I just don't see how average Americans tolerate companies who fire 5000 of their own (American) employees to raise enough cash to buy another company to increase their stock margins. Isn't this the sort of business policy that got us into this recession?
No not at all. What got us in to this mess was the government forcing banks to lend money to people who couldn't afford housing. Go to youtube and search on Freddy and Fanny and you will see who was behind this. They did this by creating "GSEs". Government Sponsored Entities and those entities basically forced the other "normal" banks to follow suite. This is EXACTLY what the current president wants to do with a lot of other companies. He wants this with Healthcare, Student Loans and to a degree the Auto Industry. Unfortunately when one side controls most of the media, it makes it difficult to get real information, and to a lot of people he is Christ reborn. It shocks me every day that somehow people still believe that Capitalism is to blame for this meltdown and that moving more towards Socialism is the answer.
Now back on topic.
It sucks when one competitor is going out of business. Specifically it sucks for the customers. In this case Sun has made some bad decisions in the past but has some great value. IBM isn't dumb to realize that now is the time to kill off a competitor, while getting more technology solutions. Does IBM want to kill off any of the Sun product lines? Probably not because they LOVE complexity, and the more complex a solution is the better chance you will need them for support.
Whatever anyone else says here about IBM loving open source is kind of a joke. I work closely with a few exIBMers and they have many stories about their jobs being threatened anytime they suggested using ANYTHING that wasn't IBM. They would do it ONLY if the customer demanded it. Anyone want to prove me wrong on this one? Care to give an example when IBM consulting recommended Tomcat or MySQL? How about SuSE or RedHat on non IBM hardware? If so then you have seen something I haven't in the last 20+ years of dealing with them.
I personally hate the buyout as a Sun customer, but it could have been far worse. Imagine if Microsoft bought them and just killed everything. Why not? What about Oracle, or HP? Both would be bad... What about Apple? In my opinion that would be almost as bad as Microsoft. Apple would kill off all Java stuff as soon as possible, and start the vendor lock down ASAP. So given all the major companies out there IBM isn't anywhere near the worst.
I guess that makes sense. God wanted Bush to run and then there is Obama... well it definitely wasn't God, nor the Devil but probably the ghost of Carl Marx.:-)
You ask Obama "So when do you believe life begins?". Simple question, but his actions appear to dictate that he believes life begins a few days after your are out of your mothers womb. It is an odd belief from a Musl... er I mean Christian.
Now back on topic. This matter appears an easy one that both sides can come to agreement on. Teachers can (and my opinion should) teach the theory of evolution and also mention that a vast majority of people believe that life started from God. They don't have to go in to any particular religious theory but just mention it. Rational people on both sides would be content and this issue would go away.
This is similar to how there are theories on what happened to dinosaurs. One of the theories is a plague hit the earth, and another is a larger meteorite hit the earth, yet another is that insects ran amok and killed them.
You seem to believe that the PS3 is difficult to develop for so nobody will ever do it. My point is that every developer will be forced to develop for these type of systems from now on and in the future. When threading came out it sucked to do but you have to do it to get things done. Also when 3d came out it sucked, but to do it you had to learn. This is nothing new, and Sony is planing on supporting the console for 10 years. More on that in the next part though...
You seem to mistake supporting a console for 10 years and having multiple consoles in the market place at the same time. Every single Sony console has had a lifespan of 10 years so far. The PS3 will be no different. Yes Sony will be talking about a PS4, and they would be stupid not to, but the PS3 will still be selling in 2011. Given the recent move to a socialist government, we may not see another console from any mfg for a long long time. It isn't unreasonable to expect Sony to keep the PS3 alive much like the PS2 now and the PS1 before it.
Nintendo... Yes they kept it simple and they flat out get games, however did anyone forget the great success of the Gamecube? Nintendo did a great job with the Wii, and I am a huge fan but the reality is that the Wii is a Gamecube 1.5 with a motion controller on it. It does well but every year that goes by HD TV's become more and more the norm and you start to hear more "It looks good for a Wii game" which really means "It looks like ass compared to Killzone2". That and Nintendo appears to hate 3rd party developers by not telling them when they are going to release massive titles. You don't see a ton of million seller 3rd party titles for the Wii that are not rated E or E10 and more specifically don't have "Wii" in the title. For a console that has 40+ million that is a bit scary but the norm for Nintendo and at this point who can argue with them?
You seem to think I make excuses for Sony being in third place. I tried to state the facts, and offered my opinion on what I would have done. The real test will be to see how the next few years go and if Sony gets the pricing under control. There are two factors that are making sales of the PS3 the same as the 360 now. The first is cost and the second is family games. To be honest without getting cost down it doesn't matter how many family games they have, so cost is the first and highest priority. Again a $300 PS3 would do wonders this year.
So Sony currently has over 20 million consoles out. Microsoft has 28 million out. Nintendo has over 45 million out.
Now the other numbers. Nintendo DS and soon DSI dominate most sales every month. Nintendo is killing with this device. I am not sure but I believe there are over 80 million DS's. Sony has the PS2 still selling well at around $100. There are around 100 million PS2s out there. Sony has the PSP selling very well at over 50 million of them out there.
There are rumors of a PS4 with some Intel chip in it and probably an Nvidia graphics engine, but they are rumors. My prediction is that much like Nintendo the PS4 will basically be two PS3's duck taped together. Thus backward compatibility will be there and cost should be under control.
However, if there is truth in that EVERYONE hates the CELL and the current architecture of the PS3 then you will be proven correct if the PS4 is radically different. Time will tell.
1. The Xbox 360 was release a year before the PS3 and with that year head start it gained around 7 million users. If you trust Microsoft they sold 10 million the first year! So given that it was around 7 million units sold. The 360 and the PS3 have been selling around the same amount from launch. 2. The Wii is also hard to develop for yet it is selling at around a 2 to 3 times clip of the 360 and PS3. 3. The guy's point was that they could make a system that is easier to develop for at the cost of longevity. In short he is saying to get a 10 year lifespan Sony had to go with something like the Cell and it's 8 SPE's. It is harder to develop for than one core but the payoff over time is worth it. Developers (myself included) are being pushed now to a different style of development and the days of more GHZ every year or so are over. The days of more cores/SPE's are here to stay.
