I live and work here in Waterloo, which is home to RIM. I know the mentality of the academics from the university, which is where RIM and other (not as major) tech companies have sprung from in the area.
The academics here keep talking about one example with fondness: the case of Qualcomm, where some smart PhDs developed some wonderful intellectual property (in their case cell phone communication protocols) and patented it. From then on they basically do no work, and collect royalties from anyone who uses the CDMA technology. This is what they hope to achieve, to strike it rich in tech.
This is what Waterloo people seem to aspire to: striking it rich with some intellectual property patent, then milking the world for royalties. It wouldn't surprise you to learn that this is also one of the most popular places in North America that Microsoft recruits from. This place is young; the university is very new, the industries around it are new. And there is a mentality here, where academics expect to get rich easily by riding the patent wave.
RIM tried to do the same thing. They are basically a one trick pony, and besides the blackberry they have nothing going for them.
YES and those people are employed in banks writing program trading systems, which gamble with other peoples' money and the government's money. The risk that this capital is exposed to is not what you want to expose your own money to (IMHO). Banks and funds use aggressive leveraged strategies that are far riskier than most people can handle. Again, the point is that they gamble with other peoples money but if you are a retail investor buying AAPL stock you are putting your own money at risk.
Yes, Apple does have amazing products. Lots of us (including develoers) are switching from Windows platforms to Mac... BUT if you were thinking of buying AAPL stock because of all this good news, I encourage you to think again.
Technical people, such as computer scientists and engineers are notoriously bad at stock trading. One of the main reasons is we fail to comprehend how the financial / stock world can fall way out of line with reality.
In the case of AAPL stock, the price has gone up 8x in just two years. In stock traders terms, AAPL and GOOG are definitely bubble stocks -- nobody is doubting that the companies are great, but the stocks have gotten out of hand. A high stock rise like this indicates extreme expectations of where the company will be in a couple years. However, it is highly unlikely that a company as old and large as AAPL can grow that fast.
Anyway, my point to this is that before you go and buy AAPL stock just because you think ipods are cool, consider that you are buying at a tremendously high price because a mountain of other people have already priced in very great expectations from the company. It is really unlikely that AAPL stock will make you a capital gain over the medium or long term; just beware that whenever you buy a stock, you should very closely monitor it (every week for sure) so that if it starts to fall, you exit without suffering too great a loss.
Either option at PayPal is dangerous. If you put it in the money market account, there is no insurance of any kind. If the money is not in money market (no interest) then there is pass-through FDIC insurance WHICH DOES NOT COVER FAILURE OF PAYPAL. ie the insurance is only in case the bank goes broke, not if PayPal/Ebay goes broke.
In either case, this is no comparison to the many fully FDIC insured high interest savings / CDs available. They will just as much interest without putting the money at any risk.
I looked through their financial reports and was disturbed to see that they are storing nearly $200k in a Paypal account.
Paypal is NOT a bank. There is tremendous risk in storing such large amounts of capital in Paypal, as the company could go broke or hiccup or otherwise wipe out the balance. Because Paypal is not a bank, AFAIK there is no insurance on deposits there (no FDIC insurance).
This is never a concern for us people storing a few hundred dollars there, but this is too much money to put at risk. For safety sake, Wikimedia should diversify and hold more cash in real, government insured bank accounts or bonds.
I'm not saying this because I think Paypal is a scam or anything, but the cash must be held somewhere safer and preferably where it earns interest. Wikimedia could easily negotiate high interest savings with a real bank and collect $8k or more a year from interest alone.
For some time, I have been closely tracking levels of mortgage/lending/credit spam received on several email accounts. I am doing this because I am interested in the lending business and hope to see levels of spam correlate with activity in the industry.
Anyway you can find my data here: http://www.perpetualbull.com/mortgage-spam/
Various regex are used to locate spams of this topic. Not 100% accurate but pretty good
$75 billion is nothing. Google's market cap is $122 billion. So when you're talking about the cost within the technology sector, the cost of this transition is not even as much as the worth of a single tech company.
That's funny but it is a valid question. These things always come with software, which you must install. Do you trust software written by Sony, given their history? I sure don't. Who knows what it might have embedded within it.
