With the shuttle retiring and no US replacement for 5 years, the only way to get to the space station is aboard a Russian rocket. That is bad news considering the fact that the US basically built the thing. If relations go sour, we basically cede control of the space station for a goodly chunk of its useful life.
But if the US could get from nowhere to the moon in less then a decade, then surely a soyuz-clone shouldn't be too hard for NASA or ESA?
We don't need a new space shuttle, we need a new soyuz.
What you want, after all, is Greenspan as Mr. President.
Now, now.:-)
I don't believe an economist would necessarily be a good president (though the Canadian Prime Minister is an economist and he seems to be doing alright).
Lots of politicians all over the world are economists. I think the US is one of the few countries that has more lawyers than economists in politics.
"Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known. Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab. Some market experts estimate that current prices reflect as much as $30 to $60 per barrel in unnecessary speculative costs."
I didn't know this. At least I didn't know it was this bad. People are getting rich from oil trade while contributing to the problem instead of the solution. Looks like we need to work on a more efficient fuel trade.
If he said "Has the woman EARNED the resource to keep a child? Has she EARNED health care?"
Somehow I don't think either party will be very receptive to the idea of mandatory obortion.
I think this is a very effective argument to throw in the face of many republicans: if you want to reduce the need for abortions, you have to increase poor/single parents' ability to take care of children. And teach them to use effective contraceptives, ofcourse.
The two worst presidents of all time were LBJ and FDR
FDR? Are you serious? FDR was probably the last great US president. He's the one who turned the US into the number 1 superpower that the neocons love so much.
Argh! You're right. FDR was secretly a neocon avant-la-lettre! (Now look what you've done. You've made me speak French!)
If I understand correctly, the reason the original iPhone didn't support ATT's 3G is because it didn't have good enough coverage at the time the phone launched. Sounds to me like it's STILL not ready.
But how is that possible? UMTS has existed for ages now.
Besides, if UMTS/HSDPA reception isn't good enough, shouldn't the iPhone seemlessly switch to GPRS or something?
But what I ultimately want to know is: will it work where I live? We've got plenty of G3 networks here, although I get the impression vodaphone has the best ones (I could easily be wrong about that), whereas T-Mobile has the iPhone contract.
law 1 - Always wait for the second release of any Apple product
Isn't this the second version of the iPhone already?
With everyone talking about the iPhone 3G, I was under the impression that this one supported some new super high data protocol, but wikipedia just told me that UMTS is also 3G. So what's so new about the iPhone's 3G support? Did the old iPhone really not support UMTS? Is Apple that far behind?
Since the new iPhone I keep hearing about this new super-high bandwidth 3G network that it uses. I look up 3G on wikipedia, and to my surprise it turns out 3G is simply a name for the collection of all sorts of old data protocols like UMTS and HSDPA.
So what's so special about this new iPhone? Did the old one really not support UMTS? I find that really hard to believe.
Why did they do it? Did Russian spies instigate it to give Russia an excuse? I doubt it.
Why would you doubt this? Other Georgian break-away regions are controlled by Russia-funded militias. Russia has always supported and encouraged South Ossetian tendencies to break away from Georgia (just like Georgia supported Chechnya, although I'm not sure there was any actualy money and weapons involved there). It's not that odd for Georgia to stop that from happening (like Russia did with Chechnya).
The two have been at odds with each other for some time now, and I'd be really surprised if Russia didn't meddle in the affairs of Georgia's rebelious provinces.
I'm also guessing Americans didn't prompt it,
Not directly, and not like this, but Georgia wants to join NATO, and one of the requirements of NATO is that new members deal with any outstanding conflicts (like rebelious provinces) first. So Georgia had to do something. Just not this.
So America has evil points for Iraq, Russia has, let's say, a comparable amount of evil accumulated in a very short period in Georgia, and they got those points by escalating a conflict with a vastly asymmetric response. Any American involvement in a Georgian war would necessarily be a further unjustifiable escalation, and I don't think America can handle being any more evil right now.
