Yes, but not to the shareholders. The first crack at any proceeds from liquidation will go to Novell and IBM, not the shareholders and by then there will be nothing left because the filthy old coffee pot and the worn office furniture are not worth as much as you might think, besides what is to keep SCO from trashing everything before they go down in one last act of spite to reduce the value of any liquidation to their creditors (i.e. scorched earth tactics)?
I didn't get started in the industry until 2002 when I completed my CS degree and I managed to get through the entry level phase and into the career mode so it is not *impossible*. It was difficult for me because nobody else in my family worked in corporate America (my parents and grandparents were all small business owners so there were no family connections), none of my other long time friends from my home town went into IT (they all majored in business, law, or joined the military), and the summer of 2002 was right smack in the middle of the IT bust that started in April of 2001 (just about the time my last internship ended) and was made worse by 9/11. My point is that I got through some tough entry level times even though I had to take low pay for a while, build my skill set, and switch jobs a couple of times to get where I am today (btw: don't be loyal to any small company...they are using you so return the favor and use them right back without any shame) so it is still possible to get that high end job if you really want it, but you have to want it.
Hence the reason why we choose not to do it. Let those jobs go, does a Lion in Africa waste his time catching small rodents that aren't big enough for a meal and aren't worth the effort OR does he set his sights on the stomach filling Wilderbeast instead?
They are not illegal in China (at least not the "official" ones), but the government controls all of them (in Soviet Russia the union controls you...or something like that) so the unions in China are more for keeping the workers in line than working on behalf of the workers. Why do you suppose that the only country where Walmart has not objected to unionization is China?
They had to scale their pay back. Why? Because the local merchants discovered that the Iraqis working on base made enough money to afford more expensive goods, so they raised their prices. But the effect was that things were now much worse for all the Iraqis who were not working on base.
A good real world example of what economists call the price/wage spiral.
You are barred from having a manufacturing job not because of the Chinese but because of the federal minimum wage laws (among other economic conditions). In fact it is well known that labor organizations in the United States have long lobbied for the continuation of the minimum wage AND increases to the minimum wage, on account that they, "are looking out for the good of all workers" when in fact they are *hurting* the workers that are not part of their union with these minimum wage laws (and they know that full well...they just don't come out and admit it). If the minimum wage is high enough then the employer will prefer skilled union labor over less skilled non-union labor, not because he needs highly skilled workers for a particular job per se, but rather because it is illegal for him to hire lower skilled workers at a wage lower than the minimum for that job. If the employer is forced to pay the high minimum wage then the employer will prefer the higher skilled (and hopefully higher productivity) worker instead of taking on the lower skilled worker and training him. Thus, since the government of the United States has made it impossible for manufacturing jobs in this country to be competitive (they haven't completely killed it, there are still a few manufacturing jobs here and there in the US, but effectively they have killed the industry) the companies move the jobs to wherever they can be competitive. So it is not as simple as "give ust our jobs back or let the machines take over", but economics provides a satisfactory answer to your question (bitter though the pill might be). Another question that you might ask yourself is this, "If I could legally work for 10 cents per hour to compete with workers in China would I really want to do that?" The answer for most Americans is probably not so the question becomes academic even in the minimum wage barrier was removed.
There has always been a tendency in the past, wherever there were large supplies of workers relative to demand, for workers to "put in time for the company" (i.e. take one for the team) by working *some* extra hours gratis before logging any overtime (this was endemic in Japan during the 1980s where you had the salarymen, as they were called over there, dropping dead from sheer stress). It is implied (sometimes not to indirectly) that if you don't work hard (i.e. meet the quota which is impossible to meet without overtime hours...which you shouldn't declare as overtime because overtime doesn't start until you meet your quota) today then you will be working hard tomorrow to find a new job. In fact there was a poster in a Chinese factory which said as much (it was noted in a Wired News article some months back...sorry don't have the link). This may *technically* be illegal in China, but what recourse does an uneducated worker have against a powerful corporation run by a man with government connections like Mr. Gou? They are basically using the line, "I've got 10 other people who want your job, so I don't care if you burn out because I will toss you out when you do and hire one of those 10 other people. You are expendable and you will like it or you can find another job." The workers take the jobs because even with conditions like that it beats pushing oxen through the rice paddies to earn pennies per day and they can send money home to their families and aging parents.
