It's not the politicians who are using the law to create a nation of criminals to control, it's private industry.
And who creates the law?
Rand, as usual, had a half decent idea and completely went the wrong way with it.
Rand's villians were a corrupt alliance of politicians and businessmen who used government force to destroy their competitors. Sounds familiar to me...
Press Command + Option + B. Note the source list to the left.
That's *really* a stretch. The purpose of a web browser is to browse the web, not manage a list of bookmarks. That reasoning can be applied to just about any app (Mail uses a source list of mailboxes; Xcode uses a source list of project files, etc). Safari and iChat are metal because Steve wanted them to be; then the HIG were retroactively changed to make it a vaguely justifiable choice.
Re:Desktop Manager is Amazing
on
Hacking Quartz
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Aqua does have a few other unimplemented capabilities, like theoretical support for tear-off menus.
I know this is/., but please take your blinders off. Not all Democrats hate Microsoft and big business and not all Republicans find Free Software to be communism.
Thank you. This is the flimsiest excuse to bash Bush and Republicans that I've seen a quite a while. Fun fact: Free Republic, home of the vast right wing conspiracy, runs 100% OSS.
I certainly wish we didn't have the Patriot act, but what are the alternatives? Citizen vigilance, or martial law. That's about it. How many terrorists have you caught today? Didn't think so.
James Woods (the actor) identified 9/11 hijackers on a flight they were using as a dry run. He got the information to authorities, who did nothing about it. (The link tries to spin this as a "Bush knew" conspiracy, but it's far more likely to be typical bureaucratic inertia and incompetence). Thanks to citizen vigilance, we had the information we needed to stop 9/11 without invasive laws like the Patriot Act.
I'm no fan of the Patriot Act and other constitutionally suspect stuff the US government does, but this is BS. The wackos on the left are perfectly free to rant about how the US is a police state destroying their freedoms, which is disproven by the very fact that they aren't subsequently arrested. Michael Moore is partying in Hollywood rather than being beaten in a gulag. I'm all for restoring the protections of the Bill of Rights, but the US has a *long* way to go before it reaches the level of the tyrants in Beijing.
Good point, Apple makes most of it's money on hardware. IIRC, that hardware is called the iPod.
Not even close. Apple sold 807k iPods the first quarter of this year, which is maybe $300 million in revenue, compared to total revenue of $1.9 billion. And that was after the release of new iPods and with most of their CPUs being due for an update. Apple can't survive in anything close to its present form as an iPod seller.
The reason why they shold be expensed at that time is that they effectively represent an expected long-term liability to the company.
No, they don't. A company can create shares out of thin air and hand them out to anyone without affecting its value. Current shareholders would take a hit from dilution, but this would be exactly balanced by the equity of the new shareholders.
Investors should be given all information regarding outstanding options and the company's policy for issuing them, so that they can analyze the risks of dilution. But treating them as an expense to the company just doesn't correspond to reality.
The value of the company IS the shareholder equity. Equity, aka capital = assets - liabilities. (Accounting 101)
Agreed.
Prior to an exercise of options, the company has a pool of its own stock which is an asset.
Stock that a company owns in itself has no value. Say Company X has net assets of $1000, and there are 10 external shareholders each holding 1 share. Each shareholder has $100 in equity, and this is true regardless of the number of shares the company itself owns. This thought experiment may explain it better.
The company's total assets are reduced by the difference between the strike price and the current share price.
No. The company's total assets are actually increased by whatever cash it receives for the options. You seem to be arguing that because the company presumably could have sold a newly issued share for more than the option strike price, that difference represents a loss to the company. But a company's supply of its own stock is unlimited; it can always issue and sell more, if the shareholders agree to it. There's no actual or opportunity cost to issue new shares or options; the only costs are borne by the existing shareholders who suffer dilution.
Don't forget that having a job, no matter how trivial such a job might be, could give somebody lesser than yourself a very good feeling about himself, being able to support his family, his children.
Except that the guy in your example doesn't have a job, he has welfare. If I'm an employer and you tell me I can't use a computer but instead have to hire a less efficient worker, that's no different at all from letting me keep the computer and forcing me to pay the guy cash. You can talk about the "good feeling" that having a job will give him, but that only works as long as you lie to him by telling him that his job is actually necessary.
Your argument is one of the many forms of the broken window fallacy. Creating work for work's sake is economically harmful.
