And I like the idea of everyone who benefits paying their share. You never drive those cars? Police, fire, paramedics aren't going to come to your house if called? Kids (and you) weren't educated? Power, gas, water, and sewer don't come to your house?
"If the iPad Mini had a better display it would have crushed every tablet competitor..."
I think, in terms of sales numbers, it is in fact "crushing" the competition. And your comment presumes that a "Retina" mini display was in fact available in the quantities Apple needed at an affordable price point.
The mini already sells at $300. Beefing up the display, processor, and battery would have raised the price even further, at a time when Amazon and others are trying to push them out at cost just to gain market share.
I'd like a Ferrari at a VW price point too, but I don't think I'm going to get one.
"A small child or puppy with $150 billion of other people's money. And someday governments around the world will grow enough balls to take it back."
People gave them money in exchange for a product. That's called business.
As to "growing enough balls", get real. We have corporations that make billions in profits quarterly, pay little to no taxes on them, and then the government turns around and hands them billions more in subsidies and tax breaks. And yes, I'm talking about you, Exxon.
"The overall efficiency of our society will increase if people buy more things at local stores. Less gas wasted on shipping..."
Right. Because one hybrid-powered UPS delivery truck delivering 50 packages to 50 homes on a computer generated best-path-least-turns route is less efficient than 50 people climbing into 50 SUVs and driving to and from 50 different local stores to buy 50 different items that were themselves shipped to each of those stores.
Remind me never to hire you to as an efficiency expert...
It's interesting to note that you mentioned that people place a disproportionate weight on programs that they experienced, because in many ways that exactly *is* the point.
That's why MacWrite and MacPaint were mentioned. Not many people had a chance to explore the Xerox PARC labs, or had the $80,000 or so for a Xerox Star system. (Or even a measly $10,000 to spend on a Lisa.) Macintosh popularized the WYSIWYG experience and brought it out out of the labs and before the general public at an affordable price point, much in the same way that the Apple ][ and VisiCalc brought the first PCs out of the S-100 hobbyist realm and into our homes and businesses.
Each was a watershed event, opening the door to more and more users.
As you say, we should endeavour to look past our own biases and provide an accurate image of history...
Paul Heckel was always a bit of a jerk, and the Zoomracks patent basically covered the concept of displaying a bunch of index cards such that the title of each card was visible and could be selected. In short, no relation to HyperCard, other than they both had cards and fields in which you could type data. Nor did Zoomracks have the equivalent of HyperTalk, which is what gave HyperCard its immense power and success.
"The federal government has *never* answered legitimate questions about how this will effect the environment long-term, particularly groundwater contamination."
Never answered legitimate questions? Oh, I get it. Never answered **legitimate** questions, meaning any answer to a question that differed from the answer you wanted to hear.
"For the record, we are *currently* in an interglacial period of the ice age that started 2.6M years ago. When/as we exit the current ice age, it's going to warm up, period."
For the record, I'm going to repeat a cherry-picked fact that I picked up which matches all of my preconceptions on the matter, and that I will use to refute all of yours...
"The reason is components. The components are made in asia and shipping costs, export/import duties combined with labour expenses in US or Eu for that matter rises costs so much that it's not feasible to haul parts and build devices elsewhere."
Can't believe I'm responding to this but... wrong. Otherwise why Foxconn plants in Mexico and Brazil? Why does Corning make glass here and ship it to China?
I think the cheap-as-possible break-at-first-opportunity bloatware-ridden plastic pieces of **** produced by Dell and HP are indications of "total disregard for users".
Technically, the BASIC interpreter used all sorts of system variables for the program counter, evaluation stack, and so on. That said, such things would be considered metadata, and the statement is correct in that no variables were declared in the implementation language.
Well, if everyone is going to get all pedantic about it, then so will I.
In BASIC, the COLON (:) was the statement separator, not the SEMICOLON (;).
In the example code, "10 PRINT CHR$ (205.5 + RND (1)); : GOTO 10", the colon is the statement separator. The semicolon was used to suppress the automatic CRLF the PRINT statement would have generated after outputting the above expression.
