So what if a firm is younger and havent gathered enough capital then an older firm
Then they pitch investors to finance them in the auction because they have the expertise to make use of the patent, but not the financial resources required to make a serious bid. Financing is part of any successful venture, just as much as engineering and scientific expertise, and it can be consulted, hired, or located just like any other form of necessary production capital.
Then that company would have monopoly on the patents and by all free market rhetoric, wouldn't be pressured to be "efficient".
Patents are a limited monopoly granted by the government so how is that the fault of the free market? I am simply using basic economics to explain why the auction results in the best price by connecting those who are best able to pay the highest amount for the patents with those selling the patents (NASA in this case). Generally the firm with the best financing will also be the one best able to manage production and exploit the patent and produce value for society in the form of new and useful products and services. Maybe you don't believe that, but most economists working today would be substantially in agreement with that sentiment.
Patents are supposed to encourage innovation and bring products into production by granting monopoly privileges, that is how patents work. Sure, you might pay a higher price for these products in the short run, but you might not have them at all without the patents. So which is better, the chance to buy useful products at a high price, or no meaningful chance to buy the products at any price because they were never invented in the first place or they were substantially delayed? You might argue that patents are bad, but don't blame the free market for patents, blame the government (they wrote the patent laws).
That's not intelligence. It's what everyone already knows.
Obviously you have never worked in the intelligence business. The public domain is the first source of information for any intelligence agency and it generally contains a lot of useful information. As you yourself have said, a great deal of information can be gleaned using basic search techniques, cross-checking, and comparison of publicly available sources and it is relatively cheap too. So before you devote time, money, and resources to developing more information on a particular subject by non-public means, wouldn't you want to devote some time to reading Google news and checking basic facts with a few well placed queries? At the very least it would help you to decide what cases merit the time and effort of a more thorough investigation. Even the most powerful and pervasive intelligence gathering agencies do not have unlimited resources after all.
For those interested in some further reading on the subject, might I suggest the following: Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class. The book elaborates upon, among other things, the differences between clandestine and covert operations, the training of CIA case officers for domestic and overseas assignments, different types of cover (official and otherwise), and basic spycraft techniques employed by case officers. It was an interesting inside look at an often misunderstood agency of our government and definitely worth a read if you want to know more about what the CIA and other intelligence agencies do and what it might be like to work for them (should you dare to apply).
The auction, by virtue of finding the best equilibrium price, automatically selects the most qualified firm in the form of the winning bidder (which presumably would be the same company who would win in any competition because they are more efficient and thus have more money to bid with in the first place). If that company fails then the patent is sold at bankruptcy auction again to the next most efficient firm and so on.
Selling for the short term and (at least as far as the buyer is concerned) sucker-price is for, well, suckers.
So don't sell for the short term, sell for the present value of the expected license payments at a good rate premium (say 5-7% right now). If you elect instead to wait and collect payments then you have to pay for a private firm or a bureaucracy to collect the payments and monitor accounts (NASA was not set up as a bill collecting agency after all). It is not a sucker move to sell a stream of payments upfront if the price is right.
The better way to award the patent, if that is at all appropriate, is strategically to a company that will provide the most public benefit (or patch a hole in a public liability).
That is not necessarily true. Extra money in the US Treasury is clearly a benefit that everyone can agree on proportional to the amount of extra money deposited. Determining whether or if gifting the patents to domestic strategic companies would benefit us all more is much more difficult to than cash up front. If it were put to a public vote then I would vote for auction with money going into the US Treasury or better yet redistributed to all Americans as a one time cash rebate (i.e. total amount of sales / divided by number of taxpayers) equally distributed (this would not be as fair as rebating more to higher taxed and wealthier citizens, but it is more progressive which should appeal to the Liberals among us) among taxpayers.
Well remember that once the government takes your money in the form of taxes then the money and anything they choose to spend it on belongs to the government and they are free to dispose of it as they wish and according to their own requirements. Personally, I would prefer it if they didn't take quite so much in the first place, but that is another discussion. The government is supposed to act in the best interest of the American people (which includes managing public assets wisely), but they often fail to do that. What would the government do if it didn't sell that patents and sat on them instead? Look the other way as people, including foreign companies, infringe them? Continue to have the sunk cost of the research on the book without earning anything from the resulting patents (even if the final sale price is less than the cost of the research, at least the research was less of a loss after the sale). Perhaps they could license them, but then we are just haggling over price not whether or not the patents should be sold because of present value. If the patents are released into the public domain then everyone, including people in other countries who don't pay American taxes, gets to use the patents for nothing. You could try and make sure that only Americans can use them without paying, but who is going to track down and sue offenders? The government? No, the best course is divestiture for the best price determined at auction.