I agree that stock options are a form of compensation; it is very clear that they are. But is the next step where I disagree. It does not necessarily follow that the company suffers an operational expense. Rather, it is the shareholders who pay for the compensation through dilution of their existing shares. Stock options cannot both be an expense to the company and a dilution of shareholders' stock; that would be double-counting.
I have to agree. Issuing options (or additional shares) imposes a cost to existing shareholders via dilution, but the total value of the company is unchanged. The company is just transferring equity from one group of investors to another.
Besides, are you trying to say that Bush's *triple dip* recession was due to the bubble?
The bubble, and 9/11, and the uncovering of massive corporate fraud. How anyone can rationally claim that the recession is Bush's fault is beyond me. Note that I'm not saying it's Clinton's fault either; contrary to what most voters believe, the President does not control the economy. If Gore were president, we would still have had a recession, and a recovery, and the talking points of both parties would be reversed.
The argument of "this product could be used for illegal purposes, so we have to ban it" is exactly the argument used by gun control advocates. Conservatives who oppose gun control should also strongly oppose this bill. Sadly, it appears that the principles of the typical Congresscritter can be bought for a few million.
This should be "insightful" instead of "funny". It's why cigarettes will never be made illegal, even though they're far more harmful than many illegal drugs. By dying early (and paying cigarette taxes), smokers are a large benefit to government cash flow.
But seriously - look at the voting records as a whole on issues of copyright and personal freedoms. There is a *Massive*, *Stark* rift between the voting records of the two parties when it comes to civil liberties.
Yeah, I remember the principled opposition to the Patriot Act by Democrats...um, wait. But they did try to stop Republican Bill Clinton from passing the DMCA...hmm. Well, at least they stood up against Carnivore, Echelon, Clipper, CALEA and encryption export controls. Actually no, that never happened either. (In fact, John Ashcroft was a leading opponent of export controls).
It is increasingly obvious that neither major party gives a s**t about civil liberties; unfortunately the Libertarian Party consists mainly of nutjobs and there's no alternative for those of us who value both personal and economic freedom.
Of course, that doesn't stop right-wing religious nuts from screaming bloody murder.. the people in the link are upset that they can no longer say that homosexuality is evil. Is there a problem here?
Yes. Questions such as "is homosexuality immoral" should be settled with open debate, not silencing one side at gunpoint.
Second, you say I just want to get rid of what I don't like. No, I want to get rid of all that is against the Human Rights.
Wonderful, except there's the minor problem of defining "human rights". Along with the dead white males who founded the US, I believe your right to express your opinion supercedes my "right" to not be offended.
I'm sorry but I'm not. My personal history and all I stand for doesn't allow me to hate, to discriminate or to hurt others.
It apparently does allow you to advocate government violence against those who you believe "hate" or "discriminate".
The Internet isn't just a reflection of what is happening in the world. It is the source of information and propaganda for lots of people. It's dangerous.
I hear the Chinese government is hiring network engineers to deal with the problems of their citizens being exposed to multiple viewpoints. Sounds like a perfect job for you.
Interesting economic argument against the possibility of time travel here:
Current economic conditions rule out the possibility of past, present, or future time machines. The interest rate would always be zero if time travel were possible, because of the arbitrage opportunities that time travel would permit. Positive rates of interest are positive proof that time travel, unlike space flight, is pure fantasy.
How can anyone argue against the government cracking down on illegal activities like this? It's illegal.
How can anyone argue against the DMCA? Copyright infringement is illegal. Sure, the DMCA is overbroad and restricts the freedom of millions of law-abiding citizens, but that's a small price to pay, right?
One the functions of governments is to crack down on illegal activities and generally enforce their laws.
And to do so in a manner which respects the rights of their citizens. Sadly, there are a few issues, most notably kiddie porn and terrorism, where panic sets in and citizens are all too happy to throw their rights away.
You're neither, you're hopelessly naive. Child porn involves heinous abuse of young children. Anything that prevents it from happening, which this will, is a good thing.
"Anything"? How about mandatory implantation of tracking devices in all children at birth? How about Orwell-style cameras in your home?
Politicians like to bring up child pornography because it's so vile that most people's instinctive reaction is to let them do "anything" to stop it, disregarding civil liberties and privacy. If you can't see why this is dangerous, then it's you who are naive.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not the politicians who are using the law to create a nation of criminals to control, it's private industry.
And who creates the law?
Rand, as usual, had a half decent idea and completely went the wrong way with it.
