I agree. I am the submitter of this story btw. Something weird happened. Only the first half of the description is mine, the other half was taken form another firehose article. My closing line was "Jobs probably doesn't like someone stealing his thunder for the keynote" and it doesn't appear in the current summary. But oddly enough some people in the discussion are referring to that line, so this line must have been taken out after the story was already up...
I did make the d/t error though. I am a dyslexic and a non-English speaker, so you could say I'm double handicapped.;-)
>... if country X doesn't play along, slap them with import tariffs until they do. End of problem.
To any country the cost of reducing CO2 are far greater than any amount of imposed tariffs could ever be. Besides, as other posters have pointed out, the 5.5 billion people who produce less CO2 than Americans will all need to be convinced that they have to reduce emission while Americans still emit more. From a geopolitical point of view your idea is just as realistic as thinking you can change a dictatorship to a democracy by sending in an army.
I'm not denying CO2 is a problem. I'm just being realistic about what can be done about is. CO2 reduction is just a "solution" for naive politicians, the rest of us should prepare for the consequences of climate change. I doubt it will be the "end of civilization as we know it" but certainly things will change. Deal with it.
The logical argument has to be taken a few steps further to conclude we need to reduce emissions. We need all these to be true:
That humans cause CO2 to rise
Current computer models accurate predict that a rise in CO2 is "bad" for our environment
All other large countries, inclusing China, India, Indonesia and the US will need to agree on reducing emissions otherwise reduction by the others cannot compensate the increase by those who don't comply
If we reduce CO2 levels our climate will return to where it was before
If any of the above is untrue there is no point in reducing emissions. I am particularly sceptic about number 3. We can't even agree with a few western nations to stop fishing North Sea herring so it doesn't become extinct. And you want the majority of the world to agree on something far more costly? Go read an economics book on "tregedy of the commons". Then decide to build dikes.
The picture on that page is compressed into poststamp size format by your browser, if you right-click on the picture and do "open in new tab" you get a very detailed picture (the link includes utf-8 characters, so I can't link it directly)
It's more than pixel count. On Windows and Mac the user interface makes a windows automatically "raise to front" if it gets input focus, obscuring other windows behind it. If you want to keep view the contents of another window you need to do a resize and move for two windows. If you have two monitors you can put an otherwise obscured window on the second monitor and no resizing is needed. (Of course, this assumes you work on a UI that does auto-raise, not all do)
Apple's price for the Pro isn't much more than (~$140 at this point), than decent third-party RAM. (4 1GB ECC from Crucial is $560
I keep hearing the $700 the GP mentioned. But the Apple store charges $699 for an upgrade from 1GB to 4GB so that's 3GB. If Crucial sells 4GB for $560 than the price difference works out as $372 for 4GB.
This is not true for virtual goods, such as music. I have a web site with yahoo in the US, for example, and they do not charge Dutch taxes. When I buy a pdf from a US bookstore I don't pay Dutch taxes either. To differentiate price based on location within the EU is an idea from Apple and/or the music labels and it's simply not allowed.
Ok, I must not have made myself clear, but what we are talking about here is price differentiation WITHIN THE SAME SHOP ON THE SAME LOCATION. That's what's happening here. If you go into a NY Apple store to buy a iTunes prepaid card you get charged the same amount whether I am from NY or from NJ, and I would be very surprised if they were allowed to check your ID and set the price accordingly. If you go into the same iTunes store as a Dutchmen (and I have) I was told my dollars were no good, since to get the card to work you need to use a US based credit card (which I doubt is true). Even if that's legal in the US, it is not in the EU and I think that's a good thing.
Ok, let me get this is straight... Let's say Dell sells a computer in the US for $1,000 US. Are you telling me that if Dell were to sell that same computer anywhere else in the world they should be FORCED to sell it for the same price? So if they sell it in an poor African country...$1,000 US. No, what I am saying is that if an African wants to buy a computer from Dell in the US they should be charged the same as an American. This is not currently the case, Dell's US web site will not accept my order as I do not have a credit card billing address in the US (even though I have friends in the US where I could have it delivered and forwarded).
Nice try, but its discrimination based on your location Agreed, just after I posted I realized I should have said nation instead of nationality (English is not my first language). But does that make it any less discriminatory? It's still against the law, and IMHO it should be.
For once the EU seems to be applying one of the more useful laws they made.
It always seemed wrong to me that you could blatently discriminate customers on the basis of their nationality.
I don't think a judge is going to buy the "record labels made me do it" defence. IANAL, but I just cannot see how that's going to be an excuse.
I wonder if the WTO could also go after them for charging different prices to US and non-US customers.
I know there are many other web stores that do that so that's probably allowed.
I understand why a marketeer would like to have different prices for different areas but it is just hampering price transparency and free trade.
Within the US would you be allowed to charge someone from, say, NY a different price than someone from NJ? (apart from tax & shipping?)
Would any US judge care if you said the record labels made you do that? I think they just price differentiated because they thought they could get away with it.
The problem with a lot of implementations of vote kick/ban is it's too easy to be kicked by idiots. I agree. A better system is to grade people for behaviour and show those grades. EVE Online allows you to do this. There's also an add-on for WoW. As long as the number of ratings is big enough this gives you a decent indication. I'm sure Microsoft must have thought about doing this feature too. My guess is it would be too risky for them from a publicity stand point, since there would be people that actively dislike getting graded by others.