Yes some people definitely have, genetically, an intellectual advantage over others... but as I've grown older I have reluctantly acknowledged how other kinds of smarts -- notably, common sense and street smarts -- are really more important.
Let's say you're a genius, some child prodigy who's super at calculus or something.
Can you charm women and get laid?
Can you get along with strangers and keep a stable job?
Are you smart enough to stay out of trouble? Avoid fights, etc.
Are you smart enough to choose good friends?
Are you disciplined enough to manage our finances?
Are you street smart enough to protect your wealth from crooks?
Do you get regular exercise and stay in shape?
These are all things that are very important for a good quality of life, and you don't necessarily get 'em just because you are smrt.
Yes, I imagine there is more to the processor than just the Verilog described parts. It's not like you're going to be able to take this and build your own competing hardware -- plus, imagine all the lower level design involved in actually fabricating (like you said, gate level stuff, etc.). There is a lot of "etc" to this:)
Unlike open source software, with open source hardware you can not just take the source and re-create the product. What you can do, like open source software, is debug, simulate, test, take individual routines/components, and generally admire and be inspired by awesome engineering.
I really like what Sun is doing here. I've already circulated this article among the VLSI people at my university. What's nice about this approach is that Sun is not putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage by showing the schematics. They are facilitating the design of a lot of related hardware and software that will help grow demand for their architecture. They might even invite improvements (or optimizations).
Although I've tried all the distros, I have stuck with slackware over the years. A lot if comes down the lean basic installation and easy installation depending on what I have to get done.
Last year I was taking care of a student computer lab. We had a couple servers for remote use, some old computers suitable for networked dumb terminals using XDMCP, and a few powerful regular desktop computers.
The beauty of slackware is I can sit down at each of these computers and quickly get an appropriate installation working in each case. No mess of wizards to go through but all the software is there in easy packages if you want to install it. Slackware has never stressed me out, because I can (and do) use the command line to get most of what I need working.
> Ok. So what do you propose we do to prepare for the end of the world
Who said it's the end of the world? What you should do is practice good hygiene, wash your hands especially before eating. Try to kick the habit of touching your face or rubbing your eyes with your hands, as this is frequently how flu viruses enter the body. Get good sleepy daily and make sure you have proper nutrition.
All good habits that will minimize the chances you will get sick period, whether it's an avian flu or the common cold. Also, always avoid people who are coughing or sneezing.
This is all happening in my city... here is some contact information which is publicly available CHBA, the Canadian Home Builders' Association
Activa Holdings Inc. (519) 886-9400 Ext.104
Other contact information for the company interesting enough located a couple km away from RIM
Activa Holdings Inc. Peter Armbruster 735 Bridge St. W Waterloo, ON N2V 2H1 (519) 886-9400 www.activagroup.ca
The web site appears to be inactive. The WHOIS contact is Werner Brummund, kyantz@gto.net and fax number is 5198868955
It would also be interesting to know which firms invest in Activa Holdings, as I'm sure investors would like to know how their capital is being used to bully residents in Kitchener/Waterloo Ontario.
The problem with insurance is that insurance companies are in the business of collecting money, NOT paying out on insurance claims. Once you do get in trouble, they will likely point to a part of the contract that means your insurance doesn't apply, or use the other favourite approach which is just to plain not pay you with the expectation that you're not going to sue them.
This is standard business practice in insurance companies. The reason investors love investing in insurance companies is because they provide a reliable stream of cashflow from suckers, er, customers. The goal of most insurance companies is to NOT pay money back, even if there are legitimate claims.
Unless you personally know of someone for whom this kind of insurance has worked (i.e. they got the money back), I wouldn't waste your time and money.
You can watch excellent content even through the Winamp media library, using a simple mix of efficient audio and video codecs for streaming. Alo, an interesting mailing list post in this respect (companies being slow to deliver real time video)
I agree, it's hilarious to think that of all areas there might be a bubble, open source is the one to be concerned about. The market value of loser Gateway Computers alone is over $1 BILLION!
If anything that should demonstrate how ridiculously overvalued tech companies are on the stock market. Those are the investment disasters waiting to happen. But of course the media wouldn't dare call tech companies overvalued or (heaven forbid) a "bubble" would they? Did you hear anyone mention a stock bubble before 2000?