It's just another subsidy forced on the entire public on some special preference for some private corporation.
It is not a subsidy because it is being sold at auction which means that if the patent is valuable then it will very quickly be bid up to its fair market value (or perhaps even higher) by competing interested parties. Some of them might want to use the patent to produce products while others might want to acquire the patent and use it to sue other firms that are infringing the patent. Either way, the auction is the best format to sell these patents because they are not generally sold as everyday items and nobody is exactly sure what the fair market price is before competitive bidding has settled it. It would be special preference if the government sold it for a low ball price to a preferred buyer in a no-bid deal (the same way they did with the no-bid cost plus Iraq logistics contracts) but this appears to be a fair public auction.
Suppose that NASA did license them and got paid a yearly fee for the remaining duration of the patent. You could even throw in revenue from multiple interested licensees (since the patents are valuable and more than one firm would probably like to license them...or at least lets suppose for the sake of argument that this is true). Shouldn't we be willing to accept instead a lump-sum payment at auction equivalent to the present value of those future licensing payments? It doesn't really matter whether we sell up front at auction or collect license payments, it can be discounted to a present value either way.
But the reality is that it means that I get to pay for them again.
Suppose instead that you were the sole owner of the patents, but for some reason (you choose) you didn't want to spend money to develop and market products based upon the patents, even though you might personally be interested in buying whatever products are ultimately produced using the patents. Would you not be happy with a cash settlement from the sale of your patents? Presumably you could still purchase whatever products came out of the patents and enjoy them while paying a small share of what the patent buyer paid you (in the form of a higher product price) in exchange for a product that you want. How is this not a good deal?
Now, in theory it would be better if all of us taxpayers saw some "return" on our investment in the form of lower taxes going forward based upon the proceeds of a successful sale of patents generated from publicly funded research. However, in practice any proceeds will probably go to NASA and not be returned to the US Treasury so in that sense the US taxpayer is getting a bit of the shaft. On the other hand, maybe some useful products, which wouldn't otherwise be available to the public, will come of this so it may not all be bad.
If the patents were made freely available then other countries and foreign companies could free-ride and enjoy the fruits of our research efforts without reimbursing us for any of the costs that we have already paid for the research. How would that make you feel? Perhaps you prefer that nobody earns any profit, even though your tax dollars are already a sunk cost either way, just to spite the winning bidders? Either way you still paid for the research and got no direct return.
I agree. It probably would have been better for them to promote downloading, with oblique references that avoid liability (i.e. Download Your Music from the Internet!*** with lots of disclaimers in small print at the bottom), from file sharing networks. Perhaps even bundling package deals with their floor model PCs, file sharing software, and MP3 players all setup and ready to go. The profit for Best Buy, if there is any, will be in the MP3 gadget sales, just as it is for Apple with iPod sales, and not the music downloads themselves.
Ask an average non-geek about napster and they will know automatically that its a music outlet much like itunes.
They might remember that Napster involved downloading music from the Internet, but they probably don't know or don't remember that Napster changed to a paid subscription service. You would probably get responses like, "Wasn't that the free music thing, but they got shut down right?". People may know the Napster name, but they certainly don't associate that with paying for music like they do with iTunes. I agree that it could be profitable (in the long run and marginally so), but probably not very profitable. After all, even the iTunes store has sold only a few million downloads so far and that is spit in the ocean compared to the file sharing networks. Anyone who pays for their music and is interested in paying for downloads instead of CDs has probably already tried iTunes and will either stick with it(since it works on their iPod) or doesn't like it and will continue to rip their CDs (people who can't or won't pay will continue to get their music from the file sharing networks). I think that if Best Buy had an extra $58 million lying around then they should have returned it to their shareholders, if they could not profitably reinvest, instead of buying Napster.