Yep. We need to fire all of the teachers, police, and firemen. We need to fire health and safety inspectors.
Why? Because they're on the government payroll.
But, under no circumstances, can we fire all of the people working at the defense contractors, who make weapons and develop other systems that even the Pentagon doesn't want.
Even thought those people are also paid with taxpayer dollars.
Are you on Social Security? Medicare? Are you unemployed? A student? A veteran? Disabled? Do you work, but make so little that you're below the line and pay no Federal Income Tax? Are you a member of a family with two kids, one job, a mortgage, but make less than $45,000 a year?
Then you're part of the 47%.
Besides, income tax is not payroll tax. It isn't property taxes. It's not sales tax. It's not excise taxes. People pay plenty of taxes, even if they're not paying income tax.
“In 2007, the total volume of home sales in the United States was about $1.7 trillion—paltry when compared with the $40 trillion in stocks that are traded every year. But in contrast to the activity that was taking place on Main Street, Wall Street was making bets on housing at furious rates. In 2007, the total volume of trades in mortgage-backed securities was about $80 trillion. That meant that for every dollar that someone was willing to put in a mortgage, Wall Street was making almost $50 worth of bets on the side."
"Lehman Brothers had a leverage ratio of about 33 to 1, meaning that it had about $1 in capital for every $33 in financial positions that it held. This meant that if there was just a 3 to 4 percent decline in the value of its portfolio, Lehman Brothers would have negative equity and would potentially face bankruptcy."
Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise
Build derivatives and CDOs and trade at 50-to-1. Leverage those trades at 33-to-1. Get the rating companies to give those securities AAA ratings, despite having nothing on which to base those estimates. Then add in hedge funds and trades like Magnetar, where brokers deliberately packed tranches with toxic loans and then made money when securities deliberately setup to fail actually failed.
The housing industry was lead to slaughter not by government, but by Wall Street. It's hard to generate trillions in CDOs if you don't have enough of the loans on which those securities are based.
From 3 days ago, "Now Samsung has responded in kind, adding the iPad mini, 4th generation iPad and 5th generation iPod touch to the mix."
"Samsung’s additions shouldn’t come as a surprise; when a judge ruled that Apple was indeed allowed to add Android 4.2 Jelly Bean as it pertains to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, as well as the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy S III to the proceedings, he specifically warned that in granting that alteration, Apple should be prepared for return amendments from Samsung. Specifically, he said that the iPad mini and latest iPad were likely additions."
"Samsung had previously moved to have the iPhone 5 added to the filing, and that motion was successful."
"You (or the marketing droids) are assuming that being aware of their existance will make people buy those brands more. But my reaction to being pissed off by intrusive adverts, and that of most other people I know, is to avoid those brands if at all possible. "
So you say. But psych and sociological profiles say otherwise.
I think I read elsewhere that this fits in with their existing infrastructure. They have a lot of iPads, apps, and they already have the back-end systems needed to manage iOS devices.
"If Android held 100 percent share, innovation would be alive and well. Every OEM's take on the OS is a bit different. Even devil's advocate arguing of the compatibility requirements being some impediment to innovation, an OEM would still be free emulate Amazon's strategy with the Kindle Fire completely eschewing Google's governance altogether."
Would it? Or would more people do as you suggest and emulate Amazon, forking off their own systems in order to differentiate themselves from one another and -- in the process -- leaving Google high and dry.
"In a similar (no, wait, the SAME situation), I voted for neither."
So in essence, you disagreed with this particular set of actions, and as such abdicated your vote in order to make some sort of meaningless "statement". Never mind that there were probably certain other policy issues you wanted to support, or social issues that the other side may have been advocating that should have been opposed.
Slashdot Mirror
And I like the idea of everyone who benefits paying their share. You never drive those cars? Police, fire, paramedics aren't going to come to your house if called? Kids (and you) weren't educated? Power, gas, water, and sewer don't come to your house?
Citation? Or do you just have insinuation?
