Your 'real Republicans' died out when the Boomers came of age - we've had spend-happy corporate whores running the country for the last 20+ years.
Not died out, gone out of fashion, and fashions change. Similar story with the Democrats, except they've been at it for 40+ years. Hey, the French are coming around. The Democrats can rediscover John F Kennedy's arguments that lower tax rates can spur growth and generate greater tax revenues. Higher tax rates are about bureaucratic inertia, control, and societal engineering. Given Kennedy's position on federal funding of education these traits are not core Democratic values.
No they weren't. I hope you are not spreading that tired old, and completly disproved, myth that the US was founded Christians? or on "Christian Values"?
Huh? The founding fathers were predominantly Christians in their private and public lives. Judeo-Christian values were at the core and often demonstrated at "federal" and state levels of government. What they did disprove of was government favoring any particular church or religion. Therefore they wrote in a very neutral manner, such as "... the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them...". On a personal level their doubts had more to do with churches, not the Judeo-Christian god.
Has anyone seen his "reality" show? My wife loves it, but I can't stand it because it's all about him trying to sell Kiss' collective souls for as much profit as possible. The guy seems like he cares much more about making money than enjoying life. He comes off as loving money more than his family.
You seem quite confused. You quote "reality" suggesting that reality shows do not offer reality, yet you use the contrived and highly formulated and edited show as a basis for your judgement of a human being?
I would not look to him for advice on what a good compromise in a new market economy is when it comes to digital distribution.
If he is such a businessman and really knows how to sell things, one who has succeed in the 1970s and continues to do so today, doesn't that make him well qualified to help create a new *business* model?
Don't confuse a new technology, a new distribution mechanism, with a new business model. It will most likely remain necessary to heavily promote new artists to bring them to the attention of the mass market. This means investors with deep pockets willing to fail 90% of the time, investors who will need to make massive profits off of that 10% to pay for the other 90%. The level playing field based upon community ranking will not work. There will be enough artists who want that massive world wide success and will sign the deal with the "devil" who will get the marketing machine rolling, and it will succeed as it always does.
Radiohead and Reznor have more creativity in their little fingers than Simmons ever had.
Musical creativity does not indicate business sense. I believe that Simmons has adequately demonstrated that he does have far greater business sense. I wouldn't dismiss his insight so quickly, we are discussing a new business model.
Radiohead and Reznor have deviated from conventional rock mediocrity and at least been creative. Kiss just upset parents in the 70's and sang the music that now appears on MOR stations everywhere.
And your children/grandchildren will be saying that Radiohead and Reznor just upset parents in the 90s and merely appear on the oldies stations nowadays. Musicians sell rebellion to youth, they engage in the outrageous to establish credibility. The bar gets moved up and their antics become quaint in a couple of generations. Sorry, but Reznor will join Elvis and the Beatles in this regard. I'm not sure he will have their longevity though, he may be too closely tied with the culture of the 90s.
I would hesitate to look at Gene Simmons for any kind of intelligent statement on anything.
I never liked KISS.
That is a fairly ignorant statement, personal opinions regarding his music prove nothing. If anything, a quick investigation of his career should demonstrate that he is highly intelligent and highly successful in areas of business.
Besides, doesn't the evidence prove him correct? Bands that were incredibly well known and highly regarded, thanks to the promotion of those evil record companies executing that old business model, chocked while experimenting with a new business model. What do you think will happen to new and unknown bands? Face it, artists have always needed sponsors, the royalty and churches in the past, the record companies in more recent times. Support directly from fans yields merely subsistence in the optimistic scenarios.
In Europe liberal does not mean anti-government, and it is nowhere near libertarian.
In the US liberal does not mean libertairan either. Liberal in the US would be something more towards socialist.
I believe, is that in the US the matter of the economy is already settling - capitalism is the only force people will tolerate, so the choice between parties lies on social issues.