With all due respect to Senator McCain and his service, the ability to fly fighter jets and takeoff/land on aircraft carriers seems to be more a feat of superior physical and mental stamina combined with good hand eye coordination and training rather than one of extraordinary intelligence. However, with respect to technology issues and even the economy I believe that McCain is wise enough to select good cabinet members to advise him on those subjects and the related decisions. The foreign policy and military experience are not as easily substituted if they are not first hand, as was demonstrated by Bush the younger, and that is where McCain, IMHO, has a distinct advantage over Obama who, while eloquent and obviously intelligent, is lacking in that critical area. Much will depend upon how much Americans perceive which issues to be relatively more important. If foreign policy, perhaps forced by world events, becomes front and center heading into the election then McCain may ride that sentiment to the White House. If, on the other hand, the economy becomes the central issue and Obama can play to all of the hard working middle Americans, although that will be a hard sell even if he can do it because these are religious, gun-totting, family values kind of folks (and some of them, particularly in the south, just won't be able to get past his skin color and Reverend Wright...sad, but true), then he might be able to squeeze out a narrow victory. I think that, baring another attack on the United States, the election will be very close again, like it was in 2004. I won't matter how I vote personally, since I live in a state which is not "in play" as they say.
That is one way of interpreting it, but it could also mean that one should be able to earn some profit (i.e. provided that they are competent managers) but that profit is neither assured nor guaranteed. He did not say that he who controls the Pipe must have profit or is entitled to profit simply by virtue of ownership.
In point of fact, had Iraq had WMDs, it would surely have used them against US troops in 2003 -- probably with devastating affect.
There was effectively zero chance that the regular Army of Iraq prior to invasion was going to defeat the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps in open battle, even if WMDs (chemical weapons, it was well known that Iraq had no strategic or tactical nuclear capabilities) were used. Now, suppose that you were the Iraqi commander, would you want to give the order to use WMD? Suppose that Saddam had ordered their use personally and you were the commander in the field, would you give the order then? Probably not if you cared about saving your own skin after the end of hostilities (the US was certain to win, 99.999% chance, and using WMDs as part of a losing strategy would only get you a trial and long drop on a short rope following your capture). No, you would surrender to the nearest American commander and show him where all of your WMD cashes were to get into the good graces of the winning side (they didn't pay you enough to get shot full of holes for the captain of a sinking ship).
However, an even better thing to do (then just create a read-only user), is to escape shit before you query
Or use a parameterized query like select * from users where username = @username INSTEAD OF "select * from users where " + unfiltered_string where the the unfiltered string is taken straight from an input on the public website, spliced into a string literal query, and then passed on to the database. Of course, filtering is still advisable too in any case but really, there is no better way to announce to the world that an operation is amateur night (i.e. we just read "Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes" before throwing together our site) than to fall victim to the classic SQL injection attacks.
More proof, as if any more was needed, that the UN is useless for anything other than a physical meeting place for politically motivated speeches, resolutions, and condemnations none of which have any effect unless someone with a powerful military backs them up. Now it appears that even the UN charter itself is being tossed aside when it is inconvenient for some members. When it is no longer worth maintaining even the pretense of international cooperation (as actions like the the ones described in TFA demonstrate) then what place does the UN have in world affairs? We might as well be honest with ourselves and say that we, collectively as civilizations, would rather pull out the swords when there is trouble than talk it over with our enemies to no meaningful result.
Perhaps they (the RIAA/MPAA) feel that if competition, however poorly executed, to the Apple hegemony exists then it would give them more leverage in their future negotiations with Apple and Jobs (I think that they underestimate the stubborness of and controlling nature of Steve Jobs, but that is another discussion). It is well known that the music labels and soon the movie studios (with iTunes movie sales in quicktime format) are chafing under the "restrictions" that Apple imposes upon them (i.e. all songs available as singles, with discount for album but not a forced purchase in most cases, and for 0.99 cents per track maximum). The copyright cartels want to charge MORE than 0.99 cents per track OR force full album purchase OR both (even better from their standpoint) and Apple has flat out told them no and Steve even publicly called them "greedy" and implied that they were stupid.
Part of the problem, and it is by no means unique to the entertainment business, is that too often the executives and the corporate boards refuse to admit defeat OR return money to shareholders when the business opportunities are not good. I have never owned shares in any music label or movie studio directly or even indirectly through funds and even if I had I would have sold the shares long ago as a vote of no confidence in their business model. I believe that there is still a role for logistics, organization, and management in the entertainment business, but the days of monopoly profits from media sales is fast drawing to a close. Hopefully new firms will come along to provide these services to independent bands and directors before the old guard causes too much damage in their litigious death spasms.