"Jonesing" is drug slang, usually used in regard to heroin. It means I need my next fix, and I need it NOW.
"If the iPad Mini had a better display it would have crushed every tablet competitor..."
I think, in terms of sales numbers, it is in fact "crushing" the competition. And your comment presumes that a "Retina" mini display was in fact available in the quantities Apple needed at an affordable price point.
The mini already sells at $300. Beefing up the display, processor, and battery would have raised the price even further, at a time when Amazon and others are trying to push them out at cost just to gain market share.
I'd like a Ferrari at a VW price point too, but I don't think I'm going to get one.
"A small child or puppy with $150 billion of other people's money. And someday governments around the world will grow enough balls to take it back."
People gave them money in exchange for a product. That's called business.
As to "growing enough balls", get real. We have corporations that make billions in profits quarterly, pay little to no taxes on them, and then the government turns around and hands them billions more in subsidies and tax breaks. And yes, I'm talking about you, Exxon.
"The overall efficiency of our society will increase if people buy more things at local stores. Less gas wasted on shipping..."
Right. Because one hybrid-powered UPS delivery truck delivering 50 packages to 50 homes on a computer generated best-path-least-turns route is less efficient than 50 people climbing into 50 SUVs and driving to and from 50 different local stores to buy 50 different items that were themselves shipped to each of those stores.
Remind me never to hire you to as an efficiency expert...
It's interesting to note that you mentioned that people place a disproportionate weight on programs that they experienced, because in many ways that exactly *is* the point.
That's why MacWrite and MacPaint were mentioned. Not many people had a chance to explore the Xerox PARC labs, or had the $80,000 or so for a Xerox Star system. (Or even a measly $10,000 to spend on a Lisa.) Macintosh popularized the WYSIWYG experience and brought it out out of the labs and before the general public at an affordable price point, much in the same way that the Apple ][ and VisiCalc brought the first PCs out of the S-100 hobbyist realm and into our homes and businesses.
Each was a watershed event, opening the door to more and more users.
As you say, we should endeavour to look past our own biases and provide an accurate image of history...
Paul Heckel was always a bit of a jerk, and the Zoomracks patent basically covered the concept of displaying a bunch of index cards such that the title of each card was visible and could be selected. In short, no relation to HyperCard, other than they both had cards and fields in which you could type data. Nor did Zoomracks have the equivalent of HyperTalk, which is what gave HyperCard its immense power and success.
"The federal government has *never* answered legitimate questions about how this will effect the environment long-term, particularly groundwater contamination."
Never answered legitimate questions? Oh, I get it. Never answered **legitimate** questions, meaning any answer to a question that differed from the answer you wanted to hear.
No true Scotsmen much?
"For the record, we are *currently* in an interglacial period of the ice age that started 2.6M years ago. When/as we exit the current ice age, it's going to warm up, period."
For the record, I'm going to repeat a cherry-picked fact that I picked up which matches all of my preconceptions on the matter, and that I will use to refute all of yours...
"The reason is components. The components are made in asia and shipping costs, export/import duties combined with labour expenses in US or Eu for that matter rises costs so much that it's not feasible to haul parts and build devices elsewhere."
Can't believe I'm responding to this but... wrong. Otherwise why Foxconn plants in Mexico and Brazil? Why does Corning make glass here and ship it to China?
I think the cheap-as-possible break-at-first-opportunity bloatware-ridden plastic pieces of **** produced by Dell and HP are indications of "total disregard for users".
Technically, the BASIC interpreter used all sorts of system variables for the program counter, evaluation stack, and so on. That said, such things would be considered metadata, and the statement is correct in that no variables were declared in the implementation language.
GOTO is a jump statement.
FOR...NEXT, LOOP...UNTIL, and WHILE...WEND are are the traditional "and more elegant" BASIC looping statements.
Well, if everyone is going to get all pedantic about it, then so will I.
In BASIC, the COLON (:) was the statement separator, not the SEMICOLON (;).
In the example code, "10 PRINT CHR$ (205.5 + RND (1)); : GOTO 10", the colon is the statement separator. The semicolon was used to suppress the automatic CRLF the PRINT statement would have generated after outputting the above expression.