Pure American involvement might be a bad idea, but NATO involvement is a different matter. Georgia isn't a NATO member, but it was definitely being considered. Russian occupation hurts NATO. And besides, the EU kinda needs Georgia if it doesn't want to be entirely dependent on Russian gas. (Russia ofcourse wants the EU dependent on Russian gas, because that'd mean Russia can get away with more of its own ruthless power politics.)
This is a very good point. Recent actions of the US have given other nations like Russia and China plenty of excuses to do what they like, and to push their own interests.
Whenever the US criticised China for its human rights record, China can criticise the US right back for its human rights record.
And because the US invaded a souvereign nation with a flimsy excuse (when it was really about oil), now Russia can use the same flimsy excuse to invade a foreign nation (which is really about oil). And they make claims of genocide too, because that worked so well in Bosnia and Kosovo.
I'm so sick of this "war for oil" bullshit.
Our invasion didn't net us one OUNCE (or LITER for you metric Nazis) of FREE oil.
Who ever said anything about free oil? It's not about free oil, it's about access and control. The US doesn't want an anti-American asshole to laugh in their face while he prices his oil in euros instead of dollars, while Russia doesn't want a former vassal state to compete directly with them and threaten the new revenue stream that made Russia rich, while the EU wants an alternative to access to central Asian oil and gas. Nobody wants it for free, but nobody wants to be at the mercy of someone they can't control either.
Maybe it's not so much about the oil itself, but about power over oil. And ofcourse about simple power and obedience itself. The US doesn't like it when other countries don't do what they want, and Russia doesn't like it when other countries don't do what they want either. In the end, it's both a lack of respect for souvereignty.
Ofcourse the big difference is that the US invaded an undemocratic dictatorship, whereas Russia is invading a democracy. A country that's far more democratic than Russia itself.
But oil definitely does play a big role. It's what makes other countries have an interest in what happens in a country. It makes them more likely to interfere when things don't go their way.
That's a good comparison. Although Google seems to be more honest about it, and it's nicer to us than many TV stations.
I find that a dubious assertion. Your local TV station is far more benign than Google.
I'm not claiming Google is more benign. I'm claiming two things: that they're honest about what they're selling and how they make their money, and that they're nicer to us.
No TV station has ever given me something like Google Earth, for example. Although there's one Dutch public broadcasting organisation that supports lots of nice things too, and they've created an open source CMS specialised in multimedia. They're nice people, but they're rare in TV land.
I agree that Google is not bening, knows way too much, and would be scary as hell if they weren't so dedicated to not being evil (and they're still pretty scary), but most TV stations rudely interrupt the show I'm trying to watch to throw loud, unwanted ads in my face. Google doesn't do that. Instead, the give me Google Earth.
A friend invested in Nintendo shares before they released Wii and NDS Lite. It was a good investment:P
Any idea how and where they did that? I couldn't figure it out. I suspect the problem is that Nintendo is only traded in Tokyo and my bank won't let me buy there, but it could be I'm just looking in the wrong place. Despite my luck with Apple, I don't have a lot of experience investing in foreign stock.
Travel back to the 1930s, replace Russia with Nazi Germany and Nato with the League of Nations.
The League of Nations was not comparable to NATO. The League of Nations was an impotent precursor to the UN. NATO was designed to be a credible threat to the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. The USSR and the Warsaw Pact fell apart, while NATO has grown.
Ofcourse NATO is not itching to go to war with Russia. That's about the second worst thing that could happen to NATO. But the worst thing is to not respond to a member being invaded. That would instantly kill NATO.
Then sell 1% of your shares. There's your dividend.
Do you know there are companies that pay dividends in shares? I'd consider that the biggest con ever, if I didn't know the stockmarket pulled much weirder shit every day.
Google just seems to take the sniper approach to advertisement: don't inundate the user with ads, and give the user an ad they might be interested in, and the user doesn't get as annoyed with the ads anymore.