Now my opinion. Sony included a HD, BluRay and Blue Tooth in every console. This was expensive, and a high risk; specifically including BluRay. Will it pay off? Who knows, and given the depression that the U.S. is probably going to hit (given the latest budget bill), disposable income will be very tight. However, BluRay is now the defacto standard for HD movies because of the PS3. What media will the next Xbox use? What about the next Nintendo? Will it be download only? Try telling gamestop, Wallmart, and the other retailers that they won't be selling games at their stores any more... Let the nuclear war begin. Did anyone see what happened when Sony released Warhawk online and in the store?
Sony decided to go with Nvidia and include 256MB of video memory and 256MB of System RAM. In my belief this was the mistake. Then again I realize that they couldn't make a $1,000 console. If it was me I probably would have scrapped BluRay and added more RAM. I would have then kept the cost around the same, released the same time as the 360. I would have also made a version of Linux the default OS for the system.
Now all three consoles have some great games (my opinion again). Nintendo owns the kids and casuals, but their 3rd party support can't seem to crack large sales numbers. The 360 has a good user base even with the greater than 30% hardware failure rate of the system. The $200 price tag is helping the system a ton. Yet that is the problem for the future in that the $200 system is lacking a HD and thus developers can't rely on it. Sony also has a nice install base but has one HUGE problem. Price. At $400-$500 it is priced out of the market of normal people. "If" Sony gets the price down to $300 soon then they should be fine. By fine I mean they will compete nicely with the other consoles this year.
Lastly, It is apparent to me that Microsoft is a software company (30% failure rate!), Sony is a hardware company (development kits are not that good), but the hardware is the best, and Nintendo is a game company.
This could be a long post, but to sum it up as best I can...
When Sony started to think about the PS3 they talked to their TOP developers and asked them what it needed to be able to do. We can assume those companies were their internal development staff, Konomi, Square, whomever makes GT. Those companies wanted a TON more performance and as such Sony couldn't just deliver a beefed up PS2. Sony mentioned in one of their articles that these developers demanded close to 100X the performance of the PS2. Sony did their best (obviously not 100x). Also remember that Sony was sitting on the absolute dominate console at the time and they were use to forcing developers to learn new stuff. The PS2 was and is not fun to program for BUT given that there are a ton of them out there companies adapted. They were arrogant in thinking that whatever they made, the developers would be forced to learn. Another point is that the economy wasn't too bad when Sony was designing the PS3. They didn't foresee the economic meltdown that is today.
Now the whole BlueRay thing. In short Sony wanted to cement BlueRay as the defacto standard and they used the PS3 to do that. This probably cost them this console round, but they sold enough to kill off HD-DVD. This makes it difficult to impossible for the next Xbox or Wii to use anything but BlueRay. Yes Yes Yes downloadable content... It is YEARS off from the mainstream for games and nobody wants to start a nuclear war with Walmart and Gamestop. Add to this the bandwidth caps that the Internet providers are starting to play with and we are decades away from a console with no disk media. However, Sony could have ditched BlueRay and added another 256MB of system RAM and another 256MB of video RAM, all while lowering the price by around $100. In my opinion they could have launched that system a year earlier and have been way farther ahead BUT they wanted BlueRay to win and it did. Was it worth it? Time will tell, but there is currently around 20 million PS3's out the door so almost all 3rd party companies will at least have to support it this generation.
Sony has the largest 1st and 2nd party support for their console and they have quite a few great games (more this year), so their largest problem now is price. They have to focus like a laser beam to get the price down as fast as possible. My guess (and others) is that a $50 price drop will happen this summer. If Sony can get things under control they may lower it $100 by next Christmas season but I wouldn't hold your breath. Having 20 million consoles sold gives them a lot of room now to just focus on being profitable. Microsoft just fired a bunch of people on their XBOX team (and Zune) and Sony just lost BILLIONS this year. I don't expect anything huge from either one of them this year.
Having said all this I do agree with your post above but it will be for the PS4. I believe the PS4 will be nothing but a slightly better PS3. The difference is that it will do great 1080P graphics on most games AND it will have a faster BlueRay drive. I could see some weird controller, just because the Wii was so successful with Wii sports. It sure won't cost $600 or $500. If we are lucky it will ditch their weird OS and go with Linux. Knowing Sony it will be their own brand, but Ubuntu would rock on it.
My guess is that the PS4 will be released about the time the PS3 can be sold for around $150. I would say that would put it out around 2012. "If" the competitors release early they may follow suite, but I doubt that will happen.
I would guess it would have the following: New Cell chip made by Intel. I can't see Sony switching to X86-64, but if they did then that would be great for running Linux on it. I still see a better/faster cell chip. Probably a chip with double the amount of SPE's.
New graphics chip made by... Intel. This will probably suck, but hopefully Intel can make a good chip/card by then. If you are a Sony fan then you can pray that this card actually has enough RAM to do cool stuff. Sony is notorious for killing graphics RAM and I hope they have learned from their mistake. Hopefully this system will have more system RAM as well. My guess is that it will have 512MB of main memory and the same for graphics memory. If we are lucky we could see 1GB of main memory, but I doubt it.
It will have a BlueRay player, probably one that runs at 4 or 8X. It will be the 200GB Discs (Yes the current PS3 can do it, but it will be fully supported in this version). The cost will be dirt cheap by then and the loading times of a BR drive at 4X or 8X would be very nice.
New controls. Sony will release a controller that can be broken apart in to two, with motion sensing AND a microphone built in. They will still be Bluetooth connected.
So in short it will be a supped up PS3 that can do very good 1080P graphics. It will be 100% backward compatible because the architecture didn't change much, and the cost should be in line. It will start with a price tag first and technology second. You won't see another $600 console for a LONG LONG time from Sony. My guess is that they will flat line the cost of the box to around $300-$400 to make, and thus it won't be a HUGE increase over what the PS3 does now.
Now "if" they go X86-64 instead of Cell, then I could see this thing shipping with a Linux OS by default.
It is possible that Earth is the only planet with life on it, or more specifically intelligent life. It is a rather scary thought but it is a possibility.
To rule out life (or lack of life) on other planets makes one rather bigoted.
It was wrong for the government to decide to give any company OUR money. It was equally wrong for the government to setup a "Government Sponsored Entity" that guaranteed loans to low income people (read minorities). So Freddy and Fanny went along and basically forced other banks to do the same thing because they would be out of business if they didn't. The housing market collapsed and the rest is history. Fanny and Freddy are so large now that they have a scary control over a lot of Democrats and a few Republicans.