"Have you considered this Windows Vista Home Media Center desktop computer?" "WTF?"
That reminds me of the old MUD days when certain theme areas would have annoying mobs that followed you around and spammed you with themed slogans like that. Invariable the mob was named "annoying salesman" or something else like that. In fact it probably went something like this:
> Annoying Salesman: Have you considered this Windows Vista Home Media Center desktop computer?
> consider salesman
> consider: annoying salesman appears weak to you...
> attack salesman
combat> you attack annoying salesman and HIT (12 damage)...
combat> annoying salesman grabs the nearest chair and readies it for his next attack...
combat> you attack annoying salesman and MISS...
combat> annoying salesman throws the chair and HITS (1 damage)...
combat> you attack annoying salesman and CRITICAL HIT (24 damage)...
combat> annoying salesmen is stunned and misses next turn...
combat> you attack annoying salesman and HIT (8 damage)...
combat> annoying salesman dies...
> loot
> you loot the corpse of the annoying salesman for 20gp
Where are my mod points when I need them, the parent is bang on target. The holy grail of marketing, at least according to the presently ascendant theory, is to market and sell a brand image and NOT the products associated with that brand. This is far more profitable, assuming that it can be accomplished, because good products come and go and they cost money to research, develop, and produce, but if I can sell you on the concept of a brand then you will buy almost anything, regardless of quality and especially in the short run, that is associated with that brand. The real value and the highest potential for profit are selling the brand, not the products. Now, obviously this does not always work and it doesn't work on everyone, particularly not on intelligent people who think for themselves, but it does work on Joe Sixpack and that is the majority of the non-niche markets. Microsoft is attempting to develop and expand their brand so that they can sell their products to an American public that is becoming increasingly ignorant about how technology actually works and concentrates mostly on what is cool or in style over functionality.
It does not cost them anything to pre-install Linux in the first place
That is not true. If they continue to offer Linux then Microsoft may not grant them as favorable terms on their Windows licenses and if increased sales of Linux computers cannot offset paying more for the Windows licenses (i.e. less profit per Windows computer sale) then it hits them right where it hurts, in the bottom line. Remember too that this is China and outright bribes, gifts, or quid-pro-quo for top Lenovo executives, their families, or their friends are not off the table. China is crony capitalism taken to its most extreme.
because the lack of any content other than RVR (which is useless when you still need to level)
DAoC had item crafting as of Shourded Isles (and all of the best gear was crafted anyway) so there really was no need to go looking for high level drops like there was and is in WoW and other MMORPGs (unless you were really cheap or poor and wanted to salvage your crafting materials instead of buying them). The only problem with the RvR implementation in DAoC was the lack of item, crafting material, and money drops for PvP kills (something which Warhammer is going to remedy with random loot tables for PvP kills and actually there is nothing to stop them from adding this same concept to DAoC if they haven't already done so). I think perhaps that mythic was concerned (back in the Shrouded Isles days) that if they severed the last thread between PvE and PvP (by giving money and drops for PvP kills) that most people would abandon the PvE content (except for big raids) and spend all of their time in the battle grounds and RvR areas (which is what ended up happening anyway if the reports are to be believed since I don't play DAoC anymore). I think that they will get it right with Warhammer, they have so much experience from running DAoC that I think they understand the RvR, PvP, PvE issues very well now. I will pick it up when I have some spare time between projects and give it a whirl but it may not be right when the game comes out.
Each "smart" user tells at least one dozen other normal users NOT to buy Vista so losing the techs is like losing at least twelve normal customers because the normal customers trust their tech friend(s) and steer clear on their advice. How does Linux avoid these driver problems every time the Kernel gets upgraded? I never hear about driver problems from Linux users who upgrade. Maybe it is just because there aren't enough of them or they aren't loud enough.
Actually compared to this Windows 386 Promo OR this Windows 1.0 ad featuring Steve Ballmer the Jerry Seinfeld ads aren't that bad. Microsoft can and has done worse.