There is a method to the madness for those of us who criticize Microsoft for giving into the MAFIAA on the HD downsampling, DRM, analog "hole" issue and that is for the customers of Microsoft to punish Microsoft for cooperating with the MAFIAA instead of giving its customers what they want (i.e. We won't buy it if you enable DRM because we are opposed to DRM on principle). The customer is always right and it is the customer that pays money directly to Microsoft for Microsoft products, not the MAFIAA and their lawyers. Microsoft would do well to remember who actually butters their bread and it isn't the MAFIAA thats for sure.
Now the quality argument has been eroded away as well, since yes, the copies are made in cheap sweatshops in China. Guess what? SO ARE THE ORIGINALS!
It gets even better than that...There have been cases in China of the same sweatshops and electronics fabs making *extra* units of brand name product that they are under contract to produce for a foreign company. These "extra" units are then sold by the sweatshop or fab out the back door and under the table directly to cheap importers. In effect, the same factory is making both the "original" products and the "knockoffs", the only difference is the price.
I suspect the biggest problem was trying to persuade them that they had been breaking the law in the first place.
It has been my experience that the general philosophy in China with regard to just about everything is, "If you can get away with it and not get caught then there is nothing wrong with it." There is still loyalty to one's family, but the rest has given way to a general pragmatism born of generations growing up in an oppressive and amoral society which glorifies wealth above all other achievements and encourages exploitation and corruption (not officially per se, but by ineffectual and spotty enforcement). I suppose that in China if one does *not* cheat in a desperate attempt to get ahead then there are ten other people competing against you who have no such qualms. You may be killed if you do get caught, evidenced by the recent events surrounding the former head of the Chinese equivalent of the Food and Drug Administration, but what are the alternatives? Live an honest, but poor, brutal, and short life *or* cheat, get killed if you get caught, and take as much as you can while you can? It is not difficult to see why the cutthroat Chinese businessmen are not concerned with intellectual property laws, they are playing for much higher stakes than that already.
The FTC is probably initiating the study at the request of the advertising industry. The initiation of studies in response to the prospect of unfavorable legislative action by congress is a time honored and effective (unfortunately) delay tactic adopted by the Tobacco, Petroleum, and Junk Food industries in order to divert attention from any corrective actions which might disrupt the entrenched interests of those people who wish to create the appearance of a healthy debate (through studies, astroturfing, and 'experts' with contrary views working for or receiving funding from the delayers) when in fact there is none. This pattern is seen time and again with global warming, junk food in our school lunch programs, the health effects of smoking, and now advertising. The advertisers want to prevent the types of 'opt-in' laws which are prevalent in Europe (i.e. consumers own their information and you the advertiser must have their explicit opt-in permission to transmit that information to third parties or even record it in the first place) from becoming law here in the United States. The Advertising industry moves to quash 'opt-in' or privacy protections whenever congress attempts to legislate on the matter (i.e. the advertisers really don't want 'opt-in' or information sharing restrictions to become law).
In which case, literally everything is moving apart from everything else, from the neutrons and protons in your average nucleus to galactic clusters. But I may be misunderstanding the expansion of space.
No, that is correct. In fact I recall from a recent television program (Discovery Channel I think) that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing at a non-linear rate which means that eventually, in the far far future, the rate of expansion will be so high that it will begin to effect the galaxies themselves, then individual stars, then planets, and finally the atoms themselves as everything that has ever existed literally tears itself into millions of pieces which are again torn into millions of pieces until absolutely nothing is left. This particular fate would not occur before all of the available heat energy in the universe is used up though so the only thing around at that point should be black holes and matter hovering around the absolute zero temperature (in which case we we all be dead long before the expansion of the universe begins to become a problem anyway).
as it will - we are set to collide with the Andromeda galaxy
That is not necessarily a certainty...the precise tangential velocity of the Andromeda with respect to the Milky Way is not known and cannot be computed from our frame of reference (i.e. we are all of us stuck inside the Milky Way galaxy and would need an external observer(s) to compute the answer and tell us). We will know for sure before any collision in any case since the answer will become clear as the Andromeda approaches closer (i.e. eventually if the approach is close enough given the sizes of the two galaxies an impending collision or not will become inevitable and obvious). The Andromeda is currently approaching the Milky Way at an approximate speed of 300 kilometers per second with a distance of approximately 2.5 million light years to go which yields an estimated time to collision of roughly 3 billion years. It is probably safe to say, given the history of the Earth thus far, that humanity will either be extinct or no longer living on Earth at that point (having screwed it up to the point of being uninhabitable and moved on to greener pastures elsewhere) although a galactic collision would have potentially galactic scale effects so if we are still around, even in another part of the galaxy, it might be a problem, but why worry...it is unlikely that humanity as a species will survive that long anyway...we barely made it out of the 20th century intact and the 21st isn't shaping up to be much of an improvement...so far.