That is not true, economic issues are also of great important to US voters. Also, capitalism is not a force that is tolerated, it is considered a decision making process that we believe is more efficient than central government planning and an efficient way of rewarding risk taking and demonstrating initiative. Government is the force that is tolerated, and government does excerpt force upon both individuals and corporations. This includes some socialist concepts.
let's throw out the existing governmental system, you know the one that is bought and paid for by the corporations, or anyone with the cash on hand to do so and replace it with SOMETHING THAT FREAKING WORKS
Actually our "wise" elected leaders do not pander merely to money, they pander to those without money just as well when the contribution-challenged represent a likely voting block. I'm about to use the "R' word, please try to keep your emotions in check and read the entire comment before firing off a flaming response. Thanks.;-)
Republicans, the real one - not the one's running the show today, prefer a smaller federal government due to legislation like this. It is not that they do not believe that government has some responsibility towards educations. It is that they believe that many things are better handled by more local government - state, county, city, school board - where we have more of a say in things. In other words local control rather than distant control from Washington, DC. If you take federal money you better damn well expect that there will be federal strings attached.
Democrats, the real one - not the one's running the show today, used to agree on that last point about federal strings. John F Kennedy, during the 1960 presidential debate, was against federal support of public schools for this reason. He argued that if the federal government helps it should be with one time costs, like construction of a school, and not with ongoing costs such as salary, books, etc. He warned that the later will invariable come with strings. As the US election season gets going keep an eye open for the 1960 Nixon/Kennedy debate on those political cable channel, or check youtube. It is awesome. Two intelligent candidates intelligently and substantively debating issues. We haven't seen that in a while, and it doesn't seem like we'll being seeing that any time soon either.
Actually this theme reminds me of the old Gordon Dickson "Dorsai" novels, where countermeasures were so sophisticated that people went to "spring rifles" because they were hard to jam. I remember thinking that was a great convergence of complexity and simplicity.
OK, it's been many years since I read those but I thought they were spring rifles in that the projectile was a spring. Not that they were spring powered like some BB guns?
And I remember my father telling me about how WWII German technology was unbeatable by anything except their own sophistication.
Actually that was the exception not the norm. Much German tech was so good we and the Russian appropriated it for decades Some of it is still in service, IIRC the M-60 receiver. My favorite anecdote went something like this. A PFC guarding prisoners asks an arrogant looking officer why if they are such supermen they are prisoners. The German officers replies that he commanded an 88mm antitank gun and that every time an American tank came down the road they knocked it out. He continued, eventually we ran out of ammunition and the Americans did not run out of tanks. I think this is closer to the truth.
I consider it rather dishonorable to ask people to buy your crap out of feelings of national pride when you can't be bothered to make products that are as good as the competition.
I agree. I am not suggesting that one buy solely on a nationalistic basis. What I am arguing is that local products and services should be one important factor. Recall that the complaint in my original post was "our consideration of virtually nothing beyond price".
I don't remember as well, but I imagine Japanese consumer electronics, particularly TVs, were better in many ways than their American counterparts during the time they were in competition.
Your US auto industry example is fine, in that area there was a quality gap. While much of the blame goes to the corporations the unions deserve some responsibility as well. However with respect to consumer electronics it is not that simple. Unlike the auto industry, the switch to Japanese electronics began while Japanese products were low quality and low price.
I realize that you are merely repeating a popular but false meme, so please do not think I'm being harsh with you personally.... Remember one thing: consumers are the end of the supply and manufacturing chain. Products don't appear out of thin air, even simple items are the result of a long succession of manufacturing processes.
Your argument fails quite simply. Yes, the consumer is at the end of the supply chain but the consumer drives the demand. Again, corporations do not move in lock step. When that first corporation outsourced manufacturing or that first distributor replaced domestic suppliers with overseas suppliers the US consumer *rewarded* them. Darwin takes over and other corporation follow. To use my Home Depot screwdriver example, the screwdrivers at the local hardware stores did not go from domestic to foreign overnight. It was a gradual process. Despite being at the end of the supply chain the consumer controlled the process by choosing the cheaper screwdriver over the domestic screwdriver.
