The company has so much f-ing cash right now that anyone who attempts to analyze it on the basis of current businesses instead of potential acquisitions or new development is basically looking backward. Between the cash they have and the capital they could raise if they EVER INCURRED ANY DEBT, they can buy/build almost anything they want and go in almost any direction from here.
Further, we need to remember what Microsoft is: a marketing company. They buy other peoples' products then remarket them as their own after making it impossible to own or use one without the others. Who are we to say Google won't do likewise or better?
Speculation is futile. You either believe they're smart or you don't. After that, you still have no shot at pricing the stock...it's a pure Keynesian beauty contest.
There are at least two ways math can get you laid.
1) If you're an applied math guy, you can use it to make enough money to attract the kind of women who like money 2) If you're a theoretical math guy, you can use it to make interesting small talk involving some loose homomorphism between something you know a lot about and one of the woman's interests, assuming she's smart enough to follow what you're saying
Option (2) works particularly well with hippie chicks, artists, and architects. Fortunately, my wife is and/or was all three of those things;)
Here's how you get any job or internship: know someone at the employer who thinks highly of you.
Anecdotally, I'd say at least 80% of hires happen that way. You want to work at Company X? Get to know some people there first, either online or at their local hangout or whatever. I know it sounds like a depressing concession to nepotism, but people ultimately want to work with people they know they can stand to have around.
And if you don't have the social skills for meeting people you want to work with, you're probably going to blow the interview anyway.
The amount the public is willing to pay is insensitive to all other factors. If you are willing to pay x, you are willing to pay x whether the price is x+1 or x/2. The difference is simply whether you will, in fact, buy it at = x.
If demand is driven high enough by other buyers, for whatever reason including heavy marketing, that you are priced out of the market, then you don't own it. That's how it works.
We don't buy things based on how much they cost to produce or how much we think is "fair", but by how much others are willing to pay. That will resolve itself if price goes up with demand.
Anything else represents less utility. Seller did not receive what people were willing to pay or buyer did not buy because it cost too much.
is what it's worth. End of story. Doesn't matter if there is infinite supply or only one buyer.
And this isn't about recouping costs of production, but recouping marketing costs. I am fairly certain there will be a high correlation between marketing costs and demand and, thus, increased prices for heavily marketed songs.
If no one will pay more than $0.25 for Einsturzen de Neubauten, so much the better for their fans. If people want to pay $5 for R. Kelly, well, what can you say about people who like R. Kelly anyway?
Anyway, there is no intrinsic fair price for anything other than what the market (i.e. buyers) reflects. Otherwise, we would all be shorting GOOG with impunity.
I, for one, would be happy to buy some songs below $0.99 as a result of my eclectic taste, particularly since I only use iTunes for one-off songs not rippable from my or my friends' CDs.
The problem with the terminology at both levels above my post is that playing video games is in no way synonymous with the standard slang meaning of "geek". Playing video games is arguably as common an activity for children these days as going to the movies or watching cartoons. And it was the same way when I was a youth way back in the eighties transitioning from Atari all the way to Sega Genesis. I played with athletes, programmers, math team members, musicians, and "popular" kids and was myself a member of each class therein.
More so, there is no inherent enmity between "jocks" and "geeks" beyond that which exists between any two classes of teenagers in which one is socially accepted and the other feels outcast. As both groups are still just insecure teenagers dealing with peer pressure and approval, mental and physical abuse frequently occurs.
Either way, playing video games really has nothing to do with it. It is a practice as common as sitting on the couch and watching your favorite programming all night to avoid having to talk to your family.
Mostly good with one caveat
on
Review: A.I.
·
· Score: 1
For the most part, I felt A.I. was a very well thought-out movie that smelled like Kubrick and tasted like Asimov (like the 2000 year gap in time moving forward to a world of only robots). I liked that it had a slow and deliberate pace and didn't come right out in your face and say "Is there more to being alive than the ability to feel?" or "Does it take organic roots to live?", but the questions are obvious. I liked that for David, a day is as good as 50 years - all that mattered was emotional reciprocation.
HOWEVER, I didn't need that crap at the end about only being able to resurrect someone for one day given their DNA. A more scientifically sound ending would have been to explain that they could indeed clone Monica, but it would only be an identical twin without the same memories or experiences. David would have loved her anyway and she him (given a world of no further stimulus) and that would have been a fine ending with her dying 70 years later and David still a boy.
It's actually not quite as mad a rush to "opt-out" as posters are making it seem. Technically speaking, section 6801-6802 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act requires financial services institutions to give you notice before they share your information with non-affiliated third parties. That's when you get the chance to opt-out. It's a pain in the a**, but it's about all you can ask for these days (see similar laws on spam, phone soliciting, etc.).
There are exceptions, though, to the notice requirements in Gramm-Leach-Bliley, for fraud prevention and law enforcement and a few other choice purposes. If you're interested, check out Article V of the GLB.
On a related note, look out for the upcoming Financial Services Antifraud Network Act (H.R. 1408) which is currently in the House Committee on Financial Institutions. If passed, any complaints, investigations and other suspicious activity information (even if unsubstantiated), plus background checks and criminal records could be shared by 200 or so "regulators" (including some private entities) in the insurance, banking, and securities industries in the name of fraud prevention.
Eventually, as many posters fear and I have long accepted, we will all be paying for sending email as we will for all packets. Probably a very, very small fee for a regular size email, but enough so that the cost of a movie or song download is profitable for both your ISP and the copyright holder. While that won't stop most of us from emailing (consider the difference in scale between an email (20k) and a song (7000k)), it should slow down spammers a little bit...about as much as the price of bulk mailing slows down junk mailers in the world of snail mail.