Isn't the solution pretty simple? Anyone surprised that Sony is pulling shit like this? They're one of the major members of the RIAA, MPAA, CRIA...
Don't be a stupid consumer -- it's ridiculous to both spend your money on something that upsets you, only to get upset more. Warn your family against Sony products
But will the outputs have to be certified by Hollywood or the media industry? You know, because the only reason for processing audio or video is to steal profits from Sony, BMG, Warner,... and renegade hacker tactics like A/D conversion should be legislated back to the hell they came from
So maybe you THINK you shouldn't care because disease only affects the weak, or the old... the 1918 pandemic had the highest mortality rate among 20 to 30 year olds, the healthiest segment of the population. Researchers discovered that this current avian strain has genetic similarities to the virus causing the spanish flu in 1918, as published in Science and Nature I believe.
I'm not so sure that the threat is overhyped. Pandemics do happen from time to time and prove to be quite effective in wiping out large percents of populations (animals, and human). Take a look at a chart of human population growth -- the 1918 event is quite visible. The Spanish Flu in 1918 infected over 1/5 of the world's population and this was during a period of relatively slow international travel.
Ignoring the potential danger to us all would be just foolish. So what exactly do you mean "the end has never been near?" Go hunt through historical accounts in your area and you will find documentation describing how the spanish flu brought the end to many in your community. To survive you have to acknowledge and prepare to deal with risks.
If what you're saying is true, then some company (recording/marketing firm) is using a collections agency to unfairly harass you -- the damage can be substantial, since people can lose jobs due to collections harassment etc. The cost to you over the long term may be tens of thousands of real dollars. They can not do this under the law, you should try to contact the attorney involved in the case this article is about, and see if there are any common threads. If a class action gets going you could really be going a long way to help become part of the solution.
Either way you should contact a lawyer about your situation.
Slashdot Mirror
Sidechannel attacks on smart cards, differential power analysis etc... none of this shit is secure, sorry.
I live and work here in Waterloo, which is home to RIM. I know the mentality of the academics from the university, which is where RIM and other (not as major) tech companies have sprung from in the area.
The academics here keep talking about one example with fondness: the case of Qualcomm, where some smart PhDs developed some wonderful intellectual property (in their case cell phone communication protocols) and patented it. From then on they basically do no work, and collect royalties from anyone who uses the CDMA technology. This is what they hope to achieve, to strike it rich in tech.
This is what Waterloo people seem to aspire to: striking it rich with some intellectual property patent, then milking the world for royalties. It wouldn't surprise you to learn that this is also one of the most popular places in North America that Microsoft recruits from. This place is young; the university is very new, the industries around it are new. And there is a mentality here, where academics expect to get rich easily by riding the patent wave.
RIM tried to do the same thing. They are basically a one trick pony, and besides the blackberry they have nothing going for them.
YES and those people are employed in banks writing program trading systems, which gamble with other peoples' money and the government's money. The risk that this capital is exposed to is not what you want to expose your own money to (IMHO). Banks and funds use aggressive leveraged strategies that are far riskier than most people can handle. Again, the point is that they gamble with other peoples money but if you are a retail investor buying AAPL stock you are putting your own money at risk.
Yes, Apple does have amazing products. Lots of us (including develoers) are switching from Windows platforms to Mac ... BUT if you were thinking of buying AAPL stock because of all this good news, I encourage you to think again.
Technical people, such as computer scientists and engineers are notoriously bad at stock trading. One of the main reasons is we fail to comprehend how the financial / stock world can fall way out of line with reality.
In the case of AAPL stock, the price has gone up 8x in just two years. In stock traders terms, AAPL and GOOG are definitely bubble stocks -- nobody is doubting that the companies are great, but the stocks have gotten out of hand. A high stock rise like this indicates extreme expectations of where the company will be in a couple years. However, it is highly unlikely that a company as old and large as AAPL can grow that fast.