The Photosynth viewer will allow fans of the space program an unprecedented level of detail in examining the shuttle and its surrounds at the Kennedy Space Center.
Until some low level political appointee flunky finds about it and kills the project because the nasty people might use it to plan something bad...thus reinforcing the belief among our young people that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and that a career in business is both higher paying and politically more reliable than having some forbidden knowledge about how the space shuttle works because then they might be able to build their own backyard ICBM...oh noes!
At my school they (Microsoft) donated the licenses and got Dell to throw in all of the computers for a ridiculously low price so the school saved on hardware for the CS labs in any case. The savings was not insignificant (probably a couple million at least all told).
And I have met women who treat that as if they were being singled out when they truly aren't.
Can you blame them? They are not totally without cause in that analysis when the history of women in male dominated professions is considered in a more general sense. You may be the exception, but how do they know that?
But who decides whether or not the case actually goes to court? What if SoundExchange, wanting to preserve their RIAA song revenues, do not accept the gambit and looks the other way, so long as the station does not move in on their RIAA property royalties collections? They may not want to risk an unfavorable judgment in court for the sake of collecting a few bit payments on indie stations playing creative commons licensed songs.
is it any surprise that these same students are going into the workplace and using these tools instead of a perl, php, ruby, python inside of Apache.
Of course not, but Universities cannot pay the bills with good will and tuition alone. In fact, there is talk about raising the tuition prices for relatively more costly majors such as computer science and engineering as opposed to comparative literature. Now, would you rather that Microsoft technologies be featured (usually in the elective courses anyway) and the labs be full of windows PCs that are fine for CS lab assignments (at that level it doesn't really matter what they use...in my first year we were using Macs + CodeWarrior) with Microsoft kicking in some money to fund the budget OR would you rather make up the difference in your tuition payments so that apache, php, and the like can be featured in those electives with a lab full of Linux, Solaris, and maybe a couple of token Windows machines instead? If you don't want to use Windows then run Linux on your laptop. You still get your shell account access (probably) and you could probably do the lab assignments on your laptop as well (Java is still more prevalent in lower division CS than Visual Basic or C#, at least at non-trade school like serious Universities).
WARNING: If he has not taken price theory (and even if he did but did not really "get" it) and you present this to him, chances are he will not understand. In that case, he may react much like a gorilla presented with a clear box full of fruit that is closed with a latch that he does not understand.
Reminds me of that Far Side comic where the explorers come upon the shredded remains of Dr. Livingston's jungle camp and find the last page torn from his journal which says something along the lines of, "Today I shall attempt to ascertain the humor of these gentle giants by employing a simple hand buzzer handshake..." Hehe, that one makes me smile every time.
With something like an operating system, the marginal cost of production is zero - once you make the first copy, the second copy costs nothing to produce. Therefore, the efficient market price of operating systems is zero.
Are you sure? What about the costs of research in development that went into making that first copy? Should they all be paid be the initial buyer and everyone after that gets the product free OR should the cost of the research and development be amortized over all of the products that you may end up selling (you have to do some guess work here, but I am betting that most firms would not sell the first copy for 20 billion dollars and then give every other copy away for free).
The theory that big busineses are all about reducing costs is an oversimplification.
Perhaps, but it can be a useful on at times.
Some small businesses worry about keeping costs as low as possible, but generally this is not a major issue for the big ones because they essentially control their markets and can charge whatever they want. The consumer is picking up the tab, so who cares about costs.
Small businesses worry about small costs and large business worry about large costs. The consumer may be picking up the tab, up to a point, if your company has some market power to set prices, but if you are inefficient in large business these days then watch out, because a sharp competitor or the buyout firms will find you and target you with extreme prejudice once the weaknesses of your large business are exposed (and they will be exposed if it goes on for long enough)...and they can be utterly ruthless in their pursuit of your business.
Large corporations are just as wasteful as the large governments that they've taken over for in so many industries like telecoms that used to be heavily regulated. There's no efficiency added in this transition, just a new social model.
All economic theory and evidence (including recently) to the contrary? The market always adds efficiency because inefficient producers are weeded out in an economic game of survival of the fittest. Now, in practice the government has to step in, just like the referee in other games, and enforce penalties against those who break the rules, but in general competition is the rule of the day and most people are better of with the market than they would be without it. Economics is not just a social model it is the scientific study of scarcity and how humans respond to it in the real world. If capitalism is just another social model then why is the standard of living and national income so much higher in the United States than it is in Cuba for example? Would you prefer to live in Cuba? I didn't think so.
