product that should be taxed only once. How would you solve this logistical dilemma?
I agree with you entirely. Apple has used a number of tactics that MS has utilized. It's just that MS/PC market covers 90% vs Apple.
Anyway, I think Microsoft should be allowed to sell Windows with all that software as long as they also sell a stripped-down version with only the basic utilities, for people who do not want to use those extra programs and should therefore not be forced to pay for them.
I agree. Only thing is.. MS Windows XP Professional vs MS Window XP Home Edition vs Win95. They have done it to some extent. I mean, if you want a stripped down version of windows, go to Win3.11 You can still get it around. This is like going to Sony and saying, I want to buy your Trinitron TV but in red, without the remote control and without the on screen display? Why should MS be forced to do this? They shouldn't!
Tiger (Microsoft) is hampering the competition by impeding their ability to play well by bending their clubs (In this case the clubs represent a 3rd party's ability to develop a browser which easily replaces MSIE).
Hey..There are still lots of choices on the browser market, Opera, Netscape, Mozilla, Lynx even. IE never went out and "broke" them as you suggested.
What you are suggesting is that all companies must give a level playing field. That McDonald must give out its special Big Mac Sauce, that Coca cola should give out its secret recipe for the soda, that Pfizer should give away the ingredients to make Viagra. This is just not the way that the world works. Companies sole purpose is to make money. Having a competitive edge is what makes one company succeed and one fail. Remember, we live in a capitalistic society. What you are suggesting is the communist ideals. Go read Marxist and/or Stalins writings, you'll see a lot of similarities between their ideals and your thoughts.
I'm not saying that you are absolutely wrong, I'm just saying that you are taking a rather simplistic view at the situation. The world is not fair. Not everything works on a level of fairness in which people have to look out for the benefit of the whole.
Now, let me ask you, what should MS have done with the browser market? Should they provide competitors with products to compete against them as you suggest ("3rd party's ability to develop a browser which easily replaces MSIE")? That is just suicide! Tell me one profitable company that has done that!
Does Sun go, oh here is the source code to Java and this is what would give you a competive edge? Or does a pharmaceutical company go..oh here is a drug that we spent 10 million dollars to research we'll just give it to you for free because we want competition?
Now here is the part that is confusing: "And I never in any way suggested that there should be a homgeneity of ability in the NBA." and also " the clubs represent a 3rd party's ability to develop a browser which easily replaces MSIE"
In one case you don't want homogenity and in the other, you are saying that MS is at fault for not providing homogenity?
Just think about it from a company's standpoint. Would you give your competitors a chance to compete with you directly if you have a lead?
A proper analogy would be if Tiger Woods invented the golf course that everyone plays on. The thing now is that, he does not own all the golf courses. People can play on others. In the same way, people can run a variety of other OS's, not just Windows. I just heard that some guy created this new OS called Linux or something like that..I don't know if it works or not.
MS hurts the competition in being able to get a majority of the people to use their system. They did this because they were good in what they did and they succeeded in what they want to do. Should we only watch basketball only if everyone on both teams is as good as Jordan? Should Jordan not be allowed to play because he's better than par?
If you read my other post, I did a quick calculation on the amount that they earn in interest alone. It comes out to be about 1.8 billion a year in interest alone. That is more than the revenue of a lot of smaller companies. Nobody said that they were not reinvesting the money. It's just that you can only spend so much. Can you do spend 1.8 billion + other revenue sources on R&D projects without the entire company becoming too bloated? I mean, that's the problem with the Defense department. There is a lot of money going in and nobody watching where it goes.
MS has quite a bit marked off for R&D. But they aren't going to just start an R&D project that isn't in their best interest. I mean, the XBox is a stretch from their core business, but in the end, it will go along with their plans.
The fact that they have 40 billion isn't the part that is impressive, but rather the amount of money they earn from interests alone.
At a rate of 4.5% (a little below average savings account rate), the will earn 1,800,000,000/year (1.8 billion/year) that is 4,931,506.85/day (4 Million/day) that is 205,479.45/hour that is $3,424.66/min. Think about that. In the time that it took me to type all this, they just made another $7K. Just for doing nothing.