Two main points here. 1. We should NEVER have any government sponsored entities. We didn't and don't need oversight on these companies... We need them shut down. Bush and the majority of Democrats who voted for this bailout were idiots (majority of Republicans voted against it).
2. If the government has less of "our" money they can do less stupid stuff like this. Imagine if you will a balanced budget amendment and a true flat tax. Things would change.... not the type of change the new "porkulous" bill that is close to passing will cause. I do find it a bit odd that the Democrats are all mad at the Republicans for not voting for this bill. Last time I checked it didn't matter what the Republicans did, the Democrats control everything. Weird... If this socialist bill is so freaking good then what is the problem. Just take up the vote and get it signed.
Lastly, I personally wanted (and expect) GM and or Chrysler to file for bankruptcy soon. They need to, and it will take that to get the unions/upper management to actually hammer out a real deal. The ridiculous pension problem that all three American car companies are saddled with kills them. This will never be addressed if we keep giving them money. By most peoples simple math the pension problem of GM is costing them around $2,500 - $3,500 a car. If they could remove that problem and had the salary people take a serious pay cut along with the union being destroyed; the average GM car would be far more competitive against their competition. Please note that I never said that American cars are "junk" or bad in any way. I think the recent cars are great, but just overpriced for what they have to compete against.
The poster wasn't talking about TARP, he was talking about our misadventure in nation building known as the Iraq war.
Last time I checked high speed Internet didn't threaten to kill Israel and the U.S. Now when it goes down it does make me angry enough to do some bad things, but not bad enough to mustard gas 30,000 people in one day.
Not only did he not veto it, his administration (primarily the Treasury folks, headed by Goldman Sachs alumni Paulsen) basically went to Congress and said "The economy will die within weeks (if not days) if you don't give us this program."
Yep, the former president was an idiot for leaning toward a socialist idea, but a MAJORITY of Democrats voted for the bailout and a MAJORITY of Republicans voted against it.
Wrong. The underregulated American financial sector (and realty boom) started this world-scale shitstorm.
Just a clarification. It wasn't the under regulation that caused this "shitstorm" but the fact that the government got in to the home loan business to begin with. The Democrats wanted to guarantee loans to low income people that NEVER would have gotten a loan before and picked Fanny and Freddy to be Government Sponsored Entities". The GSE's forced other institutions to follow suite and thus the shitstorm started.
There should never have been a need to do any regulation because there should NEVER have been any GSE's to begin with. It will only get worse with the current President. It was his "friends" who fought hard to stop regulation, and they are the ones who LOVE GSE's.
We can only pray that a true conservatives run in 2 years.
Is there really a better choice? Yes. Scott is tied to Sun, and I like Sun as a company, but you won't find another company short of RedHat that is pushing free software as much as Sun. Sun doesn't really care much about open source so much. They want whatever it takes to kill or bring down Microsoft AND perhaps more importantly sell their hardware.
I am a HUGE fan of open source software and have switched most of a business to run on it. I am also a fan of Sun, but I have to admit that there are times when buying software or "proprietary" software is the right choice. As much as I hate dealing with the idiots that mandate "buy only Microsoft", I also don't like the idiots that say "only use open source".
Having said all this, it will be interesting to see what the new administration does on this.
WWII played a large part in it. Like it or not, it helped do a lot of very good things. Obviously the first was to remove a lunatic out of power who wanted to kill America. The second was that it helped to continue to transform America in to a manufacturing powerhouse. It also brought women in to the workforce.
Now the real question is this: Does forming more social programs and raising taxes help or hurt an economy?
If you like Obama, you lean toward socialism, and probably don't mind higher taxes and more social programs. If you want lower taxes, less government, and less social programs then you are a conservative and you probably hate Obama.
What exactly caused Fanny and Freddy to fail again? Oh yeah...
I know if it was me I wouldn't necessarily trust what I read on Slashdot.
At a minimum I would do the following: 1. Open and check many documents in my organization. If possible I would ask people in the business to help with this. 2. I would see if any documents had any macros or God forbid DDE, OLE or VB macros in them. If so I would see how hard it would be to convert them or look at what Novell offers to help with that. 3. I would do a small pilot group with both Microsoft and OO installed to test. 4. If all went well with the pilot group I would remove Microsoft Office from their workstations and test some more. 5. If all that went well I would expand the rollout to more of the company. I would probably save sales for last.
At some point I would have cheat sheets developed and possibly offer some training for the people. I would probably try and do this as early as possibly but expect to change the training depending on feedback from the pilot group.
Having said all this, you will probably find some things that don't work as well and others that will work better. This is the nature of the beast. My personal experience running OO is that it is very good, and we migrated years ago. My experience "may" be totally different than someone who uses Microsoft Office a ton. I will say that when I first tried it in our organization (old org), the employees HATED it. I was a bit surprised on the amount of hate for a Office product... The weird part was that we found out it was because we told them that they were loosing Microsoft Office. When we changed our wording from "removing Microsoft Office" to "upgrading to the latest version of Office" the general attitude changed considerably. Suddenly most of the people said they loved it. Weird, but my experience.
The "Fed" has no money, it is our tax money. So some idiot elected official wants to take your money and pay someone for their old car.
Is this really Capitalism?
To repeat again, someone is going to take your money and give it to someone else for a reason that most of you don't want. This is why taxes must be cut. If these idiots don't have our money then they can't do idiotic stuff with it. If they have the money, they have the power. Simple as that.
Now this shouldn't be surprising given that the Democrats have controlled two branches of the government for a while, and are about to control everything. That and Bush hasn't acted at all like a conservative has put us in this mess.
LOL... Well it isn't exactly Capitalism either. You don't have 5 different power companies competing for your business either.
Just imagine the innovation we would have if we had real competition... Then again perhaps coal and natural gas are so cheap at the moment that doing alternative energy doesn't make much sense.
With the new administration, there won't be any money in the military budget so what really makes the difference? That is until another 3,000+ Americans die because of another Muslim attack.
I have an idea why not make NASA another government sponsored entity and create another program like Fanny and Freddy to get poor income people in to space!
The really funny part is that the same thing could have been done with regards to Japan after WWII.
I wonder if history will repeat itself again and in 20 years Iraq will be making electronics and great friends of the U.S.A?
Then again some of them may wish for the old days of getting 30,000 people mustard gassed over a weekend. Who knows?
On topic. I say that Steve should just start eating some McDonalds.:-) A few triple quarter pounders a day and he will be back to fighting weight in no time. Yeah Yeah Yeah I know he is a vegan, but who really thinks McDonalds uses real meat anyway.