Exactly. All other web advertisers seem to think that advertisements have to be annoying and useless, whereas Google seems to be the only one who is aware that ads are annoying, and tries to make them as unobstrusive and useful to the user as possible.
Google frequently shows me ads that are somewhat relevant to me (although very often it's job ads from my current employer, which is not so useful), and they show them in a way that doesn't annoy me. Before Google it was flashing banners with rapidly moving monkeys to win free crap.
It's devolved from a long-term profit projection into a pyramid scheme, IMO.
The stock market has always had some degree of pyramid scheming in it. How much depends mostly on the surplus money investors have. Considering the current status of the US financial market, I wouldn't invest in Apple right now.
If I had money, I'd take a good look at Nintendo. I did two years ago, but couldn't figure out how or where to buy their shares.
I don't know for sure but are share/stock options included in what a "market cap" is?
Options are not shares. Options are a guaranteed option to buy/sell a share. It's speculation on the rise/fall of the share value, without the ownership of the actual share itself. That's why options are cheaper and riskier than shares.
Slashdot Mirror
With the shuttle retiring and no US replacement for 5 years, the only way to get to the space station is aboard a Russian rocket. That is bad news considering the fact that the US basically built the thing. If relations go sour, we basically cede control of the space station for a goodly chunk of its useful life.
But if the US could get from nowhere to the moon in less then a decade, then surely a soyuz-clone shouldn't be too hard for NASA or ESA?
We don't need a new space shuttle, we need a new soyuz.
What you want, after all, is Greenspan as Mr. President.
Now, now. :-)
I don't believe an economist would necessarily be a good president (though the Canadian Prime Minister is an economist and he seems to be doing alright).
Lots of politicians all over the world are economists. I think the US is one of the few countries that has more lawyers than economists in politics.
There must be a lesson in there somewhere...
"Today, oil speculators purchase 66 percent of all oil futures contracts, and that reflects just the transactions that are known. Speculators buy up large amounts of oil and then sell it to each other again and again. A barrel of oil may trade 20-plus times before it is delivered and used; the price goes up with each trade and consumers pick up the final tab. Some market experts estimate that current prices reflect as much as $30 to $60 per barrel in unnecessary speculative costs."
I didn't know this. At least I didn't know it was this bad. People are getting rich from oil trade while contributing to the problem instead of the solution. Looks like we need to work on a more efficient fuel trade.
If he said "Has the woman EARNED the resource to keep a child? Has she EARNED health care?"
Somehow I don't think either party will be very receptive to the idea of mandatory obortion.
I think this is a very effective argument to throw in the face of many republicans: if you want to reduce the need for abortions, you have to increase poor/single parents' ability to take care of children. And teach them to use effective contraceptives, ofcourse.
The two worst presidents of all time were LBJ and FDR
FDR? Are you serious? FDR was probably the last great US president. He's the one who turned the US into the number 1 superpower that the neocons love so much.
Argh! You're right. FDR was secretly a neocon avant-la-lettre! (Now look what you've done. You've made me speak French!)
dumbass, you wouldn't know a socialist radical if one came up and kicked you in the nuts
Which would be a very good idea, I might add.
If I understand correctly, the reason the original iPhone didn't support ATT's 3G is because it didn't have good enough coverage at the time the phone launched. Sounds to me like it's STILL not ready.
But how is that possible? UMTS has existed for ages now.
Besides, if UMTS/HSDPA reception isn't good enough, shouldn't the iPhone seemlessly switch to GPRS or something?
But what I ultimately want to know is: will it work where I live? We've got plenty of G3 networks here, although I get the impression vodaphone has the best ones (I could easily be wrong about that), whereas T-Mobile has the iPhone contract.
law 1 - Always wait for the second release of any Apple product
Isn't this the second version of the iPhone already?