When you are able to do that, you can spend as much money into anything regardless of whether it will succeed or fail. Or they can pay all there lawyers and not even see a dent in their stockpile.
The problem is.. the more money you have and the bigger your organization becomes, the less of a control you have over the entire place. It's a fact of business.
If you have 40 billion dollars, hiring 10 college graduates at 32K/year is pocket change. They try to recruit the best of the best, but when it comes down to it, you need a lot of people filling in in between.
An analogy might be this. You have $10K in your pocket. You want to buy animal crackers that cost 30/$1. Do you go through the entire the entire collection and make sure every single one does not have defects? No. You scoop a bunch out hoping that you do have more no defective ones than defects.
Having a lot of money doesn't make it easier to manage it.
I don't think not paying dividends is an illegal action. It is their choice as their business practice not to pay dividends. And this is because it is more economical and financially better for the company not to. In addition, the amount that they would have paid out could be put back into R&D and be reinvested. There is no law that requires a company to pay dividends. They are not lying to their stockholders; the stockholders are aware of their business practice.
Think about it this way. When _you_ purchase something online as oppose to going to the local store to buy it, you are not paying state sales taxes on that. (You should be filing to pay federal taxes, but most people don't) In other words, you are avoiding the sales tax. Should all online purchases be banned? Are online purchases illegal because they bypass the sales tax?
Another example. You live near the border between two states. The next state over has a lower tax on gasoline. Would it be illegal to fill your gas in the other state?
Both of these examples are equivalent to the actions of MS. We are living in a capitalistic society. In that effect, the society rewards people that go out and make intelligent choices. Business choices/decisions are included.
Yes, you are right. At the time that I was writing this, I couldn't think of his name, so I just wrote the title of his writing. I actually like a lot of what Lao-tze talks about.
She was trying to cover her ass.. Her side of the story says that she was unaware of everything that's going on. Up until the Chicago event, she thought it was a legitimate invention but only realized it when you opend the computer and found a VCR. Now when all the investors start to press criminal charges on his husband, she could claim that she was not part of it and even reported it to the authorities...
My take is that she was involved from day one. I mean, if you're husband is running half a mile of cable across a river, you'd notice. You'd also notice if there were millions of dollars of unopened computer components. You'd also notice your husband very upset when these "floods, lightning, etc" destroyed the only working prototype.
It's really weird that I was telling out of nowhere, I was thinking of this theory while having a beer with my girlfriend. I told her this and she thought I was crazy!
Anyways, what I had explained was that there will come a time when the universe goes back to the beginning. At that point, the entire civilization will start anew. However, there will be certain people that will "remember" their previous life in the previous cycle. These people will go on to spread the "truth" which will turn into modern day religion. People like Jesus, Mohammad, Tao te Ting, etc.. the prophets are just people that remember the mistakes of the prior universe, the problems with mankind and how it results into the cycle of the universe. Budhist teaching talks a lot about cycles in that you want to break out of the cycle and achieve enlightenment. Other people like Nostradamus also "remember" the events of the prior universe and go off to "predict" it and write about it. At the bookstore the other day, I was skimming through a book called Bible Codes; it's about how modern events are predicted in the Hebrew bible.
Here's another thought. Is it possible that _we_ are god? I mean if the universe is cyclical, could it be that we, either cause the universe to go back to T=0 by the science that has "become ever more accurate"? It's quite a mind-boggling thought.
The bad part is the high squeeching sound. Yes, I agree that if you were stuck somewhere it would help that it would emit a sound. But after you're rescued, you and/or the firefighter is not going to go around searching for this ball. Other people are going to hear it and go towards that sound in hopes of rescueing someone in effect, putting their life at risk...
In defense contracting, everything has to be followed to the exact requirements. Any deviation pretty much voids the contract.
I used to work for a computer store that had an order to build computer to be sent to bosnia. The specs included stuff such as which slot certain cards have to be inserted. How the wires must be tied up and which wire to group with which. Location of drives like cdrom..etc.
