So what is your notion of normal? I'd put someone like you in the 99.5 percentile, and if the word "normal" has any useful meaning whatsoever, it wouldn't include the 99.5 percentile.
There is nothing scientific about religion whatsoever, do you believe they are unfit to lead a technological, industrial society? Wouldn't you agree that a deeply religious president is incapable of critical analysis, inflexible, and stubborn to new ideas?
I do think they are unfit to lead us. However, for me, "non belief in evolution" is more or less a litmus test for the sort of dangerous religious belief that is the real problem. The fact is, to get elected you have to claim to be religious, whether you are or not. That sucks, but I'd sure hope we can move away from it. Rejecting those who interpret the Bible literally is a good first step.
Not to nitpick your logic or anything, but, uh...."if you buy a newspaper"....might want to read that phrase again. Hint: third word. Slight difference.
I just love though how the summary makes it out how it's a horrible thing that the Hospitals cant sue anyone. Oh the Humanity! What is your point?
What if it was worded "none of the responsible parties were there to accept the consequences" or "those that caused the problem escaped without repercussions, while others had to pay for the costs of their negligence"?
I'm sure they have consistant ways of calculating costs vs benefits vs safety, that are better than your simplistic, knee-jerk intuition.
If we viewed it as all black and white, and safety trumped everything, we'd never go into space, right? But even if only calculating safety, it may well be that in this case, the best decision is to not fix it. Since this has happened many times before on the shuttle belly, they've done the math, and they have calculated that the risk is minimal to non-existant. Meanwhile the risk of an EVA is greater.
But apparently you've made more a accurate risk-assessment based on eyeballing some photos?
Does anyone know if intrade allows short selling? Yes, half the people are "short selling" on each market.
But as I said, good luck predicting better than the market. If it was easy, smart people with money would be all over it until the price stabilized at a level where it wasn't easy anymore.
Well its up to you to convince the business they want to be listed and it is worth 8 bucks. Why wouldn't they? (unless you gave them a terrible review...but its up to you to pick businesses that are good)
All that is taken into account in their market for "winning individual".
True, Hillary has less than 50% odds at this point (slightly less than 40), but she is still ahead of anyone else by a long shot. There are just a lot of people running at this point, so no one has greater than 50%.
Still, the point I was making is that saying that she has a snowball's chance in hell is a whole lot different from approximately 40% chance.
It is totally expected that as results are coming in, it is going to fluctuate wildly. The point is that no human, unless they magically had information that the market did not, could have reliably "beat" it in a situation like that. It fluctuated due to erroneous reports of a win in florida, I believe. If you happened to know that the reports were erroneous, you could have made a killing. But no one knew that.
Markets aren't magic, but they can typically beat even the very smartest person, unless that person has inside information not available to others. If there is a person who can reliably beat them, well, he's presumably really really rich.
I don't think you understand futures markets. The 39.8% she currently has (at intrade.com) is not the percentage of voters, but the percent chance she has of winning, as predicted by people with money on the line. Very, very different thing. All the "absolutely" vs. "not on your life" stuff is already taken into account.
If you really think you can outpredict it, I suggest you buy some shares. But be aware that -- just like the stock market -- if it was easy to outpredict it based on such a simplistic analysis, the institutional investors would be all over it with big money, which would of course correct whatever error there is.
What's going to happen when we beat the terrorists in Iraq? What are the cowering, wimpering, cut and run democrats going to do then? Probably strap on their jet packs, and fly home to spend time with their families and pet dragons.
I wouldn't personally worry about Hillary. I don't think that she has a snowballs chance. Given that futures markets give her nearly double the chance of the second place candidate (39% vs. 20% for Guiliani), why not bet against her and make some money? Since you obviously know more than those who actually are putting real money, rather than just words, on the line.
True, and AOL's proprietary online network is the reason everyone goes online today, because AOL has 95% share, and only geeks can use the scary internet.
Oh wait, sorry, just got back from an alternate universe, where that's how it worked out there.
But if I spend that same money on making flying safer, I will certainly save more lives for my money. Obviously, you just don't get statistics. They are difficult for a lot of people, so I understand.
Not sure how your lottery analogy applies. The nasa article sums up your logical fallacy: "The perception of risk from impacts is smaller than for being killed in a plane crash because planes crash at a steady rate with (relatively) few deaths per event, whereas lethal impacts are rare but kill a lot of people. At the very least, the potential consequences of impact are large enough to cause concern."
Tell me about all the asteroids that have killed all those people in the thousands of years of human history. And yet, those who know more about this than you or I, still calculate that it is about equally likely that you will die from an asteroid strike than in a plane crash. Go figure.
If there is a one in 60 million chance of an asteroid wiping out at least 90% of the world's population this year, that's the statistical equivalent of it killing at least 90 people a year.
As it is relevant to this discussion, marginal cost is more important than average total cost. That is, if microsoft has a choice of not selling a copy in china, or selling one, the important thing is whether the price is over the marginal cost.