What you're trying to say is "vote with your wallet." We are decades past that having any effect and I'll tell you why.... Many years ago, the Japanese deliberately used predatory pricing (i.e. dumping) to attack domestic manufacturers of a wide array of electronic components.... From the consumer's perspective, none of this was remotely obvious until suddenly the old, familiar "Made in the U.S.A" label became hard to find. By the time that happened, the domestic manufacturers were long gone.
While your historical account is true, it does not contradict my argument that the consumer is largely to blame, not the corporations or government. However your argument that the consumer suddenly found domestic products difficult to find is mistaken. The domestic electronics industry did not fall overnight, it was a gradual process. I grew up in a town that had a assorted factories, including an apparel manufacturer. The next town over had a factory assembling TVs. I recall the "Save a Job, Buy American" billboards and bumper stickers. Too many consumers ignored such warnings, it was a classic tragedy of the commons example.
Can this be reversed?
Note the Japanese auto industry. While quotas may have originally motivated relocating assembly and some manufacturing to the US, they are now finding that domestic factories are also an important marketing tool. Consumers still have some input. It is also interesting to note that some Chinese firms have opened factories in eastern Europe as part of the tail end of the supply chain for EU markets. If government fails to act perhaps the falling dollar will inspire the Chinese to do some foreign direct investment in the US.
American businesses that outsource to China are no better than spies and traitors themselves.
I realize you are merely repeating a popular but false meme so please do not think I am being harsh with you personally, it's the meme that I am being harsh with.
The notion that corporations are to blame for outsourcing to China is beyond naive. We the consumers, not the corporation are to blame! We have essentially forced corporations to outsource by our consideration of virtually nothing beyond price. Business is a Darwinian process. That first corporation that experimented with outsourcing was *rewarded* by consumers rather than punished. Corporations had little choice, jump on the outsourcing bandwagon or go out of business.
If you do not like outsourcing look at the labeling on packaging. Sometimes this requires a little extra effort. I needed a set of screwdrivers and in the regular tools section everything at the local Home Depot was an import. I accidentally found some manufactured in the USA elsewhere in a "professional tools" section. Maybe its not too late.
And most of the time, you'll spend this time wrapping up your work. It's HIGHLY unusual to be suspended immediately - usually only if you stole company goods or something like that.
When i've switched jobs, i always spent the time productively, completing documentation, instructing my follow-up, etc. pp.
American working culture always looks very strange to me:)
It all depends on your relationship with your boss. Once when I was laid off I had about two months to wrap things up as your describe. I asked our VP if I could take a copy of code I worked on alone as reference to answer any questions someone may have after I'm gone. I signed a new non-disclosure, he gave me a letter authorizing me to have a copy of my former employer's code for this purpose.
Recently I told my boss I was planning on leaving in a couple of months. He took me off of the regularly team tasks and let me implement a couple of things that had been on our wish list for years. Two week prior to my departure I turned in the official resignation and he started the HR process.
You think Bin Laden and Mullah Muhammed Omar are dumb enough to be googling "Bomb" no they're using trusted couriers and decentralized structures that don't rely on the use of easily traced e-mails.
No, but their couriers may be dumb enough to have done so in the past, or that kid googling today will grow up to be a courier. Analyzing networks of connections, many of them perfectly legal and harmless, has been an effective way to detect cutouts and others insulating high ranking criminals. It will work for terrorist cells too.
there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 million cellphone users in the US. So, 1.4 million is a lot of sales - but compared to the total market, it's not very impressive.
That is a pretty naive interpretation. You are comparing one model from one manufacturer against all other models from all other manufacturers. You are comparing a phone that was sold for $400 to $600 against phones that were essentially given away for free in most cases. You are comparing a phone that has been around for months with phones that have been around for years. You are also ignoring the disparity in functionality between the phones. The Motorola Razr was $500 when it first came out, you didn't see many at the time, you think Motorola sold 1.4 million at that price? 1.5 years ago I got one for $50, they are common now. The iPod classic was $400 to $500 when it first came out, now they are $250. What do you think will happen when an iPhone model gets to that $250 point? When cell phone plans include a subsidized iPhone as they do with all other phones?