The government wanted to create a social program to give low income people houses. Clinton started it, Bush continued it and Obama strongly supports it.
That government sponsored entity (GSE) guaranteed loans that should never have been made and forced other companies to do the same to get loans. All was well when the economy was going well and the housing market was hot. When it wasn't those GSE's were screwed, and they now had so much power that they could collapse the economy if let to fail.
The real question is why did we ever allow a government sponsored entity to do this?
Who really backed these guys and who tried to stop them?
Ok, I believe that Nintendo is going in to the online thing kicking and screaming. They flat out own the kids market and now the casual market. Those people want no part of what Xbox Live is. Seeing that the Wii is selling so well, it will be a long time before Nintendo embraces the Internet.
Sony is playing both sides of the fence and has a confusing strategy. On one hand they want BlueRay to do well and on the other they have wireless internet and a hard drive in every PS3 made. They invest in Home (a virtual world) that is free and in my opinion offer the best online downloadable games (Many are over a GB in size). However, they basically made the system to push BlueRay and as such they won the format war over HD-DVD, and Warhawk taught them that the brick and mortar stores still carry a bunch of weight.
Microsoft... Well they bet against BlueRay and lost. Not all of their systems have hard drives, and it isn't a small amount that don't either. This puts the 360 in a weird spot, and they have to make BlueRay irrelevant, thus making the 360 and PS3 seem exactly the same. The problem is that to get a 1080P movie downloaded or a very large game isn't possible on every 360, and now Internet companies are putting in bandwidth caps, so again they are in a weird position. However, this won't stop Microsoft marketing. They will do everything in their power to promote a competitor to BlueRay and downloading is it for them. They will make sure that they don't mention 1080P EVER in their downloads, but just say they offer "HD". I can't say I blame them, as I would do the same. Nor could I blame Sony for saying they have it and their competitor doesn't.
So in short, Nintendo doesn't care about it and their sales are great. Sony somewhat cares about it, and their sales are poor. Microsoft cares a ton about it and they are bleeding money on their system just to sell 1/2 of the Wii. I guess the message is to get use to crappy party games and low budget games without Internet access.:-)
I would start off with Java if I wanted to learn an object oriented language and the tools and documentation are abundant. There are many good IDE's out there to "help" you with the syntax and it is cross platform, so if you like Linux, Apple, or Microsoft you are covered (and many others).
I would then learn Scala, that is a functional language. I can't speak a ton for it because it is so new but if I had to pick a functional language to learn Scala wold be it.
Next I would learn C. This one could take you a while, but by this point you should have a solid understanding the basics and thus you can focus on C specific things.
This is unfortunately not what I did. I started out doing machine code on a Z80, then some BASIC, then Pascal, then some assembly thrown in there and then some simple C, then Java. The jump to object oriented programming what tough for me, and I have seen guys go from object oriented programming to procedural far easier.
Hope this helps and I am not trying to start a coding war.
First: If that accusation was made of the Bush administration, it would have some basis.
Second: There has been a lot of complaining about it.
I don't care who made the accusation or who wants this it is still a horrible idea.
You ask how can we afford this and I ask you how can we not?
We can't afford it and it will do NOTHING to actually help children learn. It will also kill any competition in this space. Competition is what drives prices down and brings new and better ideas to market.
Obama's plan will include funds to make public buildings more energy efficient, repair roads and bridges and modernize schools.
Again, how is he going to pay for this? His idea is to make America more of a socialist country because he believes that by creating more government programs will create more jobs at this time. A Capitalist would let the market adjust and would NOT have things like government sponsored entities, (fanny and freddy) and would NOT create more social programs.
So, do we or do we not have a problem?
We do NOT have a problem that requires the Federal government to take the U.S.A. closer to socialism. However, we do have a problem with these types of solutions.
Think about it, and take it to a personal level. You loose your job and then at that time you decide to spend money to put in a new energy efficient heater and buy a new computer. Yes in the long run that will probably save you money but the return on investment will be 10+ years. The additional computer, in all honesty is probably not an investment at all, and your old one (even if it was shared) will get the job done. However, in Obamas case he wants to take this time to increase spending here.
Sorry but we can't afford it. He has mentioned many times before that his view of "high speed internet" is just a utility like service. In that his is yet another right that we should all have.
His views are misguided at best and boarder on insane at worst.
Then again there is that whole thing about leaving babies to die that somehow survived abortion....
I know which one I think is worse.
Now to be back on topic.
HOW THE HELL CAN WE AFFORD THIS? This isn't the time to have more social programs? Does anyone here think that forcing this upon our kids and having the government run broadband is a good idea? Lets see, what operating system do you think they will all run? Think Apple, Linux LOL! So much for selection. This smells bad of payoffs.
Last time I checked Obama has voted for a massive bailout of the banking system and now will "probably" vote to bailout the auto industry. So NOW he wants to start another social program? Do we really want to saddle ourselves with more debt? This looks like a solution in search of a problem. We do have massive problems with some of our public schools but throwing laptops at them isn't going to help them at all.
I hope and pray Obama isn't that stupid to think that this idea would work, however I get the feeling this is only the beginning of bad ideas to come.
Well seeing that by change he meant choosing the same old Democrats to his cabinet, and he continues to vote for needless bailouts, one can now assume that he meant CHANGING to Zune from the ipod. You also have to love the 2 Billion that will be taken from NASA:-)
I guess hope means that we will hope that this is a one term president.
Now I am sure he will butcher defense much like Clinton administration did, but "if" you want to make a real dent you would at LEAST flatline spending on entitlements. Something with a Democratic controlled house and senate will never happen. So the debt will probably go up as well. What will be interesting and sad will be after he cuts defense spending (and NASA spending also), to see how long before we have another attack on American soil. Given what has just happened in India, and an Obama presidency it is only a matter of time. I wouldn't want to live in a large city that is for sure.
NASA cuts are only the beginning. I personally hope and pray that I am wrong about him, and hope that he does such a great job that I and others are excited to vote for him in the future, but I have a feeling that the next 4 years will be "I told you so" post on Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
I just don't see how average Americans tolerate companies who fire 5000 of their own (American) employees to raise enough cash to buy another company to increase their stock margins. Isn't this the sort of business policy that got us into this recession?