I don't think the method that they used is what you are talking about. You are talking about rewarding the rats to do something good and punishing them when they do bad. What this article talks about is sending electronic stimulus to certain parts of the brain that controls certain motions. In other words, they've identified sectors of the brain that controls the motion to move a certain way. It is not urging the rat to do it, the scientists are in effect controlling the rats.
i thought that is how it's done. They outsource a lot of the stuff to other companies. The Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) is at the California Institute of Technology. I'm assuming others are involved also, I'd suspect, Boeing too.
I disagree. The sole purpose of bacteria is not to "kill" as you suggest, but rather to survive. One bacteria might survive by consuming your flesh. Another might survive by consuming your white blood cells. A bacteria that is harmful to one organism may not be harmful to another. The reverse is also true. Now if a organism is introduced into this ecosystem and (i'll give this one to you) it doesn't kill humans...but rather attacks plant matter..would you agree that would have a detrimental effect on the environment? Let's just say it destroys part of the rain forest. And since we don't have a way of destroying this organism, it keeps going plants matters are consumed. Maybe, like you said, humans have evolved to be able to fight off bacteria..but it is only because we have encountered these bacterias over several thousands of years that we have built an immunity to it. If a new organism is introduced into the system, our bodies may not be able to fight it off.
Now to look at it from a micro level. Research has shown that when you start dating someone new, you will usually get sick (ie cold, flu, etc) in the first couple of weeks/months. This is due to the fact that when you kiss, you transfer bacteria that the other person is immune to into your system which your body is not immune to. This is the same as introducing a new organism into the ecosystem.
Remember that the distance between planets and the sun is exceptionally large. It's not like you say you go to the local pizza store on your way home from school. Whenever they try to get something close to Mars, there is a rather small window in which the planets are aligned correctly (mind you, not in a straight line, but in an orbital curve) That is the shortest distance between earth and mars. Now, what you are saying is to burn fuel so that it gets close to the sun, then turn around and burn more fuel to get away from the gravitational pull of the sun back to earth. Meanwhile doing this so that the orbit from mars, around the sun, back to earth is lined up. (Remember that nike's commercial? Over the garage, through the window, nothing but net!)
In addition, you mention a crew. The farthest that manned space missions have gone is to the moon and back. We barely have the resources nor the technology to get to Mars, nonetheless the sun. Anything that can kill bacteria will kill humans first. So exposing the entire ship to the gamma radiations of the sun is near suicide. Secondly, you would need a huge amount of life support system to keep the humans alive for the duration of the entire trip (earth to mars, mars to sun, sun to earth)
Now the thing here is this. You have the right idea. All in all, solar radiation can sterilize just about any bacteria that we know of. Just having a probe fly through the emptiness of space will sterilize the exterior. The part that they are concerned with is the cargo (ie, Martian rocks and stuff).
Didn't they say a few years ago that probes sent up by NASA and the Russian space agency contained bacteria and other organic matters that could have potentially contaminated Mars? I think I read somewhere (can't confirm right now) that they found fossilzed earth bacteria in an Martian meteorite.
Actually..the majority of the losses and theft from retail stores actually come from employees that either shoplift it or pocket the money instead of putting it into the cash register. This problem of employee theft is not limited to high technology. Many employees just don't feel that they are getting treated well enough and feel that they should "steal" or "vandalize" corporate supplies or data to balance things out. The solution isn't to lock everything down but rather to make the environment supportive enough of the employee that they don't feel like the company owes them more than they are already getting.
Slashdot Mirror
If it is Sony's business to sell Trinitrons with toasters popping out but not sell ones without, why can't they? We should allow the market place of the consumers to decide what's best.
How far should we go? Should pens not come with pen caps, because that limits the competition on pen caps? Should cars not come with radios? etc etc...
If you go to the store, and you buy a DVD, and the clerk does not charge you sales tax, is it then your responsibility to pay the sales tax? There are laws in the US that requires the vendor to charge sales tax. [there's a special case of interstate sales that where the individual is responsible for]. For a company to do business in a country, it is _their_ responsibility to make sure they follow the laws of the country that they are doing business with. This is the same reason that Yahoo got sued because they allowed people to auction Nazi memorbilia on a site that can be access from Germany.