Be generous to the Razr, assume 10% of the market and $50 rather than free, count all iPhones as $400.
Razr: 18 million * $50 = $900 million
iPhone: 1.4 million * $400 = $560 million
So $900 (generous) over years vs $560 (understated) over months, care to alter your appraisal?;-)
The numbers say to me "the iPhone has been widely adopted by the trendwhores, but not by the general public".
You may not want to be accusing others of making ill-informed emotional decisions.
i don't understand how people can be upset about content that is effectively unlocked from the game unless you go out of your way to unlock it.
If they are Take-Two shareholder I can see them being upset. Returns, replacements, refunds, lawsuits,... Hot Coffee was a risk that shareholders had a right to know about and the lack of disclosure did warrant government investigation from the SEC. The rules are different when you are a public company. You want to take chances, do it with your own money not with uninformed shareholder's.
The rest was just political posturing, soundbites and quotes "proving" politicians want to "save the children".
I doubt it will be laptop/notebook sized. Three times the iPhone, 1440x960, 10.5". Something that complements a computer, not something that replaced it. More like a smart clipboard/notepad you carry and occasionally dock with your computer.
And... ummm.. Where exactly is the appeal in the TabletPC?
Geeks read Ender's Game and they want one. Lesser geeks watch a modern Star Trek and want one of the handheld pads.
PC/Vista sales are fine, Japan is problem
on
The Dying PC Market
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Their projections to Wall Street probably included a spike that hasn't happened.
Actually the US PC industry has been kicking as with respect to wall street expectations.
Microsoft beat expectations, including very good Vista sales, and broke through a five year ceiling of $30 and climbed to $37 last week after announcing earnings.
For the last three years HP has had a steady climb from $20 to $50. Analysts love their PC business.
For the last year and a half Intel has climbed from $17 to $27 as the Core architecture plugged the hole created by the Pentium 4 and that had let AMD gain market share. Analysts are in love with Intel again.
Dell is crawling out of a hole it fell into last years, analysts are starting to show interest in them again.
The problem is the Japanese economy. Last week they announced that unemployment had gotten worse. Sales are nearly flat year over year, industrial output down, exports to the US are down, exports to China are slowing, etc. Toyota stock has been going downhill all year, $138 to #113.
"Google is *NOT* a search company, they are an advertising company."
Just like NBC, the NY Times, and radio stations.
Got it.
The NY Times is free where you live? We have to pay for it around here.
Television and radio is certainly about advertising but they pale with respect to google. TV and radio are somewhat distracted (news, public service) due to governmental mandates in exchange for use of public airways, but more importantly they merely deliver general non-personalized advertising. Google is far more involved in the advertising business in that they collect data on the interests and activities of individuals and use this data to sell targeted advertising information to 3rd parties. Goggle does a lot more than just add a few ads to your search results, they help determine what banner ads you see on thousands of 3rd party websites as your browse.
it is usefult to remember what was at the beginning. and at the beginning of google was the search algorithm...
Using your logic we should then describe Microsoft as a vendor of the BASIC programming language.
... google still sells search algorithm with no ads...
Those searches are still part of the advertising business since they are collecting data to profile a user. Advertising is at the center of every google activity, search, maps, email, etc.
... google started as and still is a search company. and search is still a major focus for them.
No, the google academic project may have been about search, but the company was about something else or it would never have attracted that $1+ million initial investment. That something else was advertising. In 2005 and 2006 99% of google's revenue was advertising revenue, 1% was licensing and other activities.
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He is an excellent businessman, but a lousy artist.
My point is that artistic talent is irrelevant when developing a new business mode, therefore as an excellent businessman he better qualified.
Your 'real Republicans' died out when the Boomers came of age - we've had spend-happy corporate whores running the country for the last 20+ years.
