Generally the more efficient way is cheaper, so I figure it should be. I figured that because FedEx/UPS can optimize it's delivery pattern in my neighborhood, it is cheaper for them to pack up all our packages and deliver several families in the same neighborhoods shopping in one trip. After all Walmart has to have all the packages shipped in, then dispersed one car at a time, and online I can shop at hundreds of stores without burning fuel looking around.
Except for the SuperWalmart on my way home from work, online is likely more fuel efficient for me, since direct shopping almost always cost me more in fuel alone than the delivery cost alone, for online. what is "Green" is way to difficult to even guess at, other than "green" as in the color of money it costs me.
The existence of random data will render your plausible deniability claim useless
The other option is that someone had financial data/etc on that partition and used a secure erase program to erase the partition. This is the condition where since no good data is stored on the disk anymore, you can't produce a password. The other option is something like the dual true crypt volumes, where one volume is harmless data (tax return for example) stored with one password, and you have a second password with the data you want to hide. By passing the first password, you give a deny-ability to the second volume. Since true crypt first fills the entire partition with random data, then starts encrypting data for one volume from the beginning of the partition, and the other from the end of the partition, if the encrypted data is in-distinguishable from the random data, then it can't be shown otherwise. (you can also encrypted any number of partitions inside a partition with true crypt, so you could have dozens of passwords to get to some final data.)
I know in several of my classes, things like using the correct number of significant digits is important. Also there would be multiple solutions that it is the students job to rule out. I am also a big fan of having a actual answer so that students could more easily determine if the answer makes sense. This solution still doesn't provide for the other issues, I guess he could provide the questions in multiple languages.
if I'm not paying attention and run over a single person, I go to prison.
Not likely, unless you weren't paying attention because of drugs or alcohol or some other "negligent behavior" was involved, like excessive speeding; A single momentary mistake is not generally considered criminal. In this case it does seam fairly likely that one or more of the people "not paying enough attention" that helped escalated this to deaths were among those killed, so no reason to hang them again. The blowout preventer (for example) doesn't appear to be a factor at all in the deaths, only in the continued oil leaking after the explosion. Many civil penalties will be involved, just like what would happen in a vehicle accident, IE you pay the fines, your insurance cleans up the mess, then you either pay them back with a increased insurance rates or by giving up driving for awhile.
The problem that comes up every time this is proposed, is that it closes the courts to the poor. For example, if mega corp poisons a poor families water through careless activity, and they only learn after their entire family is seriously ill. They can't sue for millions, because they cant come up with thousands to start the case. If they find a lawyler/legal service to foot the bill, those lawyers are then the one taking the largest financial risk, so those lawyers will then require most of the reward, or not take the case. That is why in the US, it is left up to the court (in most jurisdictions) so if the court (judge) decides the case should never have occurred then they can pass the fees onto whoever deserves it. If however it was a very tough/close decision their is no extra punishment set on those who started the process, especially if it were just some legal loop hole that caused them to lose. The US system works great in the cases where a good Judge takes charge. However in the US the problem is most Judges are ex-lawyer/prosecutors who are more interested in maintaing the system that they grew up in.
In short their is nothing wrong with how the rules are setup in the US court system, except it falls onto the judges to make sure they are followed; and they don't do that, all too often.
the other generations are somehow inferior to them
And to me it seams obvious why, the skills we were taught as most valuable in my generation were of no value to the older generation, so I would be inferior to them, in the skills they judge others by as they were never usefull to me to master. The same is true of the next generation, what I know as a demonstration of "skills" is not likely important to either the younger, or older generations so niether will be impressed.
If I was seriously considering buying a iphone, this is exactly what I would have wanted to do. Let me see how easy it is to get root access. Can I install the applications I want. Do the other features still work... That is exactly what a floor model is for (well maybe not what Apple/The Apple store thinks it is for, but that is pretty close to what a normal retail store would be ok with.)
corperations, B rated bonds were going for 8.4% AAA rated 7.62%, federal bonds rate for 20 year bonds was at 6.23% so you didn't have to go to risky to get locked in around that range.
earnings went up together with profits, yet stock price went down.