Slashdot Mirror
So what if a firm is younger and havent gathered enough capital then an older firm
Then they pitch investors to finance them in the auction because they have the expertise to make use of the patent, but not the financial resources required to make a serious bid. Financing is part of any successful venture, just as much as engineering and scientific expertise, and it can be consulted, hired, or located just like any other form of necessary production capital.
Then that company would have monopoly on the patents and by all free market rhetoric, wouldn't be pressured to be "efficient".
Patents are a limited monopoly granted by the government so how is that the fault of the free market? I am simply using basic economics to explain why the auction results in the best price by connecting those who are best able to pay the highest amount for the patents with those selling the patents (NASA in this case). Generally the firm with the best financing will also be the one best able to manage production and exploit the patent and produce value for society in the form of new and useful products and services. Maybe you don't believe that, but most economists working today would be substantially in agreement with that sentiment.
Patents are supposed to encourage innovation and bring products into production by granting monopoly privileges, that is how patents work. Sure, you might pay a higher price for these products in the short run, but you might not have them at all without the patents. So which is better, the chance to buy useful products at a high price, or no meaningful chance to buy the products at any price because they were never invented in the first place or they were substantially delayed? You might argue that patents are bad, but don't blame the free market for patents, blame the government (they wrote the patent laws).
That's not intelligence. It's what everyone already knows.
Obviously you have never worked in the intelligence business. The public domain is the first source of information for any intelligence agency and it generally contains a lot of useful information. As you yourself have said, a great deal of information can be gleaned using basic search techniques, cross-checking, and comparison of publicly available sources and it is relatively cheap too. So before you devote time, money, and resources to developing more information on a particular subject by non-public means, wouldn't you want to devote some time to reading Google news and checking basic facts with a few well placed queries? At the very least it would help you to decide what cases merit the time and effort of a more thorough investigation. Even the most powerful and pervasive intelligence gathering agencies do not have unlimited resources after all.
For those interested in some further reading on the subject, might I suggest the following: Class 11: Inside the CIA's First Post-9/11 Spy Class . The book elaborates upon, among other things, the differences between clandestine and covert operations, the training of CIA case officers for domestic and overseas assignments, different types of cover (official and otherwise), and basic spycraft techniques employed by case officers. It was an interesting inside look at an often misunderstood agency of our government and definitely worth a read if you want to know more about what the CIA and other intelligence agencies do and what it might be like to work for them (should you dare to apply).
The auction, by virtue of finding the best equilibrium price, automatically selects the most qualified firm in the form of the winning bidder (which presumably would be the same company who would win in any competition because they are more efficient and thus have more money to bid with in the first place). If that company fails then the patent is sold at bankruptcy auction again to the next most efficient firm and so on.
Selling for the short term and (at least as far as the buyer is concerned) sucker-price is for, well, suckers.
So don't sell for the short term, sell for the present value of the expected license payments at a good rate premium (say 5-7% right now). If you elect instead to wait and collect payments then you have to pay for a private firm or a bureaucracy to collect the payments and monitor accounts (NASA was not set up as a bill collecting agency after all). It is not a sucker move to sell a stream of payments upfront if the price is right.
The better way to award the patent, if that is at all appropriate, is strategically to a company that will provide the most public benefit (or patch a hole in a public liability).
That is not necessarily true. Extra money in the US Treasury is clearly a benefit that everyone can agree on proportional to the amount of extra money deposited. Determining whether or if gifting the patents to domestic strategic companies would benefit us all more is much more difficult to than cash up front. If it were put to a public vote then I would vote for auction with money going into the US Treasury or better yet redistributed to all Americans as a one time cash rebate (i.e. total amount of sales / divided by number of taxpayers) equally distributed (this would not be as fair as rebating more to higher taxed and wealthier citizens, but it is more progressive which should appeal to the Liberals among us) among taxpayers.
Well remember that once the government takes your money in the form of taxes then the money and anything they choose to spend it on belongs to the government and they are free to dispose of it as they wish and according to their own requirements. Personally, I would prefer it if they didn't take quite so much in the first place, but that is another discussion. The government is supposed to act in the best interest of the American people (which includes managing public assets wisely), but they often fail to do that. What would the government do if it didn't sell that patents and sat on them instead? Look the other way as people, including foreign companies, infringe them? Continue to have the sunk cost of the research on the book without earning anything from the resulting patents (even if the final sale price is less than the cost of the research, at least the research was less of a loss after the sale). Perhaps they could license them, but then we are just haggling over price not whether or not the patents should be sold because of present value. If the patents are released into the public domain then everyone, including people in other countries who don't pay American taxes, gets to use the patents for nothing. You could try and make sure that only Americans can use them without paying, but who is going to track down and sue offenders? The government? No, the best course is divestiture for the best price determined at auction.