Not died out, gone out of fashion, and fashions change. Similar story with the Democrats, except they've been at it for 40+ years. Hey, the French are coming around. The Democrats can rediscover John F Kennedy's arguments that lower tax rates can spur growth and generate greater tax revenues. Higher tax rates are about bureaucratic inertia, control, and societal engineering. Given Kennedy's position on federal funding of education these traits are not core Democratic values.
No they weren't. I hope you are not spreading that tired old, and completly disproved, myth that the US was founded Christians? or on "Christian Values"?
...". On a personal level their doubts had more to do with churches, not the Judeo-Christian god.
Huh? The founding fathers were predominantly Christians in their private and public lives. Judeo-Christian values were at the core and often demonstrated at "federal" and state levels of government. What they did disprove of was government favoring any particular church or religion. Therefore they wrote in a very neutral manner, such as "... the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them
Has anyone seen his "reality" show? My wife loves it, but I can't stand it because it's all about him trying to sell Kiss' collective souls for as much profit as possible. The guy seems like he cares much more about making money than enjoying life. He comes off as loving money more than his family.
You seem quite confused. You quote "reality" suggesting that reality shows do not offer reality, yet you use the contrived and highly formulated and edited show as a basis for your judgement of a human being?
I would not look to him for advice on what a good compromise in a new market economy is when it comes to digital distribution.
If he is such a businessman and really knows how to sell things, one who has succeed in the 1970s and continues to do so today, doesn't that make him well qualified to help create a new *business* model?
Don't confuse a new technology, a new distribution mechanism, with a new business model. It will most likely remain necessary to heavily promote new artists to bring them to the attention of the mass market. This means investors with deep pockets willing to fail 90% of the time, investors who will need to make massive profits off of that 10% to pay for the other 90%. The level playing field based upon community ranking will not work. There will be enough artists who want that massive world wide success and will sign the deal with the "devil" who will get the marketing machine rolling, and it will succeed as it always does.
Radiohead and Reznor have more creativity in their little fingers than Simmons ever had.
Musical creativity does not indicate business sense. I believe that Simmons has adequately demonstrated that he does have far greater business sense. I wouldn't dismiss his insight so quickly, we are discussing a new business model.
Radiohead and Reznor have deviated from conventional rock mediocrity and at least been creative. Kiss just upset parents in the 70's and sang the music that now appears on MOR stations everywhere.
And your children/grandchildren will be saying that Radiohead and Reznor just upset parents in the 90s and merely appear on the oldies stations nowadays. Musicians sell rebellion to youth, they engage in the outrageous to establish credibility. The bar gets moved up and their antics become quaint in a couple of generations. Sorry, but Reznor will join Elvis and the Beatles in this regard. I'm not sure he will have their longevity though, he may be too closely tied with the culture of the 90s.
I would hesitate to look at Gene Simmons for any kind of intelligent statement on anything. I never liked KISS.
That is a fairly ignorant statement, personal opinions regarding his music prove nothing. If anything, a quick investigation of his career should demonstrate that he is highly intelligent and highly successful in areas of business.
Besides, doesn't the evidence prove him correct? Bands that were incredibly well known and highly regarded, thanks to the promotion of those evil record companies executing that old business model, chocked while experimenting with a new business model. What do you think will happen to new and unknown bands? Face it, artists have always needed sponsors, the royalty and churches in the past, the record companies in more recent times. Support directly from fans yields merely subsistence in the optimistic scenarios.
In Europe liberal does not mean anti-government, and it is nowhere near libertarian.
In the US liberal does not mean libertairan either. Liberal in the US would be something more towards socialist.
I believe, is that in the US the matter of the economy is already settling - capitalism is the only force people will tolerate, so the choice between parties lies on social issues.