No not at all. What got us in to this mess was the government forcing banks to lend money to people who couldn't afford housing. Go to youtube and search on Freddy and Fanny and you will see who was behind this. They did this by creating "GSEs". Government Sponsored Entities and those entities basically forced the other "normal" banks to follow suite. This is EXACTLY what the current president wants to do with a lot of other companies. He wants this with Healthcare, Student Loans and to a degree the Auto Industry. Unfortunately when one side controls most of the media, it makes it difficult to get real information, and to a lot of people he is Christ reborn. It shocks me every day that somehow people still believe that Capitalism is to blame for this meltdown and that moving more towards Socialism is the answer.
Now back on topic.
It sucks when one competitor is going out of business. Specifically it sucks for the customers. In this case Sun has made some bad decisions in the past but has some great value. IBM isn't dumb to realize that now is the time to kill off a competitor, while getting more technology solutions. Does IBM want to kill off any of the Sun product lines? Probably not because they LOVE complexity, and the more complex a solution is the better chance you will need them for support.
Whatever anyone else says here about IBM loving open source is kind of a joke. I work closely with a few exIBMers and they have many stories about their jobs being threatened anytime they suggested using ANYTHING that wasn't IBM. They would do it ONLY if the customer demanded it. Anyone want to prove me wrong on this one? Care to give an example when IBM consulting recommended Tomcat or MySQL? How about SuSE or RedHat on non IBM hardware? If so then you have seen something I haven't in the last 20+ years of dealing with them.
I personally hate the buyout as a Sun customer, but it could have been far worse. Imagine if Microsoft bought them and just killed everything. Why not?
What about Oracle, or HP? Both would be bad... What about Apple? In my opinion that would be almost as bad as Microsoft. Apple would kill off all Java stuff as soon as possible, and start the vendor lock down ASAP. So given all the major companies out there IBM isn't anywhere near the worst.
I guess that makes sense. God wanted Bush to run and then there is Obama... well it definitely wasn't God, nor the Devil but probably the ghost of Carl Marx. :-)
You ask Obama "So when do you believe life begins?". Simple question, but his actions appear to dictate that he believes life begins a few days after your are out of your mothers womb. It is an odd belief from a Musl... er I mean Christian.
Now back on topic. This matter appears an easy one that both sides can come to agreement on. Teachers can (and my opinion should) teach the theory of evolution and also mention that a vast majority of people believe that life started from God. They don't have to go in to any particular religious theory but just mention it. Rational people on both sides would be content and this issue would go away.
This is similar to how there are theories on what happened to dinosaurs. One of the theories is a plague hit the earth, and another is a larger meteorite hit the earth, yet another is that insects ran amok and killed them.
You seem to believe that the PS3 is difficult to develop for so nobody will ever do it. My point is that every developer will be forced to develop for these type of systems from now on and in the future. When threading came out it sucked to do but you have to do it to get things done. Also when 3d came out it sucked, but to do it you had to learn. This is nothing new, and Sony is planing on supporting the console for 10 years. More on that in the next part though...
You seem to mistake supporting a console for 10 years and having multiple consoles in the market place at the same time. Every single Sony console has had a lifespan of 10 years so far. The PS3 will be no different. Yes Sony will be talking about a PS4, and they would be stupid not to, but the PS3 will still be selling in 2011. Given the recent move to a socialist government, we may not see another console from any mfg for a long long time. It isn't unreasonable to expect Sony to keep the PS3 alive much like the PS2 now and the PS1 before it.
Nintendo... Yes they kept it simple and they flat out get games, however did anyone forget the great success of the Gamecube? Nintendo did a great job with the Wii, and I am a huge fan but the reality is that the Wii is a Gamecube 1.5 with a motion controller on it. It does well but every year that goes by HD TV's become more and more the norm and you start to hear more "It looks good for a Wii game" which really means "It looks like ass compared to Killzone2". That and Nintendo appears to hate 3rd party developers by not telling them when they are going to release massive titles. You don't see a ton of million seller 3rd party titles for the Wii that are not rated E or E10 and more specifically don't have "Wii" in the title. For a console that has 40+ million that is a bit scary but the norm for Nintendo and at this point who can argue with them?
You seem to think I make excuses for Sony being in third place. I tried to state the facts, and offered my opinion on what I would have done. The real test will be to see how the next few years go and if Sony gets the pricing under control. There are two factors that are making sales of the PS3 the same as the 360 now. The first is cost and the second is family games. To be honest without getting cost down it doesn't matter how many family games they have, so cost is the first and highest priority. Again a $300 PS3 would do wonders this year.
So Sony currently has over 20 million consoles out.
Microsoft has 28 million out.
Nintendo has over 45 million out.
Now the other numbers.
Nintendo DS and soon DSI dominate most sales every month. Nintendo is killing with this device. I am not sure but I believe there are over 80 million DS's.
Sony has the PS2 still selling well at around $100. There are around 100 million PS2s out there.
Sony has the PSP selling very well at over 50 million of them out there.
There are rumors of a PS4 with some Intel chip in it and probably an Nvidia graphics engine, but they are rumors. My prediction is that much like Nintendo the PS4 will basically be two PS3's duck taped together. Thus backward compatibility will be there and cost should be under control.
However, if there is truth in that EVERYONE hates the CELL and the current architecture of the PS3 then you will be proven correct if the PS4 is radically different. Time will tell.
1. The Xbox 360 was release a year before the PS3 and with that year head start it gained around 7 million users. If you trust Microsoft they sold 10 million the first year! So given that it was around 7 million units sold. The 360 and the PS3 have been selling around the same amount from launch.
2. The Wii is also hard to develop for yet it is selling at around a 2 to 3 times clip of the 360 and PS3.
3. The guy's point was that they could make a system that is easier to develop for at the cost of longevity. In short he is saying to get a 10 year lifespan Sony had to go with something like the Cell and it's 8 SPE's. It is harder to develop for than one core but the payoff over time is worth it. Developers (myself included) are being pushed now to a different style of development and the days of more GHZ every year or so are over. The days of more cores/SPE's are here to stay.
Now my opinion. Sony included a HD, BluRay and Blue Tooth in every console. This was expensive, and a high risk; specifically including BluRay. Will it pay off? Who knows, and given the depression that the U.S. is probably going to hit (given the latest budget bill), disposable income will be very tight. However, BluRay is now the defacto standard for HD movies because of the PS3. What media will the next Xbox use? What about the next Nintendo? Will it be download only? Try telling gamestop, Wallmart, and the other retailers that they won't be selling games at their stores any more... Let the nuclear war begin. Did anyone see what happened when Sony released Warhawk online and in the store?