Take the US telecoms market for example. Does anyone honestly think they're trying to control costs. If so, then why is the US so pathetic in comparison to the global market.
Bad example but even they are trying to control costs. The major reason why they are not more aggressive in doing so is that the over-regulation of the telecommunications industry here in the United States (it is not as bad as it used to be under Ma Bell, but it is still fairly bad) produces fat and lazy companies who are not as lean as they would be in a more competitive market. The problem is not with large businesses, but rather in the failure of the government to more actively break up cartels and interfere less in the telecommunications market. There are some telecommunications firms in other countries that are run by the government and may be offering more and better quality services, but it is almost certainly the case that those people are overpaying for those services (if not in the direct form of fees for use then in the form of higher taxes...there is no free lunch after all). You may have no problem with forcing other people with more wealth than average to subsidize your broadband service with taxes, but that is entirely different discussion.
What big businesses do is not to cut costs at every corner. No, what they do is whatever is best for the business ecosystem that they are a part of.
Are you sure? If Spacely's Sprockets can sell the same or more widgets than Cogswells Cogs, because they are more efficient or cut costs more aggressively where they can then Spacely can either be more profitable than Cogswell or they can acquire enough captial over time, from increased profits, to buy out Cogswell (after lower his value in a brutal price war) for pennies on the dollar after driving his inefficient firm into bankruptcy. There may sometimes be some cartel activities (where businesses collude to divide up a market as you suggest) but they are probably more
Does this strike anyone else as just a wee bit unethical? Seriously though, if you want to defend the LAMP part of the business then you should concentrate on making the business case for continued use of LAMP. It may be the case, for example that existing and new projects in your department can continue using LAMP and that management only wants to use.NET for new projects where it can be easier for them to hire experienced.NET developers instead of more LAMP developers. The best case scenario is probably to use *both*.NET and LAMP and let the circumstances of each project and the business decide what is best. The practice of issuing company wide mandates without basis in logical argumentation and research never ceases to amaze me wherever I see it.
Note: In the interest of fairness I should probably point out that I am a.NET developer and that I have a certain fondness for the.NET Framework and Visual Studio products (yes, yes, I know that Java had a lot of this stuff before.NET, but Anders Hejlsberg of Delphi fame really produced a very good language and platform with.NET, so once again Microsoft didn't invent it but they did perfect it in three (3) versions...they usually, but not always, get things mostly right by version 3). The developer tools is one area where Microsoft really does get it mostly right and even though the developer tools market doesn't make them a lot of money directly, in fact it is probably the smallest market that Microsoft is directly involved in, it is a huge factor in the continuing Windows hegemony (developer mindshare).
All of this being said I would not characterize myself as a.NET fanboy and in the case of the original poster, continuation with LAMP may be the right choice, but if it is the right choice then it should be able to stand on its own merits. It is very bad form to fake data or make up stories in an attempt to "scare" management into making the right choice.
Perhaps then it would be more productive for people like yourself to lobby the companies that make these products for Linux versions of the popular tools that you use and enjoy. Tell them that you want a Linux version and even more importantly, tell them how much you would be willing to pay for it if they produce one. If they get enough interest from the user community (pre-orders would help with this since money talks) then there will be a Linux version, but you have to make the business case to these companies if you want them to offer the Linux version.
For many, they don't even think it's illegal to download. After all, plenty of ISP ads are along the line: download music and movies at blazing speeds!
And then they get their "settlement" letter from the MAFIAA or rather you do (since your sister was using your network when she was downloading that music and sharing it all too because she doesn't know or care what a shared folder is).
If this is true, it can be used to impeach the credibility of any witness
Perhaps, but if there is any corroborating evidence then it really doesn't matter much whether the motives of the witness were questionable or not (that is why the Feds use informants who are obviously getting something out of testifying...because it doesn't matter in the face of corroborating evidence). Also, remember that the law that is being invoked here by the studios is a new one that makes it a crime to bring a recording device into the theater regardless of whether or not you used it to record anything or even intended to. This is another DMCA style law which has no safe harbors and makes (or tries to) the act which it is punishing unlawful no matter what the extenuating circumstances are or were. It might be possible to argue that the law is unconstitutional because it has no relation to whether copyright was actually infringed (meaning that they can only ask you to leave the theater or have the police remove you for breaking "the rules" on their private property, but not the law). However, who has the money and the time to fight that one out in court?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but not to the shareholders. The first crack at any proceeds from liquidation will go to Novell and IBM, not the shareholders and by then there will be nothing left because the filthy old coffee pot and the worn office furniture are not worth as much as you might think, besides what is to keep SCO from trashing everything before they go down in one last act of spite to reduce the value of any liquidation to their creditors (i.e. scorched earth tactics)?