Anyway, my point to this is that before you go and buy AAPL stock just because you think ipods are cool, consider that you are buying at a tremendously high price because a mountain of other people have already priced in very great expectations from the company. It is really unlikely that AAPL stock will make you a capital gain over the medium or long term; just beware that whenever you buy a stock, you should very closely monitor it (every week for sure) so that if it starts to fall, you exit without suffering too great a loss.
Either option at PayPal is dangerous. If you put it in the money market account, there is no insurance of any kind. If the money is not in money market (no interest) then there is pass-through FDIC insurance WHICH DOES NOT COVER FAILURE OF PAYPAL. ie the insurance is only in case the bank goes broke, not if PayPal/Ebay goes broke.
In either case, this is no comparison to the many fully FDIC insured high interest savings / CDs available. They will just as much interest without putting the money at any risk.
Paypal is NOT a bank. There is tremendous risk in storing such large amounts of capital in Paypal, as the company could go broke or hiccup or otherwise wipe out the balance. Because Paypal is not a bank, AFAIK there is no insurance on deposits there (no FDIC insurance).
This is never a concern for us people storing a few hundred dollars there, but this is too much money to put at risk. For safety sake, Wikimedia should diversify and hold more cash in real, government insured bank accounts or bonds.
I'm not saying this because I think Paypal is a scam or anything, but the cash must be held somewhere safer and preferably where it earns interest. Wikimedia could easily negotiate high interest savings with a real bank and collect $8k or more a year from interest alone.
If you haven't had enough of dot com bubbles, go buy some GOOG or AAPL and ride it up for 100% before you lose your shirt
For some time, I have been closely tracking levels of mortgage/lending/credit spam received on several email accounts. I am doing this because I am interested in the lending business and hope to see levels of spam correlate with activity in the industry.
Anyway you can find my data here:
http://www.perpetualbull.com/mortgage-spam/
Various regex are used to locate spams of this topic. Not 100% accurate but pretty good
What other platforms does this affect? Is the problem something in the windows kernel?
$75 billion is nothing. Google's market cap is $122 billion. So when you're talking about the cost within the technology sector, the cost of this transition is not even as much as the worth of a single tech company.
That's funny but it is a valid question. These things always come with software, which you must install. Do you trust software written by Sony, given their history? I sure don't. Who knows what it might have embedded within it.
Yes some people definitely have, genetically, an intellectual advantage over others... but as I've grown older I have reluctantly acknowledged how other kinds of smarts -- notably, common sense and street smarts -- are really more important.
Let's say you're a genius, some child prodigy who's super at calculus or something.
Can you charm women and get laid?
Can you get along with strangers and keep a stable job?
Are you smart enough to stay out of trouble? Avoid fights, etc.
Are you smart enough to choose good friends?
Are you disciplined enough to manage our finances?
Are you street smart enough to protect your wealth from crooks?
Do you get regular exercise and stay in shape?
These are all things that are very important for a good quality of life, and you don't necessarily get 'em just because you are smrt.
Yes, I imagine there is more to the processor than just the Verilog described parts. It's not like you're going to be able to take this and build your own competing hardware -- plus, imagine all the lower level design involved in actually fabricating (like you said, gate level stuff, etc.). There is a lot of "etc" to this :)
Unlike open source software, with open source hardware you can not just take the source and re-create the product. What you can do, like open source software, is debug, simulate, test, take individual routines/components, and generally admire and be inspired by awesome engineering.
I really like what Sun is doing here. I've already circulated this article among the VLSI people at my university. What's nice about this approach is that Sun is not putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage by showing the schematics. They are facilitating the design of a lot of related hardware and software that will help grow demand for their architecture. They might even invite improvements (or optimizations).
Although I've tried all the distros, I have stuck with slackware over the years. A lot if comes down the lean basic installation and easy installation depending on what I have to get done.
Last year I was taking care of a student computer lab. We had a couple servers for remote use, some old computers suitable for networked dumb terminals using XDMCP, and a few powerful regular desktop computers.
The beauty of slackware is I can sit down at each of these computers and quickly get an appropriate installation working in each case. No mess of wizards to go through but all the software is there in easy packages if you want to install it. Slackware has never stressed me out, because I can (and do) use the command line to get most of what I need working.