Rand's villians were a corrupt alliance of politicians and businessmen who used government force to destroy their competitors. Sounds familiar to me...
I don't think Apple would use System 9
System 9 is already a the name of an OS by Microware.
Actually they didn't. System 7 was the last "System", after that it was Mac OS 8 and 9.
Press Command + Option + B. Note the source list to the left.
That's *really* a stretch. The purpose of a web browser is to browse the web, not manage a list of bookmarks. That reasoning can be applied to just about any app (Mail uses a source list of mailboxes; Xcode uses a source list of project files, etc). Safari and iChat are metal because Steve wanted them to be; then the HIG were retroactively changed to make it a vaguely justifiable choice.
Aqua does have a few other unimplemented capabilities, like theoretical support for tear-off menus.
Not theoretical.
I know this is /., but please take your blinders off. Not all Democrats hate Microsoft and big business and not all Republicans find Free Software to be communism.
Thank you. This is the flimsiest excuse to bash Bush and Republicans that I've seen a quite a while. Fun fact: Free Republic, home of the vast right wing conspiracy, runs 100% OSS.
I certainly wish we didn't have the Patriot act, but what are the alternatives? Citizen vigilance, or martial law. That's about it. How many terrorists have you caught today? Didn't think so.
James Woods (the actor) identified 9/11 hijackers on a flight they were using as a dry run. He got the information to authorities, who did nothing about it. (The link tries to spin this as a "Bush knew" conspiracy, but it's far more likely to be typical bureaucratic inertia and incompetence). Thanks to citizen vigilance, we had the information we needed to stop 9/11 without invasive laws like the Patriot Act.
The US is just as bad as China
I'm no fan of the Patriot Act and other constitutionally suspect stuff the US government does, but this is BS. The wackos on the left are perfectly free to rant about how the US is a police state destroying their freedoms, which is disproven by the very fact that they aren't subsequently arrested. Michael Moore is partying in Hollywood rather than being beaten in a gulag. I'm all for restoring the protections of the Bill of Rights, but the US has a *long* way to go before it reaches the level of the tyrants in Beijing.
Good point, Apple makes most of it's money on hardware. IIRC, that hardware is called the iPod.
Not even close. Apple sold 807k iPods the first quarter of this year, which is maybe $300 million in revenue, compared to total revenue of $1.9 billion. And that was after the release of new iPods and with most of their CPUs being due for an update. Apple can't survive in anything close to its present form as an iPod seller.
The reason why they shold be expensed at that time is that they effectively represent an expected long-term liability to the company.
No, they don't. A company can create shares out of thin air and hand them out to anyone without affecting its value. Current shareholders would take a hit from dilution, but this would be exactly balanced by the equity of the new shareholders.
Investors should be given all information regarding outstanding options and the company's policy for issuing them, so that they can analyze the risks of dilution. But treating them as an expense to the company just doesn't correspond to reality.
Stock options are potentially huge costs to a company.
No, they're a potentially huge cost to current shareholders. There's a difference.
The value of the company IS the shareholder equity. Equity, aka capital = assets - liabilities. (Accounting 101)
Agreed.
Prior to an exercise of options, the company has a pool of its own stock which is an asset.
Stock that a company owns in itself has no value. Say Company X has net assets of $1000, and there are 10 external shareholders each holding 1 share. Each shareholder has $100 in equity, and this is true regardless of the number of shares the company itself owns. This thought experiment may explain it better.
The company's total assets are reduced by the difference between the strike price and the current share price.
No. The company's total assets are actually increased by whatever cash it receives for the options. You seem to be arguing that because the company presumably could have sold a newly issued share for more than the option strike price, that difference represents a loss to the company. But a company's supply of its own stock is unlimited; it can always issue and sell more, if the shareholders agree to it. There's no actual or opportunity cost to issue new shares or options; the only costs are borne by the existing shareholders who suffer dilution.
Don't forget that having a job, no matter how trivial such a job might be, could give somebody lesser than yourself a very good feeling about himself, being able to support his family, his children.
Except that the guy in your example doesn't have a job, he has welfare. If I'm an employer and you tell me I can't use a computer but instead have to hire a less efficient worker, that's no different at all from letting me keep the computer and forcing me to pay the guy cash. You can talk about the "good feeling" that having a job will give him, but that only works as long as you lie to him by telling him that his job is actually necessary.
Your argument is one of the many forms of the broken window fallacy. Creating work for work's sake is economically harmful.