I didn't get started in the industry until 2002 when I completed my CS degree and I managed to get through the entry level phase and into the career mode so it is not *impossible*. It was difficult for me because nobody else in my family worked in corporate America (my parents and grandparents were all small business owners so there were no family connections), none of my other long time friends from my home town went into IT (they all majored in business, law, or joined the military), and the summer of 2002 was right smack in the middle of the IT bust that started in April of 2001 (just about the time my last internship ended) and was made worse by 9/11. My point is that I got through some tough entry level times even though I had to take low pay for a while, build my skill set, and switch jobs a couple of times to get where I am today (btw: don't be loyal to any small company...they are using you so return the favor and use them right back without any shame) so it is still possible to get that high end job if you really want it, but you have to want it.
Hence the reason why we choose not to do it. Let those jobs go, does a Lion in Africa waste his time catching small rodents that aren't big enough for a meal and aren't worth the effort OR does he set his sights on the stomach filling Wilderbeast instead?
They are not illegal in China (at least not the "official" ones), but the government controls all of them (in Soviet Russia the union controls you...or something like that) so the unions in China are more for keeping the workers in line than working on behalf of the workers. Why do you suppose that the only country where Walmart has not objected to unionization is China?
They had to scale their pay back. Why? Because the local merchants discovered that the Iraqis working on base made enough money to afford more expensive goods, so they raised their prices. But the effect was that things were now much worse for all the Iraqis who were not working on base.
A good real world example of what economists call the price/wage spiral.
You are barred from having a manufacturing job not because of the Chinese but because of the federal minimum wage laws (among other economic conditions). In fact it is well known that labor organizations in the United States have long lobbied for the continuation of the minimum wage AND increases to the minimum wage, on account that they, "are looking out for the good of all workers" when in fact they are *hurting* the workers that are not part of their union with these minimum wage laws (and they know that full well...they just don't come out and admit it). If the minimum wage is high enough then the employer will prefer skilled union labor over less skilled non-union labor, not because he needs highly skilled workers for a particular job per se, but rather because it is illegal for him to hire lower skilled workers at a wage lower than the minimum for that job. If the employer is forced to pay the high minimum wage then the employer will prefer the higher skilled (and hopefully higher productivity) worker instead of taking on the lower skilled worker and training him. Thus, since the government of the United States has made it impossible for manufacturing jobs in this country to be competitive (they haven't completely killed it, there are still a few manufacturing jobs here and there in the US, but effectively they have killed the industry) the companies move the jobs to wherever they can be competitive. So it is not as simple as "give ust our jobs back or let the machines take over", but economics provides a satisfactory answer to your question (bitter though the pill might be). Another question that you might ask yourself is this, "If I could legally work for 10 cents per hour to compete with workers in China would I really want to do that?" The answer for most Americans is probably not so the question becomes academic even in the minimum wage barrier was removed.
There has always been a tendency in the past, wherever there were large supplies of workers relative to demand, for workers to "put in time for the company" (i.e. take one for the team) by working *some* extra hours gratis before logging any overtime (this was endemic in Japan during the 1980s where you had the salarymen, as they were called over there, dropping dead from sheer stress). It is implied (sometimes not to indirectly) that if you don't work hard (i.e. meet the quota which is impossible to meet without overtime hours...which you shouldn't declare as overtime because overtime doesn't start until you meet your quota) today then you will be working hard tomorrow to find a new job. In fact there was a poster in a Chinese factory which said as much (it was noted in a Wired News article some months back...sorry don't have the link). This may *technically* be illegal in China, but what recourse does an uneducated worker have against a powerful corporation run by a man with government connections like Mr. Gou? They are basically using the line, "I've got 10 other people who want your job, so I don't care if you burn out because I will toss you out when you do and hire one of those 10 other people. You are expendable and you will like it or you can find another job." The workers take the jobs because even with conditions like that it beats pushing oxen through the rice paddies to earn pennies per day and they can send money home to their families and aging parents.