It is the responsibility of the company to make sure they comply with all local laws that they do business with.
Now you are right. It is very difficult, if not impossible to enforce this. That is partially the problem with the US attempt to tax the internet.
I totally agree. This isn't about taxing online companies, but rather targetting US businesses. In effect this is a trade barrier.
Remember, GWB started this by imposing a protectionist trade agreement.
How can you pay for education if you don't get tax revenue? How bout roads? Or technology research funding? (remember, the internet was funded by tax dollars) Should you expect the government to take a step back and not get involved in the affairs of the citizens? People in general expect the gov. to provide a certain level of support and this can't be done without tax revenue.
Just think, how much money are states losing from tax revenues due to online purchases?
The economics of this is rather high for companies. Think about it. A company now has to hire a legal team to check whether they can sell to a certain country and how much tax to charge. This was the main issue that was holding back the sales tax of the internet a few years ago. It was far too difficult for interstate sales to calculate how much tax should be charged. It is even more difficult on a country level.
Now as you pointed out, the Customs service taxes goods coming into and out of a country. Let's say that you purchased a product online from a Brazilian site. They get taxed for it. Now the custom services adds additional tax on it. You are now double taxed on a product that should be taxed only once. How would you solve this logistical dilemma?
BTW this post refers to the Anonymous Coward Post (for you people that have a threshold set)
I agree. Only thing is.. MS Windows XP Professional vs MS Window XP Home Edition vs Win95. They have done it to some extent. I mean, if you want a stripped down version of windows, go to Win3.11 You can still get it around. This is like going to Sony and saying, I want to buy your Trinitron TV but in red, without the remote control and without the on screen display? Why should MS be forced to do this? They shouldn't!
What you are suggesting is that all companies must give a level playing field. That McDonald must give out its special Big Mac Sauce, that Coca cola should give out its secret recipe for the soda, that Pfizer should give away the ingredients to make Viagra. This is just not the way that the world works. Companies sole purpose is to make money. Having a competitive edge is what makes one company succeed and one fail. Remember, we live in a capitalistic society. What you are suggesting is the communist ideals. Go read Marxist and/or Stalins writings, you'll see a lot of similarities between their ideals and your thoughts.
I'm not saying that you are absolutely wrong, I'm just saying that you are taking a rather simplistic view at the situation. The world is not fair. Not everything works on a level of fairness in which people have to look out for the benefit of the whole.
Now, let me ask you, what should MS have done with the browser market? Should they provide competitors with products to compete against them as you suggest ("3rd party's ability to develop a browser which easily replaces MSIE")? That is just suicide! Tell me one profitable company that has done that!
Does Sun go, oh here is the source code to Java and this is what would give you a competive edge? Or does a pharmaceutical company go..oh here is a drug that we spent 10 million dollars to research we'll just give it to you for free because we want competition?
Now here is the part that is confusing: "And I never in any way suggested that there should be a homgeneity of ability in the NBA." and also " the clubs represent a 3rd party's ability to develop a browser which easily replaces MSIE"
In one case you don't want homogenity and in the other, you are saying that MS is at fault for not providing homogenity?
Just think about it from a company's standpoint. Would you give your competitors a chance to compete with you directly if you have a lead?
I don't understand your analogy?
A proper analogy would be if Tiger Woods invented the golf course that everyone plays on. The thing now is that, he does not own all the golf courses. People can play on others. In the same way, people can run a variety of other OS's, not just Windows. I just heard that some guy created this new OS called Linux or something like that..I don't know if it works or not.
MS hurts the competition in being able to get a majority of the people to use their system. They did this because they were good in what they did and they succeeded in what they want to do. Should we only watch basketball only if everyone on both teams is as good as Jordan? Should Jordan not be allowed to play because he's better than par?
If you read my other post, I did a quick calculation on the amount that they earn in interest alone. It comes out to be about 1.8 billion a year in interest alone. That is more than the revenue of a lot of smaller companies. Nobody said that they were not reinvesting the money. It's just that you can only spend so much. Can you do spend 1.8 billion + other revenue sources on R&D projects without the entire company becoming too bloated? I mean, that's the problem with the Defense department. There is a lot of money going in and nobody watching where it goes.