Sony decided to go with Nvidia and include 256MB of video memory and 256MB of System RAM. In my belief this was the mistake. Then again I realize that they couldn't make a $1,000 console. If it was me I probably would have scrapped BluRay and added more RAM. I would have then kept the cost around the same, released the same time as the 360. I would have also made a version of Linux the default OS for the system.
Now all three consoles have some great games (my opinion again). Nintendo owns the kids and casuals, but their 3rd party support can't seem to crack large sales numbers. The 360 has a good user base even with the greater than 30% hardware failure rate of the system. The $200 price tag is helping the system a ton. Yet that is the problem for the future in that the $200 system is lacking a HD and thus developers can't rely on it. Sony also has a nice install base but has one HUGE problem. Price. At $400-$500 it is priced out of the market of normal people. "If" Sony gets the price down to $300 soon then they should be fine. By fine I mean they will compete nicely with the other consoles this year.
Lastly, It is apparent to me that Microsoft is a software company (30% failure rate!), Sony is a hardware company (development kits are not that good), but the hardware is the best, and Nintendo is a game company.
This could be a long post, but to sum it up as best I can...
When Sony started to think about the PS3 they talked to their TOP developers and asked them what it needed to be able to do. We can assume those companies were their internal development staff, Konomi, Square, whomever makes GT. Those companies wanted a TON more performance and as such Sony couldn't just deliver a beefed up PS2. Sony mentioned in one of their articles that these developers demanded close to 100X the performance of the PS2. Sony did their best (obviously not 100x). Also remember that Sony was sitting on the absolute dominate console at the time and they were use to forcing developers to learn new stuff. The PS2 was and is not fun to program for BUT given that there are a ton of them out there companies adapted. They were arrogant in thinking that whatever they made, the developers would be forced to learn. Another point is that the economy wasn't too bad when Sony was designing the PS3. They didn't foresee the economic meltdown that is today.
Now the whole BlueRay thing. In short Sony wanted to cement BlueRay as the defacto standard and they used the PS3 to do that. This probably cost them this console round, but they sold enough to kill off HD-DVD. This makes it difficult to impossible for the next Xbox or Wii to use anything but BlueRay. Yes Yes Yes downloadable content... It is YEARS off from the mainstream for games and nobody wants to start a nuclear war with Walmart and Gamestop. Add to this the bandwidth caps that the Internet providers are starting to play with and we are decades away from a console with no disk media. However, Sony could have ditched BlueRay and added another 256MB of system RAM and another 256MB of video RAM, all while lowering the price by around $100. In my opinion they could have launched that system a year earlier and have been way farther ahead BUT they wanted BlueRay to win and it did. Was it worth it? Time will tell, but there is currently around 20 million PS3's out the door so almost all 3rd party companies will at least have to support it this generation.
Sony has the largest 1st and 2nd party support for their console and they have quite a few great games (more this year), so their largest problem now is price. They have to focus like a laser beam to get the price down as fast as possible. My guess (and others) is that a $50 price drop will happen this summer. If Sony can get things under control they may lower it $100 by next Christmas season but I wouldn't hold your breath. Having 20 million consoles sold gives them a lot of room now to just focus on being profitable. Microsoft just fired a bunch of people on their XBOX team (and Zune) and Sony just lost BILLIONS this year. I don't expect anything huge from either one of them this year.
Having said all this I do agree with your post above but it will be for the PS4. I believe the PS4 will be nothing but a slightly better PS3. The difference is that it will do great 1080P graphics on most games AND it will have a faster BlueRay drive. I could see some weird controller, just because the Wii was so successful with Wii sports. It sure won't cost $600 or $500. If we are lucky it will ditch their weird OS and go with Linux. Knowing Sony it will be their own brand, but Ubuntu would rock on it.
My guess is that the PS4 will be released about the time the PS3 can be sold for around $150. I would say that would put it out around 2012. "If" the competitors release early they may follow suite, but I doubt that will happen.
I would guess it would have the following:
New Cell chip made by Intel. I can't see Sony switching to X86-64, but if they did then that would be great for running Linux on it. I still see a better/faster cell chip. Probably a chip with double the amount of SPE's.
New graphics chip made by... Intel. This will probably suck, but hopefully Intel can make a good chip/card by then. If you are a Sony fan then you can pray that this card actually has enough RAM to do cool stuff. Sony is notorious for killing graphics RAM and I hope they have learned from their mistake. Hopefully this system will have more system RAM as well. My guess is that it will have 512MB of main memory and the same for graphics memory. If we are lucky we could see 1GB of main memory, but I doubt it.
It will have a BlueRay player, probably one that runs at 4 or 8X. It will be the 200GB Discs (Yes the current PS3 can do it, but it will be fully supported in this version). The cost will be dirt cheap by then and the loading times of a BR drive at 4X or 8X would be very nice.
New controls. Sony will release a controller that can be broken apart in to two, with motion sensing AND a microphone built in. They will still be Bluetooth connected.
So in short it will be a supped up PS3 that can do very good 1080P graphics. It will be 100% backward compatible because the architecture didn't change much, and the cost should be in line. It will start with a price tag first and technology second. You won't see another $600 console for a LONG LONG time from Sony. My guess is that they will flat line the cost of the box to around $300-$400 to make, and thus it won't be a HUGE increase over what the PS3 does now.
Now "if" they go X86-64 instead of Cell, then I could see this thing shipping with a Linux OS by default.
It is possible that Earth is the only planet with life on it, or more specifically intelligent life. It is a rather scary thought but it is a possibility.
To rule out life (or lack of life) on other planets makes one rather bigoted.
It was wrong for the government to decide to give any company OUR money. It was equally wrong for the government to setup a "Government Sponsored Entity" that guaranteed loans to low income people (read minorities). So Freddy and Fanny went along and basically forced other banks to do the same thing because they would be out of business if they didn't. The housing market collapsed and the rest is history. Fanny and Freddy are so large now that they have a scary control over a lot of Democrats and a few Republicans.
Two main points here.
1. We should NEVER have any government sponsored entities. We didn't and don't need oversight on these companies... We need them shut down. Bush and the majority of Democrats who voted for this bailout were idiots (majority of Republicans voted against it).