That is not true, economic issues are also of great important to US voters. Also, capitalism is not a force that is tolerated, it is considered a decision making process that we believe is more efficient than central government planning and an efficient way of rewarding risk taking and demonstrating initiative. Government is the force that is tolerated, and government does excerpt force upon both individuals and corporations. This includes some socialist concepts.
let's throw out the existing governmental system, you know the one that is bought and paid for by the corporations, or anyone with the cash on hand to do so and replace it with SOMETHING THAT FREAKING WORKS
;-)
Republicans, the real one - not the one's running the show today, prefer a smaller federal government due to legislation like this. It is not that they do not believe that government has some responsibility towards educations. It is that they believe that many things are better handled by more local government - state, county, city, school board - where we have more of a say in things. In other words local control rather than distant control from Washington, DC. If you take federal money you better damn well expect that there will be federal strings attached.
Actually our "wise" elected leaders do not pander merely to money, they pander to those without money just as well when the contribution-challenged represent a likely voting block. I'm about to use the "R' word, please try to keep your emotions in check and read the entire comment before firing off a flaming response. Thanks.
Democrats, the real one - not the one's running the show today, used to agree on that last point about federal strings. John F Kennedy, during the 1960 presidential debate, was against federal support of public schools for this reason. He argued that if the federal government helps it should be with one time costs, like construction of a school, and not with ongoing costs such as salary, books, etc. He warned that the later will invariable come with strings. As the US election season gets going keep an eye open for the 1960 Nixon/Kennedy debate on those political cable channel, or check youtube. It is awesome. Two intelligent candidates intelligently and substantively debating issues. We haven't seen that in a while, and it doesn't seem like we'll being seeing that any time soon either.
Actually this theme reminds me of the old Gordon Dickson "Dorsai" novels, where countermeasures were so sophisticated that people went to "spring rifles" because they were hard to jam. I remember thinking that was a great convergence of complexity and simplicity.
OK, it's been many years since I read those but I thought they were spring rifles in that the projectile was a spring. Not that they were spring powered like some BB guns?
And I remember my father telling me about how WWII German technology was unbeatable by anything except their own sophistication.
Actually that was the exception not the norm. Much German tech was so good we and the Russian appropriated it for decades Some of it is still in service, IIRC the M-60 receiver. My favorite anecdote went something like this. A PFC guarding prisoners asks an arrogant looking officer why if they are such supermen they are prisoners. The German officers replies that he commanded an 88mm antitank gun and that every time an American tank came down the road they knocked it out. He continued, eventually we ran out of ammunition and the Americans did not run out of tanks. I think this is closer to the truth.
I consider it rather dishonorable to ask people to buy your crap out of feelings of national pride when you can't be bothered to make products that are as good as the competition.
I agree. I am not suggesting that one buy solely on a nationalistic basis. What I am arguing is that local products and services should be one important factor. Recall that the complaint in my original post was "our consideration of virtually nothing beyond price".
I don't remember as well, but I imagine Japanese consumer electronics, particularly TVs, were better in many ways than their American counterparts during the time they were in competition.
Your US auto industry example is fine, in that area there was a quality gap. While much of the blame goes to the corporations the unions deserve some responsibility as well. However with respect to consumer electronics it is not that simple. Unlike the auto industry, the switch to Japanese electronics began while Japanese products were low quality and low price.
I realize that you are merely repeating a popular but false meme, so please do not think I'm being harsh with you personally. ... Remember one thing: consumers are the end of the supply and manufacturing chain. Products don't appear out of thin air, even simple items are the result of a long succession of manufacturing processes.
... Many years ago, the Japanese deliberately used predatory pricing (i.e. dumping) to attack domestic manufacturers of a wide array of electronic components. ... From the consumer's perspective, none of this was remotely obvious until suddenly the old, familiar "Made in the U.S.A" label became hard to find. By the time that happened, the domestic manufacturers were long gone.
Your argument fails quite simply. Yes, the consumer is at the end of the supply chain but the consumer drives the demand. Again, corporations do not move in lock step. When that first corporation outsourced manufacturing or that first distributor replaced domestic suppliers with overseas suppliers the US consumer *rewarded* them. Darwin takes over and other corporation follow. To use my Home Depot screwdriver example, the screwdrivers at the local hardware stores did not go from domestic to foreign overnight. It was a gradual process. Despite being at the end of the supply chain the consumer controlled the process by choosing the cheaper screwdriver over the domestic screwdriver.