And that's not enough to justify investors (even if it were correct, because it's not.) Investors are looking for return on investment, they same as you would expect with a compounded interest rate. If you invested $10,000 ten years ago and locked in at 8%, and took no money out, you wouldn't still be making $800 a year now. You would have over $20,000 now, and be making $1600 a year. Since in 10 years Microsofts profits haven't doubled, and they haven't bought back as much stock as they have given out (2% dividend rate doesn't cut it either), they are indeed shrinking in value while making a profit, this from a lack of a growing return. Basically they are mis-manageing their capital, and not getting enough return to justify a premium on the stock. no growth + minimal payout = no investment.
Finding a bug on a software isn't that simple. For starters there are millions of lines of code
That is likely true for fixing a bug. No where did it say you had to find the line of code, that causes the issue. But finding a bug in software, when you have the software, and say it was free software so anyone could use it... Then the difficulty in finding a bug could be as simple as downloading a copy of Mozilla and using it. Similar to this security issue bounty, his bounty wasn't for grammer, it was for finding a significant issue. Most likely this $500 gives enough incentive to pay for the time spent after discovering something, to see if it's repeatable, document, submit, and answer questions...
It's considered insulting to pay just 500$ for a bug
Donald Knuth used to pay $2.56 per bug found in his programming books, the recognition was more valuable than the amount and most people would frame the checks and never cash, as a matter of pride "I was recognized." So getting a acknowledgment of finding a bug +value, getting significant money as well ++ value. Not worrying about selling your bug to people who might kill you if they think you screwed them or turned them in, and not worrying if the FBI, etc will throw you in jail for breaking laws... priceless.
Only if you cherry pick the stats. Sure, if you choose A high-end dell, which comes with much higher temperature, Vibration, Battery Life than any Apple. Then have Dell add the highest markup items they have (which come included with the Apple, but the dell will have better specs than the same items sold by apple, in the above terms.) Then yes you can pay more than Apple for a better laptop, with the same CPU, and Memory speed/size.
This is slashdot where we can log every fill-up and resulting MPG to a graph, then analyze details like, is synthetic worth it(for differential fluid = yes, engine oil was no), how much MPG is ethanol stealing (10% on carburetored motorcycle, EFI is insignificant.)...
Apple has been forced to respond, and follow many times in the past. For example when hackers released a development kit for the iPhone, so Apple has to release a official one (It is obvious Apple intended to have a SDK, but it was clearly going to be a application market and SDK, but would have been a partners only release, to companies like EA/bungie/ID that would have had to give "exclusive content".) So far it appears apple is willing to give up market share to android, to keep the premium price for applications and a monthly royalty for each active phone from AT&T. Apple has significant lock in for current Iphone customers, where many have spent hundreds of dollars on apps, and music that they can't move to android. So your correct, Apple can decide to follow the same path as they did in the PC market, and just cater to a shrinking but loyal current core for the Iphone. Or they can give up on their premium price, like they did with the ipod and remain competitive. I would bet on them following the Mac path, but it will be interesting how much share they will give up on that path and how well they take it.
set up your own personal corporation so you can deduct 'business expenses,' but the IRS will still make you pay a full amount. The studios also still have to pay the full amount in taxes, just not to other people
That of course all depends on if these "corporations" are in different countries, and it can still change your Tax rate. So if you pay yourself a salary from this corporation, then yes you pay income taxes. But if your a stock holder, and instead pay yourself with stock dividends, then you pay the Capital gains rate (20%) instead of income taxes (much higher.) With the Microsoft's of the world their foreign divisions make all the profits, so they aren't taxed in the US (but the cash isn't available to be spent in the US either, so you need to move to that country to retire and take the cash out.) the above is not financial advice, just my understanding of the rest of the game.