There is a method to the madness for those of us who criticize Microsoft for giving into the MAFIAA on the HD downsampling, DRM, analog "hole" issue and that is for the customers of Microsoft to punish Microsoft for cooperating with the MAFIAA instead of giving its customers what they want (i.e. We won't buy it if you enable DRM because we are opposed to DRM on principle). The customer is always right and it is the customer that pays money directly to Microsoft for Microsoft products, not the MAFIAA and their lawyers. Microsoft would do well to remember who actually butters their bread and it isn't the MAFIAA thats for sure.
Now the quality argument has been eroded away as well, since yes, the copies are made in cheap sweatshops in China. Guess what? SO ARE THE ORIGINALS!
It gets even better than that...There have been cases in China of the same sweatshops and electronics fabs making *extra* units of brand name product that they are under contract to produce for a foreign company. These "extra" units are then sold by the sweatshop or fab out the back door and under the table directly to cheap importers. In effect, the same factory is making both the "original" products and the "knockoffs", the only difference is the price.
I suspect the biggest problem was trying to persuade them that they had been breaking the law in the first place.
It has been my experience that the general philosophy in China with regard to just about everything is, "If you can get away with it and not get caught then there is nothing wrong with it." There is still loyalty to one's family, but the rest has given way to a general pragmatism born of generations growing up in an oppressive and amoral society which glorifies wealth above all other achievements and encourages exploitation and corruption (not officially per se, but by ineffectual and spotty enforcement). I suppose that in China if one does *not* cheat in a desperate attempt to get ahead then there are ten other people competing against you who have no such qualms. You may be killed if you do get caught, evidenced by the recent events surrounding the former head of the Chinese equivalent of the Food and Drug Administration, but what are the alternatives? Live an honest, but poor, brutal, and short life *or* cheat, get killed if you get caught, and take as much as you can while you can? It is not difficult to see why the cutthroat Chinese businessmen are not concerned with intellectual property laws, they are playing for much higher stakes than that already.
The FTC is probably initiating the study at the request of the advertising industry. The initiation of studies in response to the prospect of unfavorable legislative action by congress is a time honored and effective (unfortunately) delay tactic adopted by the Tobacco, Petroleum, and Junk Food industries in order to divert attention from any corrective actions which might disrupt the entrenched interests of those people who wish to create the appearance of a healthy debate (through studies, astroturfing, and 'experts' with contrary views working for or receiving funding from the delayers) when in fact there is none. This pattern is seen time and again with global warming, junk food in our school lunch programs, the health effects of smoking, and now advertising. The advertisers want to prevent the types of 'opt-in' laws which are prevalent in Europe (i.e. consumers own their information and you the advertiser must have their explicit opt-in permission to transmit that information to third parties or even record it in the first place) from becoming law here in the United States. The Advertising industry moves to quash 'opt-in' or privacy protections whenever congress attempts to legislate on the matter (i.e. the advertisers really don't want 'opt-in' or information sharing restrictions to become law).
In which case, literally everything is moving apart from everything else, from the neutrons and protons in your average nucleus to galactic clusters. But I may be misunderstanding the expansion of space.
No, that is correct. In fact I recall from a recent television program (Discovery Channel I think) that the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing at a non-linear rate which means that eventually, in the far far future, the rate of expansion will be so high that it will begin to effect the galaxies themselves, then individual stars, then planets, and finally the atoms themselves as everything that has ever existed literally tears itself into millions of pieces which are again torn into millions of pieces until absolutely nothing is left. This particular fate would not occur before all of the available heat energy in the universe is used up though so the only thing around at that point should be black holes and matter hovering around the absolute zero temperature (in which case we we all be dead long before the expansion of the universe begins to become a problem anyway).
as it will - we are set to collide with the Andromeda galaxy
That is not necessarily a certainty...the precise tangential velocity of the Andromeda with respect to the Milky Way is not known and cannot be computed from our frame of reference (i.e. we are all of us stuck inside the Milky Way galaxy and would need an external observer(s) to compute the answer and tell us). We will know for sure before any collision in any case since the answer will become clear as the Andromeda approaches closer (i.e. eventually if the approach is close enough given the sizes of the two galaxies an impending collision or not will become inevitable and obvious). The Andromeda is currently approaching the Milky Way at an approximate speed of 300 kilometers per second with a distance of approximately 2.5 million light years to go which yields an estimated time to collision of roughly 3 billion years. It is probably safe to say, given the history of the Earth thus far, that humanity will either be extinct or no longer living on Earth at that point (having screwed it up to the point of being uninhabitable and moved on to greener pastures elsewhere) although a galactic collision would have potentially galactic scale effects so if we are still around, even in another part of the galaxy, it might be a problem, but why worry...it is unlikely that humanity as a species will survive that long anyway...we barely made it out of the 20th century intact and the 21st isn't shaping up to be much of an improvement...so far.