What you're trying to say is "vote with your wallet." We are decades past that having any effect and I'll tell you why.
While your historical account is true, it does not contradict my argument that the consumer is largely to blame, not the corporations or government. However your argument that the consumer suddenly found domestic products difficult to find is mistaken. The domestic electronics industry did not fall overnight, it was a gradual process. I grew up in a town that had a assorted factories, including an apparel manufacturer. The next town over had a factory assembling TVs. I recall the "Save a Job, Buy American" billboards and bumper stickers. Too many consumers ignored such warnings, it was a classic tragedy of the commons example.
Can this be reversed?
Note the Japanese auto industry. While quotas may have originally motivated relocating assembly and some manufacturing to the US, they are now finding that domestic factories are also an important marketing tool. Consumers still have some input. It is also interesting to note that some Chinese firms have opened factories in eastern Europe as part of the tail end of the supply chain for EU markets. If government fails to act perhaps the falling dollar will inspire the Chinese to do some foreign direct investment in the US.
American businesses that outsource to China are no better than spies and traitors themselves.
I realize you are merely repeating a popular but false meme so please do not think I am being harsh with you personally, it's the meme that I am being harsh with.
The notion that corporations are to blame for outsourcing to China is beyond naive. We the consumers, not the corporation are to blame! We have essentially forced corporations to outsource by our consideration of virtually nothing beyond price. Business is a Darwinian process. That first corporation that experimented with outsourcing was *rewarded* by consumers rather than punished. Corporations had little choice, jump on the outsourcing bandwagon or go out of business.
If you do not like outsourcing look at the labeling on packaging. Sometimes this requires a little extra effort. I needed a set of screwdrivers and in the regular tools section everything at the local Home Depot was an import. I accidentally found some manufactured in the USA elsewhere in a "professional tools" section. Maybe its not too late.
And most of the time, you'll spend this time wrapping up your work. It's HIGHLY unusual to be suspended immediately - usually only if you stole company goods or something like that. When i've switched jobs, i always spent the time productively, completing documentation, instructing my follow-up, etc. pp. American working culture always looks very strange to me :)
It all depends on your relationship with your boss. Once when I was laid off I had about two months to wrap things up as your describe. I asked our VP if I could take a copy of code I worked on alone as reference to answer any questions someone may have after I'm gone. I signed a new non-disclosure, he gave me a letter authorizing me to have a copy of my former employer's code for this purpose.
Recently I told my boss I was planning on leaving in a couple of months. He took me off of the regularly team tasks and let me implement a couple of things that had been on our wish list for years. Two week prior to my departure I turned in the official resignation and he started the HR process.
Do they say how the data should be stored? Are printouts okay?
;-)
No, too many environmentalists in Germany.
You think Bin Laden and Mullah Muhammed Omar are dumb enough to be googling "Bomb" no they're using trusted couriers and decentralized structures that don't rely on the use of easily traced e-mails.
No, but their couriers may be dumb enough to have done so in the past, or that kid googling today will grow up to be a courier. Analyzing networks of connections, many of them perfectly legal and harmless, has been an effective way to detect cutouts and others insulating high ranking criminals. It will work for terrorist cells too.
In which areas is Russia unintentionally competitive exactly?
Spam comes to mind.
there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 180 million cellphone users in the US. So, 1.4 million is a lot of sales - but compared to the total market, it's not very impressive.
;-)
That is a pretty naive interpretation. You are comparing one model from one manufacturer against all other models from all other manufacturers. You are comparing a phone that was sold for $400 to $600 against phones that were essentially given away for free in most cases. You are comparing a phone that has been around for months with phones that have been around for years. You are also ignoring the disparity in functionality between the phones. The Motorola Razr was $500 when it first came out, you didn't see many at the time, you think Motorola sold 1.4 million at that price? 1.5 years ago I got one for $50, they are common now. The iPod classic was $400 to $500 when it first came out, now they are $250. What do you think will happen when an iPhone model gets to that $250 point? When cell phone plans include a subsidized iPhone as they do with all other phones?