I think your points are valid, but oversimplified as well (to point they are purely one sided.) For example, while the pesticide/herbicide resistance is true, their are advantages that actually reduce runoff. I was hired as a teenager 20 years ago to go spray, we had much stronger chemicals, we would soak the weeds to try and kill the roots also to keep them from coming back (try and avoid the plants.) We would till and spray everything down in the fall trying to make a sterile field so next year we wouldn't have to deal with so many weeds, we sprayed DDT everywhere because it really worked. It was labor intensive so we would do maximum spray... With the resistant crop, they can now spray a much lower dose 2-3* a year, since they don't need to kill the roots/nests/etc, they just need to keep the leaves below the crop height... Since they can now no till, and leave the grass, etc growing and just stunt it's growth with low doses of herbicide, and without bare ground, the runoff of herbicide/fertilized dirt is now 0. So sure, the discipline of the farmers needs enforced, but if done right, these are powerful tools for good. Granted many farmers will now over spray because they can (or always have.) That doesn't make the tech bad, it makes the application of the tech bad. We do need monitoring and enforcement of ground water, run-off, pesticide over-spray, we always have needed that. But your logic that they can do it, therefore that's what they are doing, is a flawed argument.
My guess is the ideal situation for the best protection for the phone from the damaging weight of a battery, would be to allow the dense battery to exit the enclosure, and thus dissipate the energy without subjecting the rest of the phone chassis to the energy required. However you would would be more likely to lose the battery and cover, but less likely to break the rest of the phone.
this is based on a observation of a palm pilot being dropped from 50 feet to concrete floor, despite being cheap plastic, the thing exploded, batteries flew away, every snap together piece flew apart. But nothing broke, snap back together and was good. Being of cheap plastic (the palm) their is no way that flimsy case plastic could have stopped the batteries at that speed to concrete without permanent damage, but since the plastic could essentially move out of the way of the batteries force, it all survived scratch free.
correct, it is just about english assumptions in the article. had he stated "I have two children, only one of whom is a boy born on a Tuesday. What's the probability that my other child is a boy?" Then the problem would have been obvious. The whole article assumes that the word "only" is optional in that sentence with the same meaning with or without it. Then confuses the issue by then assuming "I have two children, only/b> one of whom is a boy. This time omitting this clarification he can assume that because the solution would be obviously One boy, one Girl that what we must really mean is that instead of assuming "only" we are assuming "at least" instead.
Apple wouldn't make near the $$$ following your plan. reportedly, Apple get $3 per month per phone, $11 if it was a new AT&T customer in addition to the phone cost. Apple also forced AT&T to invest millions on updating voicemail, for their phones. So that is likely $250 Million dollars per month that apple is taking from AT&T, that goes away without a exclusivity agreement. This is not the case with Verizon/Google matchup leaving Verizon with hundreds of millions of extra dollars to update their network, that serves them better than giving that to apple for their marketing. Apple had the power over AT&T to push for a network capable of the bandwidth, instead Apple pushed to make sure AT&T was capable of doing the visual voice-mail, etc not caring to push to take care of their customers overall experience when they have a chance. Not Apples fault, but apple has the power to influence AT&T, if they felt it was important to their sales.
comparing on NADA prices, it looks like your prius with 60k miles cost $10k more than the camry new, and is currently with $2500 more than a 2006 camry with 60k miles. the camry would have burned $4500 in fuel ($1500 more than you) during this same time frame. If you borrowed that $10k at 6% interest, you paid $1800 more in interest than a camry owner. Add it up you likely spent $7800 more driving the prius (so far) than a camry owner would have. Nothing wrong with it, but that's alot more if the goal was saving money.
It is a language thing. So if Jack is asked, what are the odds, if Jill has 2 kids, that 2 of them are boys. Then the answer is 1/4. If Jack then asks, and is told by Jill "yes one of them is a boy, born on tuesday". Then the odds are 1/3 (since jack only eliminated the 2 girls option.) if you now come along and Jack tells you "Jill has 2 children one of them a boy born on Tuesday...." He gave you all the information he has (but not how he came about it) So you should take that into consideration, and figure out their are 2 options, either jack asked, then it is 1/3. or was it Jill talking about her boy, and then asked what are the odds my "unborn baby will be a boy" (then it would be 50/50) you should likely combine both odds, then the odds of both together, and come up with a 2 in 5 chance of it being a boy.