MS has quite a bit marked off for R&D. But they aren't going to just start an R&D project that isn't in their best interest. I mean, the XBox is a stretch from their core business, but in the end, it will go along with their plans.
The fact that they have 40 billion isn't the part that is impressive, but rather the amount of money they earn from interests alone.
At a rate of 4.5% (a little below average savings account rate), the will earn 1,800,000,000/year (1.8 billion/year) that is 4,931,506.85/day (4 Million/day) that is 205,479.45/hour that is $3,424.66/min. Think about that. In the time that it took me to type all this, they just made another $7K. Just for doing nothing.
When you are able to do that, you can spend as much money into anything regardless of whether it will succeed or fail. Or they can pay all there lawyers and not even see a dent in their stockpile.
The problem is.. the more money you have and the bigger your organization becomes, the less of a control you have over the entire place. It's a fact of business.
If you have 40 billion dollars, hiring 10 college graduates at 32K/year is pocket change. They try to recruit the best of the best, but when it comes down to it, you need a lot of people filling in in between.
An analogy might be this. You have $10K in your pocket. You want to buy animal crackers that cost 30/$1. Do you go through the entire the entire collection and make sure every single one does not have defects? No. You scoop a bunch out hoping that you do have more no defective ones than defects.
Having a lot of money doesn't make it easier to manage it.
I don't think not paying dividends is an illegal action. It is their choice as their business practice not to pay dividends. And this is because it is more economical and financially better for the company not to. In addition, the amount that they would have paid out could be put back into R&D and be reinvested. There is no law that requires a company to pay dividends. They are not lying to their stockholders; the stockholders are aware of their business practice.
Think about it this way. When _you_ purchase something online as oppose to going to the local store to buy it, you are not paying state sales taxes on that. (You should be filing to pay federal taxes, but most people don't) In other words, you are avoiding the sales tax. Should all online purchases be banned? Are online purchases illegal because they bypass the sales tax?
Another example. You live near the border between two states. The next state over has a lower tax on gasoline. Would it be illegal to fill your gas in the other state?
Both of these examples are equivalent to the actions of MS. We are living in a capitalistic society. In that effect, the society rewards people that go out and make intelligent choices. Business choices/decisions are included.
Yes, you are right. At the time that I was writing this, I couldn't think of his name, so I just wrote the title of his writing. I actually like a lot of what Lao-tze talks about.
She was trying to cover her ass.. Her side of the story says that she was unaware of everything that's going on. Up until the Chicago event, she thought it was a legitimate invention but only realized it when you opend the computer and found a VCR. Now when all the investors start to press criminal charges on his husband, she could claim that she was not part of it and even reported it to the authorities...
My take is that she was involved from day one. I mean, if you're husband is running half a mile of cable across a river, you'd notice. You'd also notice if there were millions of dollars of unopened computer components. You'd also notice your husband very upset when these "floods, lightning, etc" destroyed the only working prototype.
It's really weird that I was telling out of nowhere, I was thinking of this theory while having a beer with my girlfriend. I told her this and she thought I was crazy!
.. the prophets are just people that remember the mistakes of the prior universe, the problems with mankind and how it results into the cycle of the universe. Budhist teaching talks a lot about cycles in that you want to break out of the cycle and achieve enlightenment. Other people like Nostradamus also "remember" the events of the prior universe and go off to "predict" it and write about it. At the bookstore the other day, I was skimming through a book called Bible Codes; it's about how modern events are predicted in the Hebrew bible.
Anyways, what I had explained was that there will come a time when the universe goes back to the beginning. At that point, the entire civilization will start anew. However, there will be certain people that will "remember" their previous life in the previous cycle. These people will go on to spread the "truth" which will turn into modern day religion. People like Jesus, Mohammad, Tao te Ting, etc
Anyways...that's just my little theory...
Here's another thought. Is it possible that _we_ are god? I mean if the universe is cyclical, could it be that we, either cause the universe to go back to T=0 by the science that has "become ever more accurate"? It's quite a mind-boggling thought.