> Ok. So what do you propose we do to prepare for the end of the world
Who said it's the end of the world? What you should do is practice good hygiene, wash your hands especially before eating. Try to kick the habit of touching your face or rubbing your eyes with your hands, as this is frequently how flu viruses enter the body. Get good sleepy daily and make sure you have proper nutrition.
All good habits that will minimize the chances you will get sick period, whether it's an avian flu or the common cold. Also, always avoid people who are coughing or sneezing.
This is all happening in my city... here is some contact information which is publicly available CHBA, the Canadian Home Builders' Association
Activa Holdings Inc.
(519) 886-9400 Ext.104
Other contact information for the company interesting enough located a couple km away from RIM
Activa Holdings Inc.
Peter Armbruster
735 Bridge St. W
Waterloo, ON
N2V 2H1
(519) 886-9400
www.activagroup.ca
The web site appears to be inactive. The WHOIS contact is Werner Brummund, kyantz@gto.net and fax number is 5198868955
It would also be interesting to know which firms invest in Activa Holdings, as I'm sure investors would like to know how their capital is being used to bully residents in Kitchener/Waterloo Ontario.
The problem with insurance is that insurance companies are in the business of collecting money, NOT paying out on insurance claims. Once you do get in trouble, they will likely point to a part of the contract that means your insurance doesn't apply, or use the other favourite approach which is just to plain not pay you with the expectation that you're not going to sue them.
This is standard business practice in insurance companies. The reason investors love investing in insurance companies is because they provide a reliable stream of cashflow from suckers, er, customers. The goal of most insurance companies is to NOT pay money back, even if there are legitimate claims.
Unless you personally know of someone for whom this kind of insurance has worked (i.e. they got the money back), I wouldn't waste your time and money.
Yes, very good point. $2 million is excessive and quite rude. By the way this woman lives down the street from me :)
You can watch excellent content even through the Winamp media library, using a simple mix of efficient audio and video codecs for streaming. Alo, an interesting mailing list post in this respect (companies being slow to deliver real time video)
I agree, it's hilarious to think that of all areas there might be a bubble, open source is the one to be concerned about. The market value of loser Gateway Computers alone is over $1 BILLION! If anything that should demonstrate how ridiculously overvalued tech companies are on the stock market. Those are the investment disasters waiting to happen. But of course the media wouldn't dare call tech companies overvalued or (heaven forbid) a "bubble" would they? Did you hear anyone mention a stock bubble before 2000?
Isn't the solution pretty simple? Anyone surprised that Sony is pulling shit like this? They're one of the major members of the RIAA, MPAA, CRIA... Don't be a stupid consumer -- it's ridiculous to both spend your money on something that upsets you, only to get upset more. Warn your family against Sony products
But will the outputs have to be certified by Hollywood or the media industry? You know, because the only reason for processing audio or video is to steal profits from Sony, BMG, Warner, ... and renegade hacker tactics like A/D conversion should be legislated back to the hell they came from
So maybe you THINK you shouldn't care because disease only affects the weak, or the old... the 1918 pandemic had the highest mortality rate among 20 to 30 year olds, the healthiest segment of the population. Researchers discovered that this current avian strain has genetic similarities to the virus causing the spanish flu in 1918, as published in Science and Nature I believe.
I'm not so sure that the threat is overhyped. Pandemics do happen from time to time and prove to be quite effective in wiping out large percents of populations (animals, and human). Take a look at a chart of human population growth -- the 1918 event is quite visible. The Spanish Flu in 1918 infected over 1/5 of the world's population and this was during a period of relatively slow international travel. Ignoring the potential danger to us all would be just foolish. So what exactly do you mean "the end has never been near?" Go hunt through historical accounts in your area and you will find documentation describing how the spanish flu brought the end to many in your community. To survive you have to acknowledge and prepare to deal with risks.
If what you're saying is true, then some company (recording/marketing firm) is using a collections agency to unfairly harass you -- the damage can be substantial, since people can lose jobs due to collections harassment etc. The cost to you over the long term may be tens of thousands of real dollars. They can not do this under the law, you should try to contact the attorney involved in the case this article is about, and see if there are any common threads. If a class action gets going you could really be going a long way to help become part of the solution.
Either way you should contact a lawyer about your situation.