"No one is trying to get rid of Medicare or Social Security."
Uh huh. Tell that to Ryan.
Yep. We need to fire all of the teachers, police, and firemen. We need to fire health and safety inspectors.
Why? Because they're on the government payroll.
But, under no circumstances, can we fire all of the people working at the defense contractors, who make weapons and develop other systems that even the Pentagon doesn't want.
Even thought those people are also paid with taxpayer dollars.
Are you on Social Security? Medicare? Are you unemployed? A student? A veteran? Disabled? Do you work, but make so little that you're below the line and pay no Federal Income Tax? Are you a member of a family with two kids, one job, a mortgage, but make less than $45,000 a year?
Then you're part of the 47%.
Besides, income tax is not payroll tax. It isn't property taxes. It's not sales tax. It's not excise taxes. People pay plenty of taxes, even if they're not paying income tax.
“In 2007, the total volume of home sales in the United States was about $1.7 trillion—paltry when compared with the $40 trillion in stocks that are traded every year. But in contrast to the activity that was taking place on Main Street, Wall Street was making bets on housing at furious rates. In 2007, the total volume of trades in mortgage-backed securities was about $80 trillion. That meant that for every dollar that someone was willing to put in a mortgage, Wall Street was making almost $50 worth of bets on the side."
"Lehman Brothers had a leverage ratio of about 33 to 1, meaning that it had about $1 in capital for every $33 in financial positions that it held. This meant that if there was just a 3 to 4 percent decline in the value of its portfolio, Lehman Brothers would have negative equity and would potentially face bankruptcy."
Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise
Build derivatives and CDOs and trade at 50-to-1. Leverage those trades at 33-to-1. Get the rating companies to give those securities AAA ratings, despite having nothing on which to base those estimates. Then add in hedge funds and trades like Magnetar, where brokers deliberately packed tranches with toxic loans and then made money when securities deliberately setup to fail actually failed.
The housing industry was lead to slaughter not by government, but by Wall Street. It's hard to generate trillions in CDOs if you don't have enough of the loans on which those securities are based.
From 3 days ago, "Now Samsung has responded in kind, adding the iPad mini, 4th generation iPad and 5th generation iPod touch to the mix."
"Samsung’s additions shouldn’t come as a surprise; when a judge ruled that Apple was indeed allowed to add Android 4.2 Jelly Bean as it pertains to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, as well as the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy S III to the proceedings, he specifically warned that in granting that alteration, Apple should be prepared for return amendments from Samsung. Specifically, he said that the iPad mini and latest iPad were likely additions."
"Samsung had previously moved to have the iPhone 5 added to the filing, and that motion was successful."
And back. And forth. And back again.
"You (or the marketing droids) are assuming that being aware of their existance will make people buy those brands more. But my reaction to being pissed off by intrusive adverts, and that of most other people I know, is to avoid those brands if at all possible. "
So you say. But psych and sociological profiles say otherwise.
I think I read elsewhere that this fits in with their existing infrastructure. They have a lot of iPads, apps, and they already have the back-end systems needed to manage iOS devices.
"If Android held 100 percent share, innovation would be alive and well. Every OEM's take on the OS is a bit different. Even devil's advocate arguing of the compatibility requirements being some impediment to innovation, an OEM would still be free emulate Amazon's strategy with the Kindle Fire completely eschewing Google's governance altogether."
Would it? Or would more people do as you suggest and emulate Amazon, forking off their own systems in order to differentiate themselves from one another and -- in the process -- leaving Google high and dry.
"In a similar (no, wait, the SAME situation), I voted for neither."
So in essence, you disagreed with this particular set of actions, and as such abdicated your vote in order to make some sort of meaningless "statement". Never mind that there were probably certain other policy issues you wanted to support, or social issues that the other side may have been advocating that should have been opposed.
Nope, you said, "Screw it all."
Nice.
"Destroying a company never benefits executives."
Uh huh. Tell that to Bain Capital.