The bad part is the high squeeching sound. Yes, I agree that if you were stuck somewhere it would help that it would emit a sound. But after you're rescued, you and/or the firefighter is not going to go around searching for this ball. Other people are going to hear it and go towards that sound in hopes of rescueing someone in effect, putting their life at risk...
In defense contracting, everything has to be followed to the exact requirements. Any deviation pretty much voids the contract.
I used to work for a computer store that had an order to build computer to be sent to bosnia. The specs included stuff such as which slot certain cards have to be inserted. How the wires must be tied up and which wire to group with which. Location of drives like cdrom..etc.
I don't think the method that they used is what you are talking about. You are talking about rewarding the rats to do something good and punishing them when they do bad. What this article talks about is sending electronic stimulus to certain parts of the brain that controls certain motions. In other words, they've identified sectors of the brain that controls the motion to move a certain way. It is not urging the rat to do it, the scientists are in effect controlling the rats.
i thought that is how it's done. They outsource a lot of the stuff to other companies. The Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) is at the California Institute of Technology. I'm assuming others are involved also, I'd suspect, Boeing too.
I disagree. The sole purpose of bacteria is not to "kill" as you suggest, but rather to survive. One bacteria might survive by consuming your flesh. Another might survive by consuming your white blood cells. A bacteria that is harmful to one organism may not be harmful to another. The reverse is also true. Now if a organism is introduced into this ecosystem and (i'll give this one to you) it doesn't kill humans...but rather attacks plant matter..would you agree that would have a detrimental effect on the environment? Let's just say it destroys part of the rain forest. And since we don't have a way of destroying this organism, it keeps going plants matters are consumed. Maybe, like you said, humans have evolved to be able to fight off bacteria..but it is only because we have encountered these bacterias over several thousands of years that we have built an immunity to it. If a new organism is introduced into the system, our bodies may not be able to fight it off.
Now to look at it from a micro level. Research has shown that when you start dating someone new, you will usually get sick (ie cold, flu, etc) in the first couple of weeks/months. This is due to the fact that when you kiss, you transfer bacteria that the other person is immune to into your system which your body is not immune to. This is the same as introducing a new organism into the ecosystem.
Sorry..but that is a rather dumb solution.
Remember that the distance between planets and the sun is exceptionally large. It's not like you say you go to the local pizza store on your way home from school. Whenever they try to get something close to Mars, there is a rather small window in which the planets are aligned correctly (mind you, not in a straight line, but in an orbital curve) That is the shortest distance between earth and mars. Now, what you are saying is to burn fuel so that it gets close to the sun, then turn around and burn more fuel to get away from the gravitational pull of the sun back to earth. Meanwhile doing this so that the orbit from mars, around the sun, back to earth is lined up. (Remember that nike's commercial? Over the garage, through the window, nothing but net!)
In addition, you mention a crew. The farthest that manned space missions have gone is to the moon and back. We barely have the resources nor the technology to get to Mars, nonetheless the sun. Anything that can kill bacteria will kill humans first. So exposing the entire ship to the gamma radiations of the sun is near suicide. Secondly, you would need a huge amount of life support system to keep the humans alive for the duration of the entire trip (earth to mars, mars to sun, sun to earth)
Now the thing here is this. You have the right idea. All in all, solar radiation can sterilize just about any bacteria that we know of. Just having a probe fly through the emptiness of space will sterilize the exterior. The part that they are concerned with is the cargo (ie, Martian rocks and stuff).
Didn't they say a few years ago that probes sent up by NASA and the Russian space agency contained bacteria and other organic matters that could have potentially contaminated Mars? I think I read somewhere (can't confirm right now) that they found fossilzed earth bacteria in an Martian meteorite.
Actually..the majority of the losses and theft from retail stores actually come from employees that either shoplift it or pocket the money instead of putting it into the cash register. This problem of employee theft is not limited to high technology. Many employees just don't feel that they are getting treated well enough and feel that they should "steal" or "vandalize" corporate supplies or data to balance things out. The solution isn't to lock everything down but rather to make the environment supportive enough of the employee that they don't feel like the company owes them more than they are already getting.