The Photosynth viewer will allow fans of the space program an unprecedented level of detail in examining the shuttle and its surrounds at the Kennedy Space Center.
Until some low level political appointee flunky finds about it and kills the project because the nasty people might use it to plan something bad...thus reinforcing the belief among our young people that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and that a career in business is both higher paying and politically more reliable than having some forbidden knowledge about how the space shuttle works because then they might be able to build their own backyard ICBM...oh noes!
At my school they (Microsoft) donated the licenses and got Dell to throw in all of the computers for a ridiculously low price so the school saved on hardware for the CS labs in any case. The savings was not insignificant (probably a couple million at least all told).
And I have met women who treat that as if they were being singled out when they truly aren't.
Can you blame them? They are not totally without cause in that analysis when the history of women in male dominated professions is considered in a more general sense. You may be the exception, but how do they know that?
But who decides whether or not the case actually goes to court? What if SoundExchange, wanting to preserve their RIAA song revenues, do not accept the gambit and looks the other way, so long as the station does not move in on their RIAA property royalties collections? They may not want to risk an unfavorable judgment in court for the sake of collecting a few bit payments on indie stations playing creative commons licensed songs.
is it any surprise that these same students are going into the workplace and using these tools instead of a perl, php, ruby, python inside of Apache.
Of course not, but Universities cannot pay the bills with good will and tuition alone. In fact, there is talk about raising the tuition prices for relatively more costly majors such as computer science and engineering as opposed to comparative literature. Now, would you rather that Microsoft technologies be featured (usually in the elective courses anyway) and the labs be full of windows PCs that are fine for CS lab assignments (at that level it doesn't really matter what they use...in my first year we were using Macs + CodeWarrior) with Microsoft kicking in some money to fund the budget OR would you rather make up the difference in your tuition payments so that apache, php, and the like can be featured in those electives with a lab full of Linux, Solaris, and maybe a couple of token Windows machines instead? If you don't want to use Windows then run Linux on your laptop. You still get your shell account access (probably) and you could probably do the lab assignments on your laptop as well (Java is still more prevalent in lower division CS than Visual Basic or C#, at least at non-trade school like serious Universities).
WARNING: If he has not taken price theory (and even if he did but did not really "get" it) and you present this to him, chances are he will not understand. In that case, he may react much like a gorilla presented with a clear box full of fruit that is closed with a latch that he does not understand.
Reminds me of that Far Side comic where the explorers come upon the shredded remains of Dr. Livingston's jungle camp and find the last page torn from his journal which says something along the lines of, "Today I shall attempt to ascertain the humor of these gentle giants by employing a simple hand buzzer handshake..." Hehe, that one makes me smile every time.
With something like an operating system, the marginal cost of production is zero - once you make the first copy, the second copy costs nothing to produce. Therefore, the efficient market price of operating systems is zero.
Are you sure? What about the costs of research in development that went into making that first copy? Should they all be paid be the initial buyer and everyone after that gets the product free OR should the cost of the research and development be amortized over all of the products that you may end up selling (you have to do some guess work here, but I am betting that most firms would not sell the first copy for 20 billion dollars and then give every other copy away for free).
The theory that big busineses are all about reducing costs is an oversimplification.
Perhaps, but it can be a useful on at times.
Some small businesses worry about keeping costs as low as possible, but generally this is not a major issue for the big ones because they essentially control their markets and can charge whatever they want. The consumer is picking up the tab, so who cares about costs.
Small businesses worry about small costs and large business worry about large costs. The consumer may be picking up the tab, up to a point, if your company has some market power to set prices, but if you are inefficient in large business these days then watch out, because a sharp competitor or the buyout firms will find you and target you with extreme prejudice once the weaknesses of your large business are exposed (and they will be exposed if it goes on for long enough)...and they can be utterly ruthless in their pursuit of your business.
Large corporations are just as wasteful as the large governments that they've taken over for in so many industries like telecoms that used to be heavily regulated. There's no efficiency added in this transition, just a new social model.
All economic theory and evidence (including recently) to the contrary? The market always adds efficiency because inefficient producers are weeded out in an economic game of survival of the fittest. Now, in practice the government has to step in, just like the referee in other games, and enforce penalties against those who break the rules, but in general competition is the rule of the day and most people are better of with the market than they would be without it. Economics is not just a social model it is the scientific study of scarcity and how humans respond to it in the real world. If capitalism is just another social model then why is the standard of living and national income so much higher in the United States than it is in Cuba for example? Would you prefer to live in Cuba? I didn't think so.