A market where Google stands alone is neither competitive nor healthy.
That may not be true (or it may be.) The android doesn't need competition because it is more akin to a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contestable_markets because of the open nature of the operating system, if google fails to continue to invent, it would become fairly easy for competition to enter (they can start with android and expand it.) While Apple (IMO) is putting google into more of a compete with our marketing first, not on substance. The phone OS market is likely a natural monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly where competition, simply adds cost, not value (because it is also contestable). Apple vs Nokia vs HTC competition on hardware is a much more "competition needed" front. But if Apple were to simply switch to android, continues to compete on hardware, that would likely be a win-win.
mostly because of Microsofts outside investments that are not doing so well, the value of assets they posses have been decreasing more often than not over the past 5 years. for example the last 3 years, they actually took on debt recently, and any growth in capital is more than offset by those debts: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=MSFT+Balance+Sheet&annual (look at the bottom line)
you expect slower growth when the company in question already dominates the market.
Investors are counting on more than PC's with microsoft, it is expected that management will invest wisely, and use the brand name to get a good return on assets. If a company is not growing anymore, then they better return all of their profit as a dividend. As an investor, if I am not seeing a plan for a positive return on capitol, then I won't invest. So because microsoft does not appear to be maintaining the brand image, and not investing wisely, their value (represented by their stock price) has dropped drastically. Basically the new management is not worth as much as the old management, and thus the company is not worth it either.
Steve Jobs clearly thinks that whatever he is replacing Flash with is better.
you left a portion out. should be "Thinks it is better for Steve Jobs". It will be interesting if anything ever comes out of this that is also better (than flash) for Apple's customers. (so far, just better at separating them from their wallets.)
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Generally the more efficient way is cheaper, so I figure it should be. I figured that because FedEx/UPS can optimize it's delivery pattern in my neighborhood, it is cheaper for them to pack up all our packages and deliver several families in the same neighborhoods shopping in one trip. After all Walmart has to have all the packages shipped in, then dispersed one car at a time, and online I can shop at hundreds of stores without burning fuel looking around.
Except for the SuperWalmart on my way home from work, online is likely more fuel efficient for me, since direct shopping almost always cost me more in fuel alone than the delivery cost alone, for online.
what is "Green" is way to difficult to even guess at, other than "green" as in the color of money it costs me.
The existence of random data will render your plausible deniability claim useless
The other option is that someone had financial data/etc on that partition and used a secure erase program to erase the partition. This is the condition where since no good data is stored on the disk anymore, you can't produce a password. The other option is something like the dual true crypt volumes, where one volume is harmless data (tax return for example) stored with one password, and you have a second password with the data you want to hide. By passing the first password, you give a deny-ability to the second volume. Since true crypt first fills the entire partition with random data, then starts encrypting data for one volume from the beginning of the partition, and the other from the end of the partition, if the encrypted data is in-distinguishable from the random data, then it can't be shown otherwise. (you can also encrypted any number of partitions inside a partition with true crypt, so you could have dozens of passwords to get to some final data.)
I know in several of my classes, things like using the correct number of significant digits is important. Also there would be multiple solutions that it is the students job to rule out. I am also a big fan of having a actual answer so that students could more easily determine if the answer makes sense.
This solution still doesn't provide for the other issues, I guess he could provide the questions in multiple languages.
if I'm not paying attention and run over a single person, I go to prison.
Not likely, unless you weren't paying attention because of drugs or alcohol or some other "negligent behavior" was involved, like excessive speeding; A single momentary mistake is not generally considered criminal. In this case it does seam fairly likely that one or more of the people "not paying enough attention" that helped escalated this to deaths were among those killed, so no reason to hang them again. The blowout preventer (for example) doesn't appear to be a factor at all in the deaths, only in the continued oil leaking after the explosion. Many civil penalties will be involved, just like what would happen in a vehicle accident, IE you pay the fines, your insurance cleans up the mess, then you either pay them back with a increased insurance rates or by giving up driving for awhile.
