Apple sold over 11 million iPads last quarter, during which they made well over US$6B in profit. Apple has the best and cheapest supply chain in the business, which other manufacturers are trying to match. Apple isn't making 40% margin off of a product with parts cost of $326 while selling retail at $499. That leaves no room for any other part of the chain to make any money.
HP, AMD, and Nokia all seem to be suffering from the same illness. High CEO turnover with each CEO looking to make ends meet. If Ballmer gets fired, I'll expect MS to catch it and be in the tank in ten years. Not that I like Ballmer or that I think he's doing a good job. At least he's a long-term CEO that is keeping the giant profitable.
Americans overall are wildly in debt and have virtually no savings. It sounds like runaway inflation would be a good thing for them, causing them to make money off of the deal.
At the beginning of the 20th century debt was equally divided between federal and state and local debt, totaling less than 20 percent of GDP. After World War I, the federal debt surged to 35% of GDP. But by the mid 1920s federal debt had declined to below 20 percent of GDP with state and local debt rising to 16 percent of GDP. Then came the Great Depression, and President Roosevelt decided to spend his way out of trouble, boosting federal debt to 40 percent of GDP. So did the local governments, with state debt peaking at over 5 percent of GDP in 1933 and local debt peaking at over 28 percent in 1933. Government debt, including federal and state and local debt rose to 70 percent of GDP. But it was World War II that really entered new territory. After the end of the war in 1946 federal debt stood at almost 122 percent of GDP, with state and local debt adding another 7 percent. For the next 35 years successive governments brought down the debt, but then came President Reagan. He increased the federal debt up over 50 percent of GDP to win the Cold War. President Bush increased the debt to fight a war on terror and bail out the banks. President Obama is increasing the debt to fund a plan to revive the economy in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008.
The real risk from government debt is the burden of interest payments. Experts say that when interest payments reach about 12% of GDP then a government will likely default on its debt. Chart 5 shows that the US is a long way from that risk. The peak period for government interest payments, including federal, state, and local governments, was in the 1980s, when interest rates were still high after the inflationary 1970s. Of course, the numbers don’t show the burden of interest payments from Government Sponsored Enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. -- United States Debt and Deficit History
Reading the entire analysis, including the pages on U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP, was very interesting.
Protectionism WRT labor practices. Manufactured goods which don't follow US labor and safety regulations need to be taxed to bring their cost up to the projected cost with those labor practices in place.
This brings up something that I've been thinking about for a couple of years -- I'd like like a very light enclosed trike or quad that is both human and electric powered. Pedaling should charge the battery, not power the wheels directly. Does anyone know of anything like this on the market?
I don't think people would like windows updates or new linux kernels coming out every quarter just to hack around the latest chips and using the model to know how to perform. It's just not reasonable to ask for that.
I was actually under the impression that's exactly how it worked right now.
I Google natural language all the time, and Google almost always returns an appropriate response. Since all voice recognition for Android goes through Google's servers, how hard will it be for Google to implement this?
That first bullet sure looks like "set up reminders/appointments." I don't see "social networks" (given that this is iOS5, I assume you're talking about Twitter), but that could be under "more." Or ask the dev to add it.
So you're saying that this clueless user went through the trouble of setting up a mouse for a left-handed user (mirrored, different than just shifting it to your left hand), but doesn't know what the buttons are for?
You script this once and you're done forever. What's so difficult about that?
Here's some steps for you -- create a recovery partition on a target machine. Install grub, busybox, and a couple other tools. Script a curses interface which either takes a copy of the remaining disk and compresses it or which uses the compresses image for restoration. You're done.
That was the solution for Windows. If you were doing Linux installs, I'd recommend a simple preseed.
That's got nothing to do with the patent. Apple's App Store doesn't allow in-app purchases. The Kindle app can either follow the rules or be removed from the store.
I've been beating this drum for two years (since Buzz). Google just needs to be friendly and invite all the other webmail businesses that are being marginalized by Facebook to the party and let everyone play nice together. Instantly more users than Facebook.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple sold over 11 million iPads last quarter, during which they made well over US$6B in profit. Apple has the best and cheapest supply chain in the business, which other manufacturers are trying to match. Apple isn't making 40% margin off of a product with parts cost of $326 while selling retail at $499. That leaves no room for any other part of the chain to make any money.
HP, AMD, and Nokia all seem to be suffering from the same illness. High CEO turnover with each CEO looking to make ends meet. If Ballmer gets fired, I'll expect MS to catch it and be in the tank in ten years. Not that I like Ballmer or that I think he's doing a good job. At least he's a long-term CEO that is keeping the giant profitable.