With everyone talking about the iPhone 3G, I was under the impression that this one supported some new super high data protocol, but wikipedia just told me that UMTS is also 3G. So what's so new about the iPhone's 3G support? Did the old iPhone really not support UMTS? Is Apple that far behind?
Since the new iPhone I keep hearing about this new super-high bandwidth 3G network that it uses. I look up 3G on wikipedia, and to my surprise it turns out 3G is simply a name for the collection of all sorts of old data protocols like UMTS and HSDPA.
So what's so special about this new iPhone? Did the old one really not support UMTS? I find that really hard to believe.
Why did they do it? Did Russian spies instigate it to give Russia an excuse? I doubt it.
Why would you doubt this? Other Georgian break-away regions are controlled by Russia-funded militias. Russia has always supported and encouraged South Ossetian tendencies to break away from Georgia (just like Georgia supported Chechnya, although I'm not sure there was any actualy money and weapons involved there). It's not that odd for Georgia to stop that from happening (like Russia did with Chechnya).
The two have been at odds with each other for some time now, and I'd be really surprised if Russia didn't meddle in the affairs of Georgia's rebelious provinces.
I'm also guessing Americans didn't prompt it,
Not directly, and not like this, but Georgia wants to join NATO, and one of the requirements of NATO is that new members deal with any outstanding conflicts (like rebelious provinces) first. So Georgia had to do something. Just not this.
So America has evil points for Iraq, Russia has, let's say, a comparable amount of evil accumulated in a very short period in Georgia, and they got those points by escalating a conflict with a vastly asymmetric response. Any American involvement in a Georgian war would necessarily be a further unjustifiable escalation, and I don't think America can handle being any more evil right now.
Pure American involvement might be a bad idea, but NATO involvement is a different matter. Georgia isn't a NATO member, but it was definitely being considered. Russian occupation hurts NATO. And besides, the EU kinda needs Georgia if it doesn't want to be entirely dependent on Russian gas. (Russia ofcourse wants the EU dependent on Russian gas, because that'd mean Russia can get away with more of its own ruthless power politics.)
I wonder how much did the board game creators paid the police 'confiscate' the game?
You can't buy publicity like that.
This is a very good point. Recent actions of the US have given other nations like Russia and China plenty of excuses to do what they like, and to push their own interests.
Whenever the US criticised China for its human rights record, China can criticise the US right back for its human rights record.
And because the US invaded a souvereign nation with a flimsy excuse (when it was really about oil), now Russia can use the same flimsy excuse to invade a foreign nation (which is really about oil). And they make claims of genocide too, because that worked so well in Bosnia and Kosovo.
I'm so sick of this "war for oil" bullshit.
Our invasion didn't net us one OUNCE (or LITER for you metric Nazis) of FREE oil.
Who ever said anything about free oil? It's not about free oil, it's about access and control. The US doesn't want an anti-American asshole to laugh in their face while he prices his oil in euros instead of dollars, while Russia doesn't want a former vassal state to compete directly with them and threaten the new revenue stream that made Russia rich, while the EU wants an alternative to access to central Asian oil and gas. Nobody wants it for free, but nobody wants to be at the mercy of someone they can't control either.
Maybe it's not so much about the oil itself, but about power over oil. And ofcourse about simple power and obedience itself. The US doesn't like it when other countries don't do what they want, and Russia doesn't like it when other countries don't do what they want either. In the end, it's both a lack of respect for souvereignty.
Ofcourse the big difference is that the US invaded an undemocratic dictatorship, whereas Russia is invading a democracy. A country that's far more democratic than Russia itself.
But oil definitely does play a big role. It's what makes other countries have an interest in what happens in a country. It makes them more likely to interfere when things don't go their way.
That's a good comparison. Although Google seems to be more honest about it, and it's nicer to us than many TV stations.
I find that a dubious assertion. Your local TV station is far more benign than Google.
I'm not claiming Google is more benign. I'm claiming two things: that they're honest about what they're selling and how they make their money, and that they're nicer to us.