Keep in mind this discussion is about sales in china, not overall. In that sense, yes, it could indeed make sense for microsoft to sell at a price that is above marginal cost but less than average total cost.
Slashdot Mirror
So what is your notion of normal? I'd put someone like you in the 99.5 percentile, and if the word "normal" has any useful meaning whatsoever, it wouldn't include the 99.5 percentile.
Not to nitpick your logic or anything, but, uh...."if you buy a newspaper"....might want to read that phrase again. Hint: third word. Slight difference.
In fact they don't really have to bundle much at all, just include a minimal app that mostly runs off the net.
I'm usually not a fan of bundling, but I'd forgive them for this since it's about time someone hits microsoft with their own tricks.
What if it was worded "none of the responsible parties were there to accept the consequences" or "those that caused the problem escaped without repercussions, while others had to pay for the costs of their negligence"?
I'm sure they have consistant ways of calculating costs vs benefits vs safety, that are better than your simplistic, knee-jerk intuition.
If we viewed it as all black and white, and safety trumped everything, we'd never go into space, right? But even if only calculating safety, it may well be that in this case, the best decision is to not fix it. Since this has happened many times before on the shuttle belly, they've done the math, and they have calculated that the risk is minimal to non-existant. Meanwhile the risk of an EVA is greater.
But apparently you've made more a accurate risk-assessment based on eyeballing some photos?
People who have an agenda....politicians and companies typically.
The point is, every time someone is busted and embarrassed doing something like this, people figure it out....cover your tracks.
about dropping down to the local cafe and doing it on their wireless?
But as I said, good luck predicting better than the market. If it was easy, smart people with money would be all over it until the price stabilized at a level where it wasn't easy anymore.
Well its up to you to convince the business they want to be listed and it is worth 8 bucks. Why wouldn't they? (unless you gave them a terrible review...but its up to you to pick businesses that are good)
Well they are paying them more than Slashdot is paying you.
All that is taken into account in their market for "winning individual".
True, Hillary has less than 50% odds at this point (slightly less than 40), but she is still ahead of anyone else by a long shot. There are just a lot of people running at this point, so no one has greater than 50%.
Still, the point I was making is that saying that she has a snowball's chance in hell is a whole lot different from approximately 40% chance.
It is totally expected that as results are coming in, it is going to fluctuate wildly. The point is that no human, unless they magically had information that the market did not, could have reliably "beat" it in a situation like that. It fluctuated due to erroneous reports of a win in florida, I believe. If you happened to know that the reports were erroneous, you could have made a killing. But no one knew that.
Markets aren't magic, but they can typically beat even the very smartest person, unless that person has inside information not available to others. If there is a person who can reliably beat them, well, he's presumably really really rich.
I don't think you understand futures markets. The 39.8% she currently has (at intrade.com) is not the percentage of voters, but the percent chance she has of winning, as predicted by people with money on the line. Very, very different thing. All the "absolutely" vs. "not on your life" stuff is already taken into account.
If you really think you can outpredict it, I suggest you buy some shares. But be aware that -- just like the stock market -- if it was easy to outpredict it based on such a simplistic analysis, the institutional investors would be all over it with big money, which would of course correct whatever error there is.
True, and AOL's proprietary online network is the reason everyone goes online today, because AOL has 95% share, and only geeks can use the scary internet.
Oh wait, sorry, just got back from an alternate universe, where that's how it worked out there.
Here's some:
7 0308-asteroids_2.html 0 -will-we-catch-a-falling-star-there-are-many-aster oids-outthere-in-space-and-the-chances-are-that-so oner-or-later-one-will-head-forearth-but-no-one-kn ows-what-to-do-if-we-find-ourselves-on-collision-c ourse.html 0 901.html 0 2
http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/news_detail.cfm?ID=44
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/0
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13117854.70
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/fl_side2_02
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/s2.cfm?id=7989920
http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/415367.html
http://www.sciencebits.com/PlanesAndMeteorites
Not sure how your lottery analogy applies. The nasa article sums up your logical fallacy: "The perception of risk from impacts is smaller than for being killed in a plane crash because planes crash at a steady rate with (relatively) few deaths per event, whereas lethal impacts are rare but kill a lot of people. At the very least, the potential consequences of impact are large enough to cause concern."
If there is a one in 60 million chance of an asteroid wiping out at least 90% of the world's population this year, that's the statistical equivalent of it killing at least 90 people a year.
All the scientists? There are lots of them you know. And I doubt they are being paid enough for each and every one of them to keep their mouths shut.
Why would you expect that to be any different in an open system?
...as in non-proprietary, does not mean that there are no access controls whatsoever.
Of course any reasonable open implementation would allow you to make certain things visible only to certain people.
As it is relevant to this discussion, marginal cost is more important than average total cost. That is, if microsoft has a choice of not selling a copy in china, or selling one, the important thing is whether the price is over the marginal cost.
Keep in mind this discussion is about sales in china, not overall. In that sense, yes, it could indeed make sense for microsoft to sell at a price that is above marginal cost but less than average total cost.