The problem that comes up every time this is proposed, is that it closes the courts to the poor. For example, if mega corp poisons a poor families water through careless activity, and they only learn after their entire family is seriously ill. They can't sue for millions, because they cant come up with thousands to start the case. If they find a lawyler/legal service to foot the bill, those lawyers are then the one taking the largest financial risk, so those lawyers will then require most of the reward, or not take the case.
That is why in the US, it is left up to the court (in most jurisdictions) so if the court (judge) decides the case should never have occurred then they can pass the fees onto whoever deserves it. If however it was a very tough/close decision their is no extra punishment set on those who started the process, especially if it were just some legal loop hole that caused them to lose.
The US system works great in the cases where a good Judge takes charge. However in the US the problem is most Judges are ex-lawyer/prosecutors who are more interested in maintaing the system that they grew up in.
In short their is nothing wrong with how the rules are setup in the US court system, except it falls onto the judges to make sure they are followed; and they don't do that, all too often.
the other generations are somehow inferior to them
And to me it seams obvious why, the skills we were taught as most valuable in my generation were of no value to the older generation, so I would be inferior to them, in the skills they judge others by as they were never usefull to me to master. The same is true of the next generation, what I know as a demonstration of "skills" is not likely important to either the younger, or older generations so niether will be impressed.
If I was seriously considering buying a iphone, this is exactly what I would have wanted to do. Let me see how easy it is to get root access. Can I install the applications I want. Do the other features still work...
That is exactly what a floor model is for (well maybe not what Apple/The Apple store thinks it is for, but that is pretty close to what a normal retail store would be ok with.)
Who was giving you a locked in 8% ten years ago?
corperations, B rated bonds were going for 8.4% AAA rated 7.62%, federal bonds rate for 20 year bonds was at 6.23%
so you didn't have to go to risky to get locked in around that range.
earnings went up together with profits, yet stock price went down.
And that's not enough to justify investors (even if it were correct, because it's not.) Investors are looking for return on investment, they same as you would expect with a compounded interest rate. If you invested $10,000 ten years ago and locked in at 8%, and took no money out, you wouldn't still be making $800 a year now. You would have over $20,000 now, and be making $1600 a year. Since in 10 years Microsofts profits haven't doubled, and they haven't bought back as much stock as they have given out (2% dividend rate doesn't cut it either), they are indeed shrinking in value while making a profit, this from a lack of a growing return. Basically they are mis-manageing their capital, and not getting enough return to justify a premium on the stock.
no growth + minimal payout = no investment.
Finding a bug on a software isn't that simple. For starters there are millions of lines of code
That is likely true for fixing a bug. No where did it say you had to find the line of code, that causes the issue. But finding a bug in software, when you have the software, and say it was free software so anyone could use it... Then the difficulty in finding a bug could be as simple as downloading a copy of Mozilla and using it.
Similar to this security issue bounty, his bounty wasn't for grammer, it was for finding a significant issue. Most likely this $500 gives enough incentive to pay for the time spent after discovering something, to see if it's repeatable, document, submit, and answer questions...
It's considered insulting to pay just 500$ for a bug
Donald Knuth used to pay $2.56 per bug found in his programming books, the recognition was more valuable than the amount and most people would frame the checks and never cash, as a matter of pride "I was recognized."
So getting a acknowledgment of finding a bug +value, getting significant money as well ++ value. Not worrying about selling your bug to people who might kill you if they think you screwed them or turned them in, and not worrying if the FBI, etc will throw you in jail for breaking laws... priceless.
Only if you cherry pick the stats. Sure, if you choose A high-end dell, which comes with much higher temperature, Vibration, Battery Life than any Apple. Then have Dell add the highest markup items they have (which come included with the Apple, but the dell will have better specs than the same items sold by apple, in the above terms.) Then yes you can pay more than Apple for a better laptop, with the same CPU, and Memory speed/size.