No TV station has ever given me something like Google Earth, for example. Although there's one Dutch public broadcasting organisation that supports lots of nice things too, and they've created an open source CMS specialised in multimedia. They're nice people, but they're rare in TV land.
I agree that Google is not bening, knows way too much, and would be scary as hell if they weren't so dedicated to not being evil (and they're still pretty scary), but most TV stations rudely interrupt the show I'm trying to watch to throw loud, unwanted ads in my face. Google doesn't do that. Instead, the give me Google Earth.
A friend invested in Nintendo shares before they released Wii and NDS Lite. It was a good investment :P
Any idea how and where they did that? I couldn't figure it out. I suspect the problem is that Nintendo is only traded in Tokyo and my bank won't let me buy there, but it could be I'm just looking in the wrong place. Despite my luck with Apple, I don't have a lot of experience investing in foreign stock.
Travel back to the 1930s, replace Russia with Nazi Germany and Nato with the League of Nations.
The League of Nations was not comparable to NATO. The League of Nations was an impotent precursor to the UN. NATO was designed to be a credible threat to the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. The USSR and the Warsaw Pact fell apart, while NATO has grown.
Ofcourse NATO is not itching to go to war with Russia. That's about the second worst thing that could happen to NATO. But the worst thing is to not respond to a member being invaded. That would instantly kill NATO.
AAPL actually hit $3-4 at one point in the 90's.
I really need to know now: did CERN invent a time machine or not?
First, you don't know how much stock I own.
Second, 1% is infinitely more than 0%.
Then sell 1% of your shares. There's your dividend.
Do you know there are companies that pay dividends in shares? I'd consider that the biggest con ever, if I didn't know the stockmarket pulled much weirder shit every day.
in February, I bought some AAPL stock at $120, now it's trading at almost $180 :)
I knew I should have kept mine. When the Nano was first introduced, I bought AAPL for about $50, and a couple of months later I sold for $80, I think.
Had I been a bit richer then, I could have been really rich now.
You nailed it. Saying Google isn't a real business is like calling your local TV station a sham.
That's a good comparison. Although Google seems to be more honest about it, and it's nicer to us than many TV stations.
Google just seems to take the sniper approach to advertisement: don't inundate the user with ads, and give the user an ad they might be interested in, and the user doesn't get as annoyed with the ads anymore.
Exactly. All other web advertisers seem to think that advertisements have to be annoying and useless, whereas Google seems to be the only one who is aware that ads are annoying, and tries to make them as unobstrusive and useful to the user as possible.
Google frequently shows me ads that are somewhat relevant to me (although very often it's job ads from my current employer, which is not so useful), and they show them in a way that doesn't annoy me. Before Google it was flashing banners with rapidly moving monkeys to win free crap.
The stock market is a mechanism by which monetary inflation is captured and transferred to the wealthy.
It's a shame I've already posted in this discussion, or I'd mod you Insightful.
It's devolved from a long-term profit projection into a pyramid scheme, IMO.
The stock market has always had some degree of pyramid scheming in it. How much depends mostly on the surplus money investors have. Considering the current status of the US financial market, I wouldn't invest in Apple right now.
If I had money, I'd take a good look at Nintendo. I did two years ago, but couldn't figure out how or where to buy their shares.
But is Apple's profitability going to climb enough to make this investment worthwhile? Apple's stock does seem overvalued.
I agree. I sold mine years ago. Clearly way too early, but now it really looks like a risky investment.
Then again, I was wrong years ago. I could be wrong again.
How can a company with $24B in sales, $3B in profit, and $40B in cash and assets (2007 figures) have a market cap of $160B?
Does the assers figure include the value of their brand names and other intangibles?
I don't know for sure but are share/stock options included in what a "market cap" is?
Options are not shares. Options are a guaranteed option to buy/sell a share. It's speculation on the rise/fall of the share value, without the ownership of the actual share itself. That's why options are cheaper and riskier than shares.