Stephen Levitt, in his recent book "Freakonomics" (www.freakonomics.com) makes a convincing argument that the drop in crime rates in the US over the last decade has very little to do with all the various reasons often bandied about. Rather, he posits that the Roe vs. Wade decision (giving women a limited right to abortion in the US) caused a whole generation of the people that were most likely to become criminals not to be born. This is obviously a pretty politically/emotionally charged conclusion, but Levitt does a good job cutting through the emotion and looking directly at the statistics. The rest of the book is interesting as well . . . I recommend it.
I read the hitchiker books about 15 years ago and found them at the time terribly funny. So Im the sort of person who knows the plot in the books, but definitely could care less if the movie was word-for-word faithful to the books.
Well . . . the movie was bad. Just not funny at all. People were complaining as we walked out . . . and this was the opening night crowd. The werent complaining because the movie wasnt faithful to the book . . . but because the movie was--to quote "stupid."
Anyway, I really wanted to like the movie because I remember really enjoying the books. It was not to be. I think the directors and actors did a pretty good job (could they have done better? Yes), but in the end the material they had to work with was just not the greatest for use as making into a movie.
If they changed the material too much so that it did work in a movie, the faithful would have been really upset. So the makers of the movie were stuck in an unenviable position.
There are some US state laws that provide this sort of privilege, but no federal law. There is a big dispute in the US over this right now having to do with some journalists who outed a CIA agent. The government is trying to make the journalists name the sources, and so far it looks like the government is winning.
I have one of the TimeWarner HD-DVRs he writes about. The box is really flaky. Go over to AVS Forum and you will see a lot of complaints on it. Im almost sorry I gave up my rock solid Tivo for it, but am hopeful that through firmware updates that the constant stuttering of sound and video and lockups will stop.
Previous to getting this particular box I had a standard HD set top box, which never had a hiccup. And for what it is worth, watching a sporting event on a big screen in HD is spectacular.
I guess the point is that his conclusion that HD is not ready for primetime is really not a valid one, rather, I can attest that this particular HD-DVR is clearly not ready for prime time.
Whether Google goes public or not is less a question of whether it makes sense for them to stay private--clearly staying private has many many benefits strategically (treat employees better, don't have to disclose financials, not beholden to quarterly results), and such a private company could produce enough cash for the founders to live very comfortable lives. The real driver of a push to go public will be the venture capitalists that invested in Google. They have to get their investments liquid so that they can return money to their limited partners. These VCs likely have the voting power and/or legal clauses in their investment documents to force Google to go public, whether the management wants to or not.
The article, like most stories in the media (gotta have an angle and stick to it to make a story interesting) is one sided. There are a number of good things going demographically/marketwise on for Gen Xers. For example, the market crash, has allowed younger folks to start buying stocks at lower valuations. For a buy and hold investor with a 30 year time horizon, the crash is the best thing that could have happened. They can continue to buy stock as the market slowly builds value over the long term. On the other hand the market crash was horrible for a baby boomer who was planning to use that money in five years to retire. Second, by following the boomers demographically, we will get the benefit of the large supply of housing that was built to house all of those boomers and their families. As that housing comes on the market as empty-nesters sell out to retire, there will be a lot of housing supply and less relative demand (as there are less Xers than boomers). As one poster noted, all the boomers leaving their VP jobs will also open up areas for promotions for Xers. Finally all those boomers in retirement are going to be spending big bucks to buy products and services from Xers.
These are just a few examples of how things aren't as bad as they seem for Xers (I was born in 72).
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Stephen Levitt, in his recent book "Freakonomics" (www.freakonomics.com) makes a convincing argument that the drop in crime rates in the US over the last decade has very little to do with all the various reasons often bandied about. Rather, he posits that the Roe vs. Wade decision (giving women a limited right to abortion in the US) caused a whole generation of the people that were most likely to become criminals not to be born. This is obviously a pretty politically/emotionally charged conclusion, but Levitt does a good job cutting through the emotion and looking directly at the statistics. The rest of the book is interesting as well . . . I recommend it.
I read the hitchiker books about 15 years ago and found them at the time terribly funny. So Im the sort of person who knows the plot in the books, but definitely could care less if the movie was word-for-word faithful to the books.
Well . . . the movie was bad. Just not funny at all. People were complaining as we walked out . . . and this was the opening night crowd. The werent complaining because the movie wasnt faithful to the book . . . but because the movie was--to quote "stupid."
Anyway, I really wanted to like the movie because I remember really enjoying the books. It was not to be. I think the directors and actors did a pretty good job (could they have done better? Yes), but in the end the material they had to work with was just not the greatest for use as making into a movie.
If they changed the material too much so that it did work in a movie, the faithful would have been really upset. So the makers of the movie were stuck in an unenviable position.
Cringley wrote about parent's concept in his current column:
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http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050303
There are some US state laws that provide this sort of privilege, but no federal law. There is a big dispute in the US over this right now having to do with some journalists who outed a CIA agent. The government is trying to make the journalists name the sources, and so far it looks like the government is winning.
i cle_6251.shtml
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/art
A large multinational law firm has "outsourced" many of its backoffice functions to West Virginia.
0 2004_biz01.asp
http://www.news-register.net/business/story/10202
I have one of the TimeWarner HD-DVRs he writes about. The box is really flaky. Go over to AVS Forum and you will see a lot of complaints on it. Im almost sorry I gave up my rock solid Tivo for it, but am hopeful that through firmware updates that the constant stuttering of sound and video and lockups will stop.
Previous to getting this particular box I had a standard HD set top box, which never had a hiccup. And for what it is worth, watching a sporting event on a big screen in HD is spectacular.
I guess the point is that his conclusion that HD is not ready for primetime is really not a valid one, rather, I can attest that this particular HD-DVR is clearly not ready for prime time.
Whether Google goes public or not is less a question of whether it makes sense for them to stay private--clearly staying private has many many benefits strategically (treat employees better, don't have to disclose financials, not beholden to quarterly results), and such a private company could produce enough cash for the founders to live very comfortable lives. The real driver of a push to go public will be the venture capitalists that invested in Google. They have to get their investments liquid so that they can return money to their limited partners. These VCs likely have the voting power and/or legal clauses in their investment documents to force Google to go public, whether the management wants to or not.
The article, like most stories in the media (gotta have an angle and stick to it to make a story interesting) is one sided. There are a number of good things going demographically/marketwise on for Gen Xers. For example, the market crash, has allowed younger folks to start buying stocks at lower valuations. For a buy and hold investor with a 30 year time horizon, the crash is the best thing that could have happened. They can continue to buy stock as the market slowly builds value over the long term. On the other hand the market crash was horrible for a baby boomer who was planning to use that money in five years to retire. Second, by following the boomers demographically, we will get the benefit of the large supply of housing that was built to house all of those boomers and their families. As that housing comes on the market as empty-nesters sell out to retire, there will be a lot of housing supply and less relative demand (as there are less Xers than boomers). As one poster noted, all the boomers leaving their VP jobs will also open up areas for promotions for Xers. Finally all those boomers in retirement are going to be spending big bucks to buy products and services from Xers.
These are just a few examples of how things aren't as bad as they seem for Xers (I was born in 72).