This is slashdot where we can log every fill-up and resulting MPG to a graph, then analyze details like, is synthetic worth it(for differential fluid = yes, engine oil was no), how much MPG is ethanol stealing (10% on carburetored motorcycle, EFI is insignificant.) ...
Apple has been forced to respond, and follow many times in the past. For example when hackers released a development kit for the iPhone, so Apple has to release a official one (It is obvious Apple intended to have a SDK, but it was clearly going to be a application market and SDK, but would have been a partners only release, to companies like EA/bungie/ID that would have had to give "exclusive content".)
So far it appears apple is willing to give up market share to android, to keep the premium price for applications and a monthly royalty for each active phone from AT&T. Apple has significant lock in for current Iphone customers, where many have spent hundreds of dollars on apps, and music that they can't move to android. So your correct, Apple can decide to follow the same path as they did in the PC market, and just cater to a shrinking but loyal current core for the Iphone. Or they can give up on their premium price, like they did with the ipod and remain competitive.
I would bet on them following the Mac path, but it will be interesting how much share they will give up on that path and how well they take it.
set up your own personal corporation so you can deduct 'business expenses,' but the IRS will still make you pay a full amount. The studios also still have to pay the full amount in taxes, just not to other people
That of course all depends on if these "corporations" are in different countries, and it can still change your Tax rate. So if you pay yourself a salary from this corporation, then yes you pay income taxes. But if your a stock holder, and instead pay yourself with stock dividends, then you pay the Capital gains rate (20%) instead of income taxes (much higher.) With the Microsoft's of the world their foreign divisions make all the profits, so they aren't taxed in the US (but the cash isn't available to be spent in the US either, so you need to move to that country to retire and take the cash out.)
the above is not financial advice, just my understanding of the rest of the game.
I think your points are valid, but oversimplified as well (to point they are purely one sided.) For example, while the pesticide/herbicide resistance is true, their are advantages that actually reduce runoff. I was hired as a teenager 20 years ago to go spray, we had much stronger chemicals, we would soak the weeds to try and kill the roots also to keep them from coming back (try and avoid the plants.) We would till and spray everything down in the fall trying to make a sterile field so next year we wouldn't have to deal with so many weeds, we sprayed DDT everywhere because it really worked. It was labor intensive so we would do maximum spray... With the resistant crop, they can now spray a much lower dose 2-3* a year, since they don't need to kill the roots/nests/etc, they just need to keep the leaves below the crop height... Since they can now no till, and leave the grass, etc growing and just stunt it's growth with low doses of herbicide, and without bare ground, the runoff of herbicide/fertilized dirt is now 0.
So sure, the discipline of the farmers needs enforced, but if done right, these are powerful tools for good. Granted many farmers will now over spray because they can (or always have.) That doesn't make the tech bad, it makes the application of the tech bad. We do need monitoring and enforcement of ground water, run-off, pesticide over-spray, we always have needed that. But your logic that they can do it, therefore that's what they are doing, is a flawed argument.
My guess is the ideal situation for the best protection for the phone from the damaging weight of a battery, would be to allow the dense battery to exit the enclosure, and thus dissipate the energy without subjecting the rest of the phone chassis to the energy required. However you would would be more likely to lose the battery and cover, but less likely to break the rest of the phone.
this is based on a observation of a palm pilot being dropped from 50 feet to concrete floor, despite being cheap plastic, the thing exploded, batteries flew away, every snap together piece flew apart. But nothing broke, snap back together and was good. Being of cheap plastic (the palm) their is no way that flimsy case plastic could have stopped the batteries at that speed to concrete without permanent damage, but since the plastic could essentially move out of the way of the batteries force, it all survived scratch free.
correct, it is just about english assumptions in the article.
had he stated
"I have two children, only one of whom is a boy born on a Tuesday. What's the probability that my other child is a boy?"