2. If the government has less of "our" money they can do less stupid stuff like this. Imagine if you will a balanced budget amendment and a true flat tax. Things would change.... not the type of change the new "porkulous" bill that is close to passing will cause. I do find it a bit odd that the Democrats are all mad at the Republicans for not voting for this bill. Last time I checked it didn't matter what the Republicans did, the Democrats control everything. Weird... If this socialist bill is so freaking good then what is the problem. Just take up the vote and get it signed.
Lastly, I personally wanted (and expect) GM and or Chrysler to file for bankruptcy soon. They need to, and it will take that to get the unions/upper management to actually hammer out a real deal. The ridiculous pension problem that all three American car companies are saddled with kills them. This will never be addressed if we keep giving them money. By most peoples simple math the pension problem of GM is costing them around $2,500 - $3,500 a car. If they could remove that problem and had the salary people take a serious pay cut along with the union being destroyed; the average GM car would be far more competitive against their competition. Please note that I never said that American cars are "junk" or bad in any way. I think the recent cars are great, but just overpriced for what they have to compete against.
The poster wasn't talking about TARP, he was talking about our misadventure in nation building known as the Iraq war.
Last time I checked high speed Internet didn't threaten to kill Israel and the U.S. Now when it goes down it does make me angry enough to do some bad things, but not bad enough to mustard gas 30,000 people in one day.
Not only did he not veto it, his administration (primarily the Treasury folks, headed by Goldman Sachs alumni Paulsen) basically went to Congress and said "The economy will die within weeks (if not days) if you don't give us this program."
Yep, the former president was an idiot for leaning toward a socialist idea, but a MAJORITY of Democrats voted for the bailout and a MAJORITY of Republicans voted against it.
Wrong. The underregulated American financial sector (and realty boom) started this world-scale shitstorm.
Just a clarification. It wasn't the under regulation that caused this "shitstorm" but the fact that the government got in to the home loan business to begin with. The Democrats wanted to guarantee loans to low income people that NEVER would have gotten a loan before and picked Fanny and Freddy to be Government Sponsored Entities". The GSE's forced other institutions to follow suite and thus the shitstorm started.
There should never have been a need to do any regulation because there should NEVER have been any GSE's to begin with. It will only get worse with the current President. It was his "friends" who fought hard to stop regulation, and they are the ones who LOVE GSE's.
We can only pray that a true conservatives run in 2 years.
Is there really a better choice? Yes. Scott is tied to Sun, and I like Sun as a company, but you won't find another company short of RedHat that is pushing free software as much as Sun. Sun doesn't really care much about open source so much. They want whatever it takes to kill or bring down Microsoft AND perhaps more importantly sell their hardware.
I am a HUGE fan of open source software and have switched most of a business to run on it. I am also a fan of Sun, but I have to admit that there are times when buying software or "proprietary" software is the right choice. As much as I hate dealing with the idiots that mandate "buy only Microsoft", I also don't like the idiots that say "only use open source".
Having said all this, it will be interesting to see what the new administration does on this.
WWII played a large part in it. Like it or not, it helped do a lot of very good things. Obviously the first was to remove a lunatic out of power who wanted to kill America. The second was that it helped to continue to transform America in to a manufacturing powerhouse. It also brought women in to the workforce.
Now the real question is this:
Does forming more social programs and raising taxes help or hurt an economy?
If you like Obama, you lean toward socialism, and probably don't mind higher taxes and more social programs. If you want lower taxes, less government, and less social programs then you are a conservative and you probably hate Obama.
What exactly caused Fanny and Freddy to fail again?
Oh yeah...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
I know if it was me I wouldn't necessarily trust what I read on Slashdot.
At a minimum I would do the following:
1. Open and check many documents in my organization. If possible I would ask people in the business to help with this.
2. I would see if any documents had any macros or God forbid DDE, OLE or VB macros in them. If so I would see how hard it would be to convert them or look at what Novell offers to help with that.
3. I would do a small pilot group with both Microsoft and OO installed to test.
4. If all went well with the pilot group I would remove Microsoft Office from their workstations and test some more.
5. If all that went well I would expand the rollout to more of the company. I would probably save sales for last.
At some point I would have cheat sheets developed and possibly offer some training for the people. I would probably try and do this as early as possibly but expect to change the training depending on feedback from the pilot group.
Having said all this, you will probably find some things that don't work as well and others that will work better. This is the nature of the beast. My personal experience running OO is that it is very good, and we migrated years ago. My experience "may" be totally different than someone who uses Microsoft Office a ton. I will say that when I first tried it in our organization (old org), the employees HATED it. I was a bit surprised on the amount of hate for a Office product... The weird part was that we found out it was because we told them that they were loosing Microsoft Office. When we changed our wording from "removing Microsoft Office" to "upgrading to the latest version of Office" the general attitude changed considerably. Suddenly most of the people said they loved it. Weird, but my experience.
Seriously people... The "Fed" is YOU AND ME.
The "Fed" has no money, it is our tax money. So some idiot elected official wants to take your money and pay someone for their old car.
Is this really Capitalism?
To repeat again, someone is going to take your money and give it to someone else for a reason that most of you don't want. This is why taxes must be cut. If these idiots don't have our money then they can't do idiotic stuff with it. If they have the money, they have the power. Simple as that.
Now this shouldn't be surprising given that the Democrats have controlled two branches of the government for a while, and are about to control everything. That and Bush hasn't acted at all like a conservative has put us in this mess.
LOL... Well it isn't exactly Capitalism either. You don't have 5 different power companies competing for your business either.
Just imagine the innovation we would have if we had real competition... Then again perhaps coal and natural gas are so cheap at the moment that doing alternative energy doesn't make much sense.
With the new administration, there won't be any money in the military budget so what really makes the difference? That is until another 3,000+ Americans die because of another Muslim attack.
I have an idea why not make NASA another government sponsored entity and create another program like Fanny and Freddy to get poor income people in to space!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4A0RuXhnQA
We all know how efficient the government runs things...
The really funny part is that the same thing could have been done with regards to Japan after WWII.
I wonder if history will repeat itself again and in 20 years Iraq will be making electronics and great friends of the U.S.A?
Then again some of them may wish for the old days of getting 30,000 people mustard gassed over a weekend. Who knows?
On topic. I say that Steve should just start eating some McDonalds. :-) A few triple quarter pounders a day and he will be back to fighting weight in no time. Yeah Yeah Yeah I know he is a vegan, but who really thinks McDonalds uses real meat anyway.
To boil this down.