Take the US telecoms market for example. Does anyone honestly think they're trying to control costs. If so, then why is the US so pathetic in comparison to the global market.
Bad example but even they are trying to control costs. The major reason why they are not more aggressive in doing so is that the over-regulation of the telecommunications industry here in the United States (it is not as bad as it used to be under Ma Bell, but it is still fairly bad) produces fat and lazy companies who are not as lean as they would be in a more competitive market. The problem is not with large businesses, but rather in the failure of the government to more actively break up cartels and interfere less in the telecommunications market. There are some telecommunications firms in other countries that are run by the government and may be offering more and better quality services, but it is almost certainly the case that those people are overpaying for those services (if not in the direct form of fees for use then in the form of higher taxes...there is no free lunch after all). You may have no problem with forcing other people with more wealth than average to subsidize your broadband service with taxes, but that is entirely different discussion.
What big businesses do is not to cut costs at every corner. No, what they do is whatever is best for the business ecosystem that they are a part of.
Are you sure? If Spacely's Sprockets can sell the same or more widgets than Cogswells Cogs, because they are more efficient or cut costs more aggressively where they can then Spacely can either be more profitable than Cogswell or they can acquire enough captial over time, from increased profits, to buy out Cogswell (after lower his value in a brutal price war) for pennies on the dollar after driving his inefficient firm into bankruptcy. There may sometimes be some cartel activities (where businesses collude to divide up a market as you suggest) but they are probably more
Make costs up if you have to.
.NET for new projects where it can be easier for them to hire experienced .NET developers instead of more LAMP developers. The best case scenario is probably to use *both* .NET and LAMP and let the circumstances of each project and the business decide what is best. The practice of issuing company wide mandates without basis in logical argumentation and research never ceases to amaze me wherever I see it.
.NET developer and that I have a certain fondness for the .NET Framework and Visual Studio products (yes, yes, I know that Java had a lot of this stuff before .NET, but Anders Hejlsberg of Delphi fame really produced a very good language and platform with .NET, so once again Microsoft didn't invent it but they did perfect it in three (3) versions...they usually, but not always, get things mostly right by version 3). The developer tools is one area where Microsoft really does get it mostly right and even though the developer tools market doesn't make them a lot of money directly, in fact it is probably the smallest market that Microsoft is directly involved in, it is a huge factor in the continuing Windows hegemony (developer mindshare).
.NET fanboy and in the case of the original poster, continuation with LAMP may be the right choice, but if it is the right choice then it should be able to stand on its own merits. It is very bad form to fake data or make up stories in an attempt to "scare" management into making the right choice.
Does this strike anyone else as just a wee bit unethical? Seriously though, if you want to defend the LAMP part of the business then you should concentrate on making the business case for continued use of LAMP. It may be the case, for example that existing and new projects in your department can continue using LAMP and that management only wants to use
Note: In the interest of fairness I should probably point out that I am a
All of this being said I would not characterize myself as a
Do they have friggen laser beams attached to their briefcases?
Perhaps then it would be more productive for people like yourself to lobby the companies that make these products for Linux versions of the popular tools that you use and enjoy. Tell them that you want a Linux version and even more importantly, tell them how much you would be willing to pay for it if they produce one. If they get enough interest from the user community (pre-orders would help with this since money talks) then there will be a Linux version, but you have to make the business case to these companies if you want them to offer the Linux version.
For many, they don't even think it's illegal to download. After all, plenty of ISP ads are along the line: download music and movies at blazing speeds!
And then they get their "settlement" letter from the MAFIAA or rather you do (since your sister was using your network when she was downloading that music and sharing it all too because she doesn't know or care what a shared folder is).
If this is true, it can be used to impeach the credibility of any witness
Perhaps, but if there is any corroborating evidence then it really doesn't matter much whether the motives of the witness were questionable or not (that is why the Feds use informants who are obviously getting something out of testifying...because it doesn't matter in the face of corroborating evidence). Also, remember that the law that is being invoked here by the studios is a new one that makes it a crime to bring a recording device into the theater regardless of whether or not you used it to record anything or even intended to. This is another DMCA style law which has no safe harbors and makes (or tries to) the act which it is punishing unlawful no matter what the extenuating circumstances are or were. It might be possible to argue that the law is unconstitutional because it has no relation to whether copyright was actually infringed (meaning that they can only ask you to leave the theater or have the police remove you for breaking "the rules" on their private property, but not the law). However, who has the money and the time to fight that one out in court?