Then the problem would have been obvious. The whole article assumes that the word "only" is optional in that sentence with the same meaning with or without it. Then confuses the issue by then assuming "I have two children, only/b> one of whom is a boy. This time omitting this clarification he can assume that because the solution would be obviously One boy, one Girl that what we must really mean is that instead of assuming "only" we are assuming "at least" instead.
Apple wouldn't make near the $$$ following your plan. reportedly, Apple get $3 per month per phone, $11 if it was a new AT&T customer in addition to the phone cost. Apple also forced AT&T to invest millions on updating voicemail, for their phones. So that is likely $250 Million dollars per month that apple is taking from AT&T, that goes away without a exclusivity agreement. This is not the case with Verizon/Google matchup leaving Verizon with hundreds of millions of extra dollars to update their network, that serves them better than giving that to apple for their marketing. Apple had the power over AT&T to push for a network capable of the bandwidth, instead Apple pushed to make sure AT&T was capable of doing the visual voice-mail, etc not caring to push to take care of their customers overall experience when they have a chance. Not Apples fault, but apple has the power to influence AT&T, if they felt it was important to their sales.
comparing on NADA prices, it looks like your prius with 60k miles cost $10k more than the camry new, and is currently with $2500 more than a 2006 camry with 60k miles. the camry would have burned $4500 in fuel ($1500 more than you) during this same time frame. If you borrowed that $10k at 6% interest, you paid $1800 more in interest than a camry owner. Add it up you likely spent $7800 more driving the prius (so far) than a camry owner would have. Nothing wrong with it, but that's alot more if the goal was saving money.
It is a language thing. So if Jack is asked, what are the odds, if Jill has 2 kids, that 2 of them are boys. Then the answer is 1/4. If Jack then asks, and is told by Jill "yes one of them is a boy, born on tuesday". Then the odds are 1/3 (since jack only eliminated the 2 girls option.)
if you now come along and Jack tells you "Jill has 2 children one of them a boy born on Tuesday...." He gave you all the information he has (but not how he came about it) So you should take that into consideration, and figure out their are 2 options, either jack asked, then it is 1/3. or was it Jill talking about her boy, and then asked what are the odds my "unborn baby will be a boy" (then it would be 50/50) you should likely combine both odds, then the odds of both together, and come up with a 2 in 5 chance of it being a boy.
A market where Google stands alone is neither competitive nor healthy.
That may not be true (or it may be.) The android doesn't need competition because it is more akin to a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contestable_markets because of the open nature of the operating system, if google fails to continue to invent, it would become fairly easy for competition to enter (they can start with android and expand it.) While Apple (IMO) is putting google into more of a compete with our marketing first, not on substance.
The phone OS market is likely a natural monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly where competition, simply adds cost, not value (because it is also contestable). Apple vs Nokia vs HTC competition on hardware is a much more "competition needed" front. But if Apple were to simply switch to android, continues to compete on hardware, that would likely be a win-win.
btw, if you go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/history.mspx
you can look up and see where the equity (assets-liability) has decreased from 40 billion to 36 billion in the last 10 years.
mostly because of Microsofts outside investments that are not doing so well, the value of assets they posses have been decreasing more often than not over the past 5 years.
for example the last 3 years, they actually took on debt recently, and any growth in capital is more than offset by those debts:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=MSFT+Balance+Sheet&annual (look at the bottom line)
you expect slower growth when the company in question already dominates the market.
Investors are counting on more than PC's with microsoft, it is expected that management will invest wisely, and use the brand name to get a good return on assets. If a company is not growing anymore, then they better return all of their profit as a dividend. As an investor, if I am not seeing a plan for a positive return on capitol, then I won't invest.
So because microsoft does not appear to be maintaining the brand image, and not investing wisely, their value (represented by their stock price) has dropped drastically. Basically the new management is not worth as much as the old management, and thus the company is not worth it either.
Steve Jobs clearly thinks that whatever he is replacing Flash with is better.
you left a portion out. should be "Thinks it is better for Steve Jobs". It will be interesting if anything ever comes out of this that is also better (than flash) for Apple's customers. (so far, just better at separating them from their wallets.)