A response to Buffett is here.
I have to agree. Issuing options (or additional shares) imposes a cost to existing shareholders via dilution, but the total value of the company is unchanged. The company is just transferring equity from one group of investors to another.
In order to even access the list, we must go through several hours of online paperwork that is highly redundant and of no real use in the end.
Yes, it's just awful when people's time is wasted.
Besides, are you trying to say that Bush's *triple dip* recession was due to the bubble?
The bubble, and 9/11, and the uncovering of massive corporate fraud. How anyone can rationally claim that the recession is Bush's fault is beyond me. Note that I'm not saying it's Clinton's fault either; contrary to what most voters believe, the President does not control the economy. If Gore were president, we would still have had a recession, and a recovery, and the talking points of both parties would be reversed.
The argument of "this product could be used for illegal purposes, so we have to ban it" is exactly the argument used by gun control advocates. Conservatives who oppose gun control should also strongly oppose this bill. Sadly, it appears that the principles of the typical Congresscritter can be bought for a few million.
This should be "insightful" instead of "funny". It's why cigarettes will never be made illegal, even though they're far more harmful than many illegal drugs. By dying early (and paying cigarette taxes), smokers are a large benefit to government cash flow.
But seriously - look at the voting records as a whole on issues of copyright and personal freedoms. There is a *Massive*, *Stark* rift between the voting records of the two parties when it comes to civil liberties.
Yeah, I remember the principled opposition to the Patriot Act by Democrats...um, wait. But they did try to stop Republican Bill Clinton from passing the DMCA...hmm. Well, at least they stood up against Carnivore, Echelon, Clipper, CALEA and encryption export controls. Actually no, that never happened either. (In fact, John Ashcroft was a leading opponent of export controls).
It is increasingly obvious that neither major party gives a s**t about civil liberties; unfortunately the Libertarian Party consists mainly of nutjobs and there's no alternative for those of us who value both personal and economic freedom.
Of course, that doesn't stop right-wing religious nuts from screaming bloody murder.. the people in the link are upset that they can no longer say that homosexuality is evil. Is there a problem here?
Yes. Questions such as "is homosexuality immoral" should be settled with open debate, not silencing one side at gunpoint.
If anyone tried to enforce these laws, they would be nullified by the courts as unconstitutional.
Already done, see Lawrence v Texas.
Second, you say I just want to get rid of what I don't like. No, I want to get rid of all that is against the Human Rights.
Wonderful, except there's the minor problem of defining "human rights". Along with the dead white males who founded the US, I believe your right to express your opinion supercedes my "right" to not be offended.
I'm sorry but I'm not. My personal history and all I stand for doesn't allow me to hate, to discriminate or to hurt others.
It apparently does allow you to advocate government violence against those who you believe "hate" or "discriminate".
The Internet isn't just a reflection of what is happening in the world. It is the source of information and propaganda for lots of people. It's dangerous.
I hear the Chinese government is hiring network engineers to deal with the problems of their citizens being exposed to multiple viewpoints. Sounds like a perfect job for you.
Shouldn't Freedom of Speech end where discrimination, racism, hate and torture start?
No, no, no, and yes. (And the last one doesn't make sense; torture isn't speech).
Stop bullshitting about censorship. This is something totally different.
Right, you're not for censorship, you're just for stopping people from expressing opinions you don't like.
If it's up to me, go get every discriminating, racism-spreading no good website such as www.stormfront.org and take them down!
Then I am very grateful that it is not up to you.
How can anyone argue against the government cracking down on illegal activities like this? It's illegal.
How can anyone argue against the DMCA? Copyright infringement is illegal. Sure, the DMCA is overbroad and restricts the freedom of millions of law-abiding citizens, but that's a small price to pay, right?
One the functions of governments is to crack down on illegal activities and generally enforce their laws.
And to do so in a manner which respects the rights of their citizens. Sadly, there are a few issues, most notably kiddie porn and terrorism, where panic sets in and citizens are all too happy to throw their rights away.
You're neither, you're hopelessly naive. Child porn involves heinous abuse of young children. Anything that prevents it from happening, which this will, is a good thing.
"Anything"? How about mandatory implantation of tracking devices in all children at birth? How about Orwell-style cameras in your home?
Politicians like to bring up child pornography because it's so vile that most people's instinctive reaction is to let them do "anything" to stop it, disregarding civil liberties and privacy. If you can't see why this is dangerous, then it's you who are naive.