It's just another subsidy forced on the entire public on some special preference for some private corporation.
It is not a subsidy because it is being sold at auction which means that if the patent is valuable then it will very quickly be bid up to its fair market value (or perhaps even higher) by competing interested parties. Some of them might want to use the patent to produce products while others might want to acquire the patent and use it to sue other firms that are infringing the patent. Either way, the auction is the best format to sell these patents because they are not generally sold as everyday items and nobody is exactly sure what the fair market price is before competitive bidding has settled it. It would be special preference if the government sold it for a low ball price to a preferred buyer in a no-bid deal (the same way they did with the no-bid cost plus Iraq logistics contracts) but this appears to be a fair public auction.
Suppose that NASA did license them and got paid a yearly fee for the remaining duration of the patent. You could even throw in revenue from multiple interested licensees (since the patents are valuable and more than one firm would probably like to license them...or at least lets suppose for the sake of argument that this is true). Shouldn't we be willing to accept instead a lump-sum payment at auction equivalent to the present value of those future licensing payments? It doesn't really matter whether we sell up front at auction or collect license payments, it can be discounted to a present value either way.
But the reality is that it means that I get to pay for them again.
Suppose instead that you were the sole owner of the patents, but for some reason (you choose) you didn't want to spend money to develop and market products based upon the patents, even though you might personally be interested in buying whatever products are ultimately produced using the patents. Would you not be happy with a cash settlement from the sale of your patents? Presumably you could still purchase whatever products came out of the patents and enjoy them while paying a small share of what the patent buyer paid you (in the form of a higher product price) in exchange for a product that you want. How is this not a good deal?
Now, in theory it would be better if all of us taxpayers saw some "return" on our investment in the form of lower taxes going forward based upon the proceeds of a successful sale of patents generated from publicly funded research. However, in practice any proceeds will probably go to NASA and not be returned to the US Treasury so in that sense the US taxpayer is getting a bit of the shaft. On the other hand, maybe some useful products, which wouldn't otherwise be available to the public, will come of this so it may not all be bad.
If the patents were made freely available then other countries and foreign companies could free-ride and enjoy the fruits of our research efforts without reimbursing us for any of the costs that we have already paid for the research. How would that make you feel? Perhaps you prefer that nobody earns any profit, even though your tax dollars are already a sunk cost either way, just to spite the winning bidders? Either way you still paid for the research and got no direct return.
I agree. It probably would have been better for them to promote downloading, with oblique references that avoid liability (i.e. Download Your Music from the Internet!*** with lots of disclaimers in small print at the bottom), from file sharing networks. Perhaps even bundling package deals with their floor model PCs, file sharing software, and MP3 players all setup and ready to go. The profit for Best Buy, if there is any, will be in the MP3 gadget sales, just as it is for Apple with iPod sales, and not the music downloads themselves.
Ask an average non-geek about napster and they will know automatically that its a music outlet much like itunes.
They might remember that Napster involved downloading music from the Internet, but they probably don't know or don't remember that Napster changed to a paid subscription service. You would probably get responses like, "Wasn't that the free music thing, but they got shut down right?". People may know the Napster name, but they certainly don't associate that with paying for music like they do with iTunes. I agree that it could be profitable (in the long run and marginally so), but probably not very profitable. After all, even the iTunes store has sold only a few million downloads so far and that is spit in the ocean compared to the file sharing networks. Anyone who pays for their music and is interested in paying for downloads instead of CDs has probably already tried iTunes and will either stick with it(since it works on their iPod) or doesn't like it and will continue to rip their CDs (people who can't or won't pay will continue to get their music from the file sharing networks). I think that if Best Buy had an extra $58 million lying around then they should have returned it to their shareholders, if they could not profitably reinvest, instead of buying Napster.
Don't even think of preventing use of this weapon against perverts and terrorists.
Because then they will scan your brain and know what you were thinking and punish you for that too!