Americans overall are wildly in debt and have virtually no savings. It sounds like runaway inflation would be a good thing for them, causing them to make money off of the deal.
At the beginning of the 20th century debt was equally divided between federal and state and local debt, totaling less than 20 percent of GDP. After World War I, the federal debt surged to 35% of GDP. But by the mid 1920s federal debt had declined to below 20 percent of GDP with state and local debt rising to 16 percent of GDP. Then came the Great Depression, and President Roosevelt decided to spend his way out of trouble, boosting federal debt to 40 percent of GDP. So did the local governments, with state debt peaking at over 5 percent of GDP in 1933 and local debt peaking at over 28 percent in 1933. Government debt, including federal and state and local debt rose to 70 percent of GDP. But it was World War II that really entered new territory. After the end of the war in 1946 federal debt stood at almost 122 percent of GDP, with state and local debt adding another 7 percent. For the next 35 years successive governments brought down the debt, but then came President Reagan. He increased the federal debt up over 50 percent of GDP to win the Cold War. President Bush increased the debt to fight a war on terror and bail out the banks. President Obama is increasing the debt to fund a plan to revive the economy in the aftermath of the Crash of 2008.
The real risk from government debt is the burden of interest payments. Experts say that when interest payments reach about 12% of GDP then a government will likely default on its debt. Chart 5 shows that the US is a long way from that risk. The peak period for government interest payments, including federal, state, and local governments, was in the 1980s, when interest rates were still high after the inflationary 1970s. Of course, the numbers don’t show the burden of interest payments from Government Sponsored Enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. -- United States Debt and Deficit History
Reading the entire analysis, including the pages on U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP, was very interesting.
Protectionism WRT labor practices. Manufactured goods which don't follow US labor and safety regulations need to be taxed to bring their cost up to the projected cost with those labor practices in place.
Do you mean room temperature superconductors?
This brings up something that I've been thinking about for a couple of years -- I'd like like a very light enclosed trike or quad that is both human and electric powered. Pedaling should charge the battery, not power the wheels directly. Does anyone know of anything like this on the market?
I don't think people would like windows updates or new linux kernels coming out every quarter just to hack around the latest chips and using the model to know how to perform. It's just not reasonable to ask for that.
I was actually under the impression that's exactly how it worked right now.
Wow. That's a terrible analogy. Intel eventually gave up on the PIV architecture and went back to PIII, which is what birthed the Core line.
Hopefully this makes it into the kernel really soon now.
I see your sense of humor is intact.
I Google natural language all the time, and Google almost always returns an appropriate response. Since all voice recognition for Android goes through Google's servers, how hard will it be for Google to implement this?
looks like Eliza with some Easter eggs to me.
Appropriate user name.
From the dev's description:
Control your phone through speech commands.
Talk to your android. Ask it to:
* Set alarms and reminders
* Send text messages and email
* Voicedial your contacts
* Listen to music and poems
* Get news, facts and translations
* Search images, videos, apps and places
and much more
just by using your voice!
Uses Googles PHENOMENAL Speech Recognition
That first bullet sure looks like "set up reminders/appointments." I don't see "social networks" (given that this is iOS5, I assume you're talking about Twitter), but that could be under "more." Or ask the dev to add it.
Reframing the discussion at every turn doesn't make you right. It just paints you into a corner.
doccus's user, not yours.
So you're saying that this clueless user went through the trouble of setting up a mouse for a left-handed user (mirrored, different than just shifting it to your left hand), but doesn't know what the buttons are for?
I'm left handed, and that doesn't reverse directions for me. Left is still left. Right is still right. Otherwise I'd be right handed.
But this is not for the masses. It's for a white-box vendor who presumably (hopefully) knows a little about computers.
You script this once and you're done forever. What's so difficult about that?
Here's some steps for you -- create a recovery partition on a target machine. Install grub, busybox, and a couple other tools. Script a curses interface which either takes a copy of the remaining disk and compresses it or which uses the compresses image for restoration. You're done.
That was the solution for Windows. If you were doing Linux installs, I'd recommend a simple preseed.
That's got nothing to do with the patent. Apple's App Store doesn't allow in-app purchases. The Kindle app can either follow the rules or be removed from the store.
I've been beating this drum for two years (since Buzz). Google just needs to be friendly and invite all the other webmail businesses that are being marginalized by Facebook to the party and let everyone play nice together. Instantly more users than Facebook.
This would be good for OS notifications with a link back to the actual page, but not much else.
Thank you!