The government wanted to create a social program to give low income people houses. Clinton started it, Bush continued it and Obama strongly supports it.
That government sponsored entity (GSE) guaranteed loans that should never have been made and forced other companies to do the same to get loans. All was well when the economy was going well and the housing market was hot. When it wasn't those GSE's were screwed, and they now had so much power that they could collapse the economy if let to fail.
The real question is why did we ever allow a government sponsored entity to do this?
Who really backed these guys and who tried to stop them?
Go to youtube and search on Fanny and Freddy.
Ok, I believe that Nintendo is going in to the online thing kicking and screaming. They flat out own the kids market and now the casual market. Those people want no part of what Xbox Live is. Seeing that the Wii is selling so well, it will be a long time before Nintendo embraces the Internet.
Sony is playing both sides of the fence and has a confusing strategy. On one hand they want BlueRay to do well and on the other they have wireless internet and a hard drive in every PS3 made. They invest in Home (a virtual world) that is free and in my opinion offer the best online downloadable games (Many are over a GB in size). However, they basically made the system to push BlueRay and as such they won the format war over HD-DVD, and Warhawk taught them that the brick and mortar stores still carry a bunch of weight.
Microsoft... Well they bet against BlueRay and lost. Not all of their systems have hard drives, and it isn't a small amount that don't either. This puts the 360 in a weird spot, and they have to make BlueRay irrelevant, thus making the 360 and PS3 seem exactly the same. The problem is that to get a 1080P movie downloaded or a very large game isn't possible on every 360, and now Internet companies are putting in bandwidth caps, so again they are in a weird position. However, this won't stop Microsoft marketing. They will do everything in their power to promote a competitor to BlueRay and downloading is it for them. They will make sure that they don't mention 1080P EVER in their downloads, but just say they offer "HD". I can't say I blame them, as I would do the same. Nor could I blame Sony for saying they have it and their competitor doesn't.
So in short, Nintendo doesn't care about it and their sales are great. Sony somewhat cares about it, and their sales are poor. Microsoft cares a ton about it and they are bleeding money on their system just to sell 1/2 of the Wii. I guess the message is to get use to crappy party games and low budget games without Internet access. :-)
I would start off with Java if I wanted to learn an object oriented language and the tools and documentation are abundant. There are many good IDE's out there to "help" you with the syntax and it is cross platform, so if you like Linux, Apple, or Microsoft you are covered (and many others).
I would then learn Scala, that is a functional language. I can't speak a ton for it because it is so new but if I had to pick a functional language to learn Scala wold be it.
Next I would learn C. This one could take you a while, but by this point you should have a solid understanding the basics and thus you can focus on C specific things.
This is unfortunately not what I did.
I started out doing machine code on a Z80, then some BASIC, then Pascal, then some assembly thrown in there and then some simple C, then Java. The jump to object oriented programming what tough for me, and I have seen guys go from object oriented programming to procedural far easier.
Hope this helps and I am not trying to start a coding war.
First: If that accusation was made of the Bush administration, it would have some basis.
Second: There has been a lot of complaining about it.
I don't care who made the accusation or who wants this it is still a horrible idea.
You ask how can we afford this and I ask you how can we not?
We can't afford it and it will do NOTHING to actually help children learn. It will also kill any competition in this space. Competition is what drives prices down and brings new and better ideas to market.
Obama's plan will include funds to make public buildings more energy efficient, repair roads and bridges and modernize schools.
Again, how is he going to pay for this? His idea is to make America more of a socialist country because he believes that by creating more government programs will create more jobs at this time. A Capitalist would let the market adjust and would NOT have things like government sponsored entities, (fanny and freddy) and would NOT create more social programs.
So, do we or do we not have a problem?
We do NOT have a problem that requires the Federal government to take the U.S.A. closer to socialism. However, we do have a problem with these types of solutions.
Think about it, and take it to a personal level. You loose your job and then at that time you decide to spend money to put in a new energy efficient heater and buy a new computer. Yes in the long run that will probably save you money but the return on investment will be 10+ years. The additional computer, in all honesty is probably not an investment at all, and your old one (even if it was shared) will get the job done. However, in Obamas case he wants to take this time to increase spending here.
Sorry but we can't afford it. He has mentioned many times before that his view of "high speed internet" is just a utility like service. In that his is yet another right that we should all have.
His views are misguided at best and boarder on insane at worst.
Then again there is that whole thing about leaving babies to die that somehow survived abortion....
I know which one I think is worse.
Now to be back on topic.
HOW THE HELL CAN WE AFFORD THIS? This isn't the time to have more social programs? Does anyone here think that forcing this upon our kids and having the government run broadband is a good idea? Lets see, what operating system do you think they will all run? Think Apple, Linux LOL! So much for selection. This smells bad of payoffs.
Last time I checked Obama has voted for a massive bailout of the banking system and now will "probably" vote to bailout the auto industry. So NOW he wants to start another social program? Do we really want to saddle ourselves with more debt? This looks like a solution in search of a problem. We do have massive problems with some of our public schools but throwing laptops at them isn't going to help them at all.
I hope and pray Obama isn't that stupid to think that this idea would work, however I get the feeling this is only the beginning of bad ideas to come.
Well seeing that by change he meant choosing the same old Democrats to his cabinet, and he continues to vote for needless bailouts, one can now assume that he meant CHANGING to Zune from the ipod. You also have to love the 2 Billion that will be taken from NASA :-)
I guess hope means that we will hope that this is a one term president.
It is funny to me how many profs talk like this guy wrote.
Today we are going to...
Later we will go over...
It actually makes you think this will be some type of discussion and not a dictation. I would have loved to respond and say
We think you are an idiot.
As for his work? Who really knows. Maybe WE can figure it out someday.
Funny.
Last year ~1.8 TRILLION on entitlements.
~600 Billion on defense.
Now I am sure he will butcher defense much like Clinton administration did, but "if" you want to make a real dent you would at LEAST flatline spending on entitlements. Something with a Democratic controlled house and senate will never happen. So the debt will probably go up as well. What will be interesting and sad will be after he cuts defense spending (and NASA spending also), to see how long before we have another attack on American soil. Given what has just happened in India, and an Obama presidency it is only a matter of time. I wouldn't want to live in a large city that is for sure.
NASA cuts are only the beginning. I personally hope and pray that I am wrong about him, and hope that he does such a great job that I and others are excited to vote for him in the future, but I have a feeling that the next 4 years will be "I told you so" post on Slashdot.