Be generous to the Razr, assume 10% of the market and $50 rather than free, count all iPhones as $400.
Razr: 18 million * $50 = $900 million
iPhone: 1.4 million * $400 = $560 million
So $900 (generous) over years vs $560 (understated) over months, care to alter your appraisal?
The numbers say to me "the iPhone has been widely adopted by the trendwhores, but not by the general public".
You may not want to be accusing others of making ill-informed emotional decisions.
i don't understand how people can be upset about content that is effectively unlocked from the game unless you go out of your way to unlock it.
... Hot Coffee was a risk that shareholders had a right to know about and the lack of disclosure did warrant government investigation from the SEC. The rules are different when you are a public company. You want to take chances, do it with your own money not with uninformed shareholder's.
If they are Take-Two shareholder I can see them being upset. Returns, replacements, refunds, lawsuits,
The rest was just political posturing, soundbites and quotes "proving" politicians want to "save the children".
I'm not a fan of Apple and won't get an iPhone for myself, but people are buying those, right?
At last count 1.4 million bought at $400 or $600. And that is just the US.
I've been looking for a 14" or larger tablet
I doubt it will be laptop/notebook sized. Three times the iPhone, 1440x960, 10.5". Something that complements a computer, not something that replaced it. More like a smart clipboard/notepad you carry and occasionally dock with your computer.
And... ummm.. Where exactly is the appeal in the TabletPC?
Geeks read Ender's Game and they want one. Lesser geeks watch a modern Star Trek and want one of the handheld pads.
Their projections to Wall Street probably included a spike that hasn't happened.
Actually the US PC industry has been kicking as with respect to wall street expectations.
Microsoft beat expectations, including very good Vista sales, and broke through a five year ceiling of $30 and climbed to $37 last week after announcing earnings.
For the last three years HP has had a steady climb from $20 to $50. Analysts love their PC business.
For the last year and a half Intel has climbed from $17 to $27 as the Core architecture plugged the hole created by the Pentium 4 and that had let AMD gain market share. Analysts are in love with Intel again.
Dell is crawling out of a hole it fell into last years, analysts are starting to show interest in them again.
The problem is the Japanese economy. Last week they announced that unemployment had gotten worse. Sales are nearly flat year over year, industrial output down, exports to the US are down, exports to China are slowing, etc. Toyota stock has been going downhill all year, $138 to #113.
Having the armed guards supply their own weapons is actually reasonable. They are more likely to be familiar with them and thus more effective.
"Google is *NOT* a search company, they are an advertising company."
Just like NBC, the NY Times, and radio stations. Got it.
The NY Times is free where you live? We have to pay for it around here.
Television and radio is certainly about advertising but they pale with respect to google. TV and radio are somewhat distracted (news, public service) due to governmental mandates in exchange for use of public airways, but more importantly they merely deliver general non-personalized advertising. Google is far more involved in the advertising business in that they collect data on the interests and activities of individuals and use this data to sell targeted advertising information to 3rd parties. Goggle does a lot more than just add a few ads to your search results, they help determine what banner ads you see on thousands of 3rd party websites as your browse.
it is usefult to remember what was at the beginning. and at the beginning of google was the search algorithm ...
... google still sells search algorithm with no ads ...
... google started as and still is a search company. and search is still a major focus for them.
Using your logic we should then describe Microsoft as a vendor of the BASIC programming language.
Those searches are still part of the advertising business since they are collecting data to profile a user. Advertising is at the center of every google activity, search, maps, email, etc.
No, the google academic project may have been about search, but the company was about something else or it would never have attracted that $1+ million initial investment. That something else was advertising. In 2005 and 2006 99% of google's revenue was advertising revenue, 1% was licensing and other activities.