With all due respect to Senator McCain and his service, the ability to fly fighter jets and takeoff/land on aircraft carriers seems to be more a feat of superior physical and mental stamina combined with good hand eye coordination and training rather than one of extraordinary intelligence. However, with respect to technology issues and even the economy I believe that McCain is wise enough to select good cabinet members to advise him on those subjects and the related decisions. The foreign policy and military experience are not as easily substituted if they are not first hand, as was demonstrated by Bush the younger, and that is where McCain, IMHO, has a distinct advantage over Obama who, while eloquent and obviously intelligent, is lacking in that critical area. Much will depend upon how much Americans perceive which issues to be relatively more important. If foreign policy, perhaps forced by world events, becomes front and center heading into the election then McCain may ride that sentiment to the White House. If, on the other hand, the economy becomes the central issue and Obama can play to all of the hard working middle Americans, although that will be a hard sell even if he can do it because these are religious, gun-totting, family values kind of folks (and some of them, particularly in the south, just won't be able to get past his skin color and Reverend Wright...sad, but true), then he might be able to squeeze out a narrow victory. I think that, baring another attack on the United States, the election will be very close again, like it was in 2004. I won't matter how I vote personally, since I live in a state which is not "in play" as they say.
That is one way of interpreting it, but it could also mean that one should be able to earn some profit (i.e. provided that they are competent managers) but that profit is neither assured nor guaranteed. He did not say that he who controls the Pipe must have profit or is entitled to profit simply by virtue of ownership.
In point of fact, had Iraq had WMDs, it would surely have used them against US troops in 2003 -- probably with devastating affect.
There was effectively zero chance that the regular Army of Iraq prior to invasion was going to defeat the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps in open battle, even if WMDs (chemical weapons, it was well known that Iraq had no strategic or tactical nuclear capabilities) were used. Now, suppose that you were the Iraqi commander, would you want to give the order to use WMD? Suppose that Saddam had ordered their use personally and you were the commander in the field, would you give the order then? Probably not if you cared about saving your own skin after the end of hostilities (the US was certain to win, 99.999% chance, and using WMDs as part of a losing strategy would only get you a trial and long drop on a short rope following your capture). No, you would surrender to the nearest American commander and show him where all of your WMD cashes were to get into the good graces of the winning side (they didn't pay you enough to get shot full of holes for the captain of a sinking ship).
However, an even better thing to do (then just create a read-only user), is to escape shit before you query
Or use a parameterized query like select * from users where username = @username INSTEAD OF "select * from users where " + unfiltered_string where the the unfiltered string is taken straight from an input on the public website, spliced into a string literal query, and then passed on to the database. Of course, filtering is still advisable too in any case but really, there is no better way to announce to the world that an operation is amateur night (i.e. we just read "Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes" before throwing together our site) than to fall victim to the classic SQL injection attacks.
More proof, as if any more was needed, that the UN is useless for anything other than a physical meeting place for politically motivated speeches, resolutions, and condemnations none of which have any effect unless someone with a powerful military backs them up. Now it appears that even the UN charter itself is being tossed aside when it is inconvenient for some members. When it is no longer worth maintaining even the pretense of international cooperation (as actions like the the ones described in TFA demonstrate) then what place does the UN have in world affairs? We might as well be honest with ourselves and say that we, collectively as civilizations, would rather pull out the swords when there is trouble than talk it over with our enemies to no meaningful result.
Perhaps they (the RIAA/MPAA) feel that if competition, however poorly executed, to the Apple hegemony exists then it would give them more leverage in their future negotiations with Apple and Jobs (I think that they underestimate the stubborness of and controlling nature of Steve Jobs, but that is another discussion). It is well known that the music labels and soon the movie studios (with iTunes movie sales in quicktime format) are chafing under the "restrictions" that Apple imposes upon them (i.e. all songs available as singles, with discount for album but not a forced purchase in most cases, and for 0.99 cents per track maximum). The copyright cartels want to charge MORE than 0.99 cents per track OR force full album purchase OR both (even better from their standpoint) and Apple has flat out told them no and Steve even publicly called them "greedy" and implied that they were stupid.