Either way, it's coming. You WILL be paying for packets. You do it with your phone, your TV and postal mail, so why does everyone continue to hold out hope that the Internet will remain free?
Slashdot Mirror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_B._Kent
Even if you are not a lawyer, this guy's opinions are generally hilarious without any special coding.
So patent trolls don't kill innovation, but the USPTO does? Or is it patent trolls don't kill innovation, but patent law does?
Nope. Blame here isn't mutually exclusive or singularly exhaustive. They're all crap.
Just like ISPs, CAN-SPAM and spammers themselves are all to blame for the 50+ messages I have to clear out of my inbox every morning.
The company has so much f-ing cash right now that anyone who attempts to analyze it on the basis of current businesses instead of potential acquisitions or new development is basically looking backward. Between the cash they have and the capital they could raise if they EVER INCURRED ANY DEBT, they can buy/build almost anything they want and go in almost any direction from here.
Further, we need to remember what Microsoft is: a marketing company. They buy other peoples' products then remarket them as their own after making it impossible to own or use one without the others. Who are we to say Google won't do likewise or better?
Speculation is futile. You either believe they're smart or you don't. After that, you still have no shot at pricing the stock...it's a pure Keynesian beauty contest.
Or they can get together with the guys from despair.com and ))(( with it.
There are at least two ways math can get you laid.
;)
1) If you're an applied math guy, you can use it to make enough money to attract the kind of women who like money
2) If you're a theoretical math guy, you can use it to make interesting small talk involving some loose homomorphism between something you know a lot about and one of the woman's interests, assuming she's smart enough to follow what you're saying
Option (2) works particularly well with hippie chicks, artists, and architects. Fortunately, my wife is and/or was all three of those things
Here's how you get any job or internship: know someone at the employer who thinks highly of you.
Anecdotally, I'd say at least 80% of hires happen that way. You want to work at Company X? Get to know some people there first, either online or at their local hangout or whatever. I know it sounds like a depressing concession to nepotism, but people ultimately want to work with people they know they can stand to have around.
And if you don't have the social skills for meeting people you want to work with, you're probably going to blow the interview anyway.
Joking, QBG.
You'd need two hands just to reach A, W, S, and D and god forbid you have to strafe
The amount the public is willing to pay is insensitive to all other factors. If you are willing to pay x, you are willing to pay x whether the price is x+1 or x/2. The difference is simply whether you will, in fact, buy it at = x.
If demand is driven high enough by other buyers, for whatever reason including heavy marketing, that you are priced out of the market, then you don't own it. That's how it works.
We don't buy things based on how much they cost to produce or how much we think is "fair", but by how much others are willing to pay. That will resolve itself if price goes up with demand.
Anything else represents less utility. Seller did not receive what people were willing to pay or buyer did not buy because it cost too much.
Have you never used eBay?
is what it's worth. End of story. Doesn't matter if there is infinite supply or only one buyer.
And this isn't about recouping costs of production, but recouping marketing costs. I am fairly certain there will be a high correlation between marketing costs and demand and, thus, increased prices for heavily marketed songs.
If no one will pay more than $0.25 for Einsturzen de Neubauten, so much the better for their fans. If people want to pay $5 for R. Kelly, well, what can you say about people who like R. Kelly anyway?
Anyway, there is no intrinsic fair price for anything other than what the market (i.e. buyers) reflects. Otherwise, we would all be shorting GOOG with impunity.
I, for one, would be happy to buy some songs below $0.99 as a result of my eclectic taste, particularly since I only use iTunes for one-off songs not rippable from my or my friends' CDs.
The problem with the terminology at both levels above my post is that playing video games is in no way synonymous with the standard slang meaning of "geek". Playing video games is arguably as common an activity for children these days as going to the movies or watching cartoons. And it was the same way when I was a youth way back in the eighties transitioning from Atari all the way to Sega Genesis. I played with athletes, programmers, math team members, musicians, and "popular" kids and was myself a member of each class therein. More so, there is no inherent enmity between "jocks" and "geeks" beyond that which exists between any two classes of teenagers in which one is socially accepted and the other feels outcast. As both groups are still just insecure teenagers dealing with peer pressure and approval, mental and physical abuse frequently occurs. Either way, playing video games really has nothing to do with it. It is a practice as common as sitting on the couch and watching your favorite programming all night to avoid having to talk to your family.
For the most part, I felt A.I. was a very well thought-out movie that smelled like Kubrick and tasted like Asimov (like the 2000 year gap in time moving forward to a world of only robots). I liked that it had a slow and deliberate pace and didn't come right out in your face and say "Is there more to being alive than the ability to feel?" or "Does it take organic roots to live?", but the questions are obvious. I liked that for David, a day is as good as 50 years - all that mattered was emotional reciprocation. HOWEVER, I didn't need that crap at the end about only being able to resurrect someone for one day given their DNA. A more scientifically sound ending would have been to explain that they could indeed clone Monica, but it would only be an identical twin without the same memories or experiences. David would have loved her anyway and she him (given a world of no further stimulus) and that would have been a fine ending with her dying 70 years later and David still a boy.
There are exceptions, though, to the notice requirements in Gramm-Leach-Bliley, for fraud prevention and law enforcement and a few other choice purposes. If you're interested, check out Article V of the GLB.
On a related note, look out for the upcoming Financial Services Antifraud Network Act (H.R. 1408) which is currently in the House Committee on Financial Institutions. If passed, any complaints, investigations and other suspicious activity information (even if unsubstantiated), plus background checks and criminal records could be shared by 200 or so "regulators" (including some private entities) in the insurance, banking, and securities industries in the name of fraud prevention.
Either way, it's coming. You WILL be paying for packets. You do it with your phone, your TV and postal mail, so why does everyone continue to hold out hope that the Internet will remain free?