Part of the problem, and it is by no means unique to the entertainment business, is that too often the executives and the corporate boards refuse to admit defeat OR return money to shareholders when the business opportunities are not good. I have never owned shares in any music label or movie studio directly or even indirectly through funds and even if I had I would have sold the shares long ago as a vote of no confidence in their business model. I believe that there is still a role for logistics, organization, and management in the entertainment business, but the days of monopoly profits from media sales is fast drawing to a close. Hopefully new firms will come along to provide these services to independent bands and directors before the old guard causes too much damage in their litigious death spasms.
"Have you considered this Windows Vista Home Media Center desktop computer?" "WTF?"
That reminds me of the old MUD days when certain theme areas would have annoying mobs that followed you around and spammed you with themed slogans like that. Invariable the mob was named "annoying salesman" or something else like that. In fact it probably went something like this:
> Annoying Salesman: Have you considered this Windows Vista Home Media Center desktop computer?
> consider salesman
> consider: annoying salesman appears weak to you...
> attack salesman
combat> you attack annoying salesman and HIT (12 damage)...
combat> annoying salesman grabs the nearest chair and readies it for his next attack...
combat> you attack annoying salesman and MISS...
combat> annoying salesman throws the chair and HITS (1 damage)...
combat> you attack annoying salesman and CRITICAL HIT (24 damage)...
combat> annoying salesmen is stunned and misses next turn...
combat> you attack annoying salesman and HIT (8 damage)...
combat> annoying salesman dies...
> loot
> you loot the corpse of the annoying salesman for 20gp
> exit s
Where are my mod points when I need them, the parent is bang on target. The holy grail of marketing, at least according to the presently ascendant theory, is to market and sell a brand image and NOT the products associated with that brand. This is far more profitable, assuming that it can be accomplished, because good products come and go and they cost money to research, develop, and produce, but if I can sell you on the concept of a brand then you will buy almost anything, regardless of quality and especially in the short run, that is associated with that brand. The real value and the highest potential for profit are selling the brand, not the products. Now, obviously this does not always work and it doesn't work on everyone, particularly not on intelligent people who think for themselves, but it does work on Joe Sixpack and that is the majority of the non-niche markets. Microsoft is attempting to develop and expand their brand so that they can sell their products to an American public that is becoming increasingly ignorant about how technology actually works and concentrates mostly on what is cool or in style over functionality.
It does not cost them anything to pre-install Linux in the first place
That is not true. If they continue to offer Linux then Microsoft may not grant them as favorable terms on their Windows licenses and if increased sales of Linux computers cannot offset paying more for the Windows licenses (i.e. less profit per Windows computer sale) then it hits them right where it hurts, in the bottom line. Remember too that this is China and outright bribes, gifts, or quid-pro-quo for top Lenovo executives, their families, or their friends are not off the table. China is crony capitalism taken to its most extreme.
because the lack of any content other than RVR (which is useless when you still need to level)
DAoC had item crafting as of Shourded Isles (and all of the best gear was crafted anyway) so there really was no need to go looking for high level drops like there was and is in WoW and other MMORPGs (unless you were really cheap or poor and wanted to salvage your crafting materials instead of buying them). The only problem with the RvR implementation in DAoC was the lack of item, crafting material, and money drops for PvP kills (something which Warhammer is going to remedy with random loot tables for PvP kills and actually there is nothing to stop them from adding this same concept to DAoC if they haven't already done so). I think perhaps that mythic was concerned (back in the Shrouded Isles days) that if they severed the last thread between PvE and PvP (by giving money and drops for PvP kills) that most people would abandon the PvE content (except for big raids) and spend all of their time in the battle grounds and RvR areas (which is what ended up happening anyway if the reports are to be believed since I don't play DAoC anymore). I think that they will get it right with Warhammer, they have so much experience from running DAoC that I think they understand the RvR, PvP, PvE issues very well now. I will pick it up when I have some spare time between projects and give it a whirl but it may not be right when the game comes out.
Each "smart" user tells at least one dozen other normal users NOT to buy Vista so losing the techs is like losing at least twelve normal customers because the normal customers trust their tech friend(s) and steer clear on their advice. How does Linux avoid these driver problems every time the Kernel gets upgraded? I never hear about driver problems from Linux users who upgrade. Maybe it is just because there aren't enough of them or they aren't loud enough.
Actually compared to this Windows 386 Promo OR this Windows 1.0 ad featuring Steve Ballmer the Jerry Seinfeld ads aren't that bad. Microsoft can and has done worse.