Since there is an order of magnitude more energy contained in the ocean than in wind you should be more afraid that windmills change the wind than that the ocean gradient would be changed.
I watched the whole movie and there wasn't a single funny thing in there. The design reminds of newspaper comics. But "comic style" is not the same as "comical".
> The biggest improvement I got to my shaving was when i grew a goatee (actually a Vandyke, but whatever). Anyyway, not having to shave
> around your chin and mouth makes everything a lot easier.
Yeah, but the downside is that you look like a bit of a dick.
I think a goatee actually looks more like a bit of a cunt.
Well, if you had bothered to look you would notice that most countries are like that, with several going quite a bit further with regards to ensuring equal oportunity for all. However, none of that is relevant to the original argument that companies should prefer Americans over foreigners. As others have pointed out, it really does not help the American economy to be a proud American in that way, so your pride seems misplaced on multiple levels.
Another problem, and I think this is the biggest one, is the lack of national pride in the U.S.
Funny that, most of us outside the US are more worried about the nationalistic tendencies you innocently call "pride" than any other aspect of US policy. Just why exactly should you be proud simply on the spot you happen to be born? Most Americans never had to make an effort to become an American. It's a bit like a king being so proud he's the king.
Why on earth are Apple employees downloading a preview copy of an Apple OS that has been handed out to thousands of developers? That would seem like carrying water to the sea. It seems silly not to give your own employees a copy for free, especially if they want to play with it in own free time. You would get much better feedback than from a third party and employees are bound by much stricter secrecy than third party developers. Steve Jobs has trust issues.
This is obviously not your average crackpot mad professor because he would not have the funds to take out a full page add in the Economist and assemble a somewhat professional looking company. It is also very unlikely that a mad profesor would be able to convince venture capitalists or other business people to pony up funds, the claims are so wild even non-technical people would wait until they see solid proof.
I can think of only one explanation: this is a publicity stunt by some company who is going to pop up in a few days with a big "ha ha, we fooled you, but from today on you can buy our product X". Product X is probably very energy efficient or something. Or perhaps it's a save-the-earth type group looking to generate publicity. In which case we are doing exactly what they hoped we would do. This might also explain why the main stream press hasn't picked this up, they have looked into it, found out is was an ad agency creating the campaign, and abandoned it.
It's kind of like how the oil companies... Sounds like a collusion in an oligopoly to me.
Well, yes it is, the technical name would be a cartel. They are not even hiding that fact, the C in OPEC stands for cartel. Unfortunately most of the oil is outside the US and anti-cartel laws do not apply. Same goes for diamonds and several other products which are not found much in the west. Unfair by our standards but perfectly fair by their standards. By the way, cartels were fair game in the US only a century ago, and I think it will take quite a while before anyone the Middle East starts caring that the world as a whole is not served best by allowing cartels.
Actually, your view turns out to be too pessimistic, the rating system for WoW called Playrate works very well with almost no abuse http://www.playrate.net/. As long as there are many more good sports than bad sports the rating system will work, since the unfair and irrational ratings average out. Just look at eBay, the rating system there works fine too, for the same reason.
... there is always that segment of the market which will be shopping for a new PC soon, and may consider a Mac.How large could that segment be? 5% would be huge.
No, 5% is way too low an estimate. Given that the average economic life of a PC is somewhere around 5 years, the segment of the market looking for a replacement should be about 1/5 = 20%. To double in size Apple would need only about 10% of that 20%. Which is not that spectaculair in absolute numbers, Micheal Dell is not losing sleep over this just yet.
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I agree. I am the submitter of this story btw. Something weird happened. Only the first half of the description is mine, the other half was taken form another firehose article. My closing line was "Jobs probably doesn't like someone stealing his thunder for the keynote" and it doesn't appear in the current summary. But oddly enough some people in the discussion are referring to that line, so this line must have been taken out after the story was already up... ;-)
I did make the d/t error though. I am a dyslexic and a non-English speaker, so you could say I'm double handicapped.
To any country the cost of reducing CO2 are far greater than any amount of imposed tariffs could ever be. Besides, as other posters have pointed out, the 5.5 billion people who produce less CO2 than Americans will all need to be convinced that they have to reduce emission while Americans still emit more. From a geopolitical point of view your idea is just as realistic as thinking you can change a dictatorship to a democracy by sending in an army.
I'm not denying CO2 is a problem. I'm just being realistic about what can be done about is. CO2 reduction is just a "solution" for naive politicians, the rest of us should prepare for the consequences of climate change. I doubt it will be the "end of civilization as we know it" but certainly things will change. Deal with it.
- That humans cause CO2 to rise
- Current computer models accurate predict that a rise in CO2 is "bad" for our environment
- All other large countries, inclusing China, India, Indonesia and the US will need to agree on reducing emissions otherwise reduction by the others cannot compensate the increase by those who don't comply
- If we reduce CO2 levels our climate will return to where it was before
If any of the above is untrue there is no point in reducing emissions. I am particularly sceptic about number 3. We can't even agree with a few western nations to stop fishing North Sea herring so it doesn't become extinct. And you want the majority of the world to agree on something far more costly? Go read an economics book on "tregedy of the commons". Then decide to build dikes.The picture on that page is compressed into poststamp size format by your browser, if you right-click on the picture and do "open in new tab" you get a very detailed picture (the link includes utf-8 characters, so I can't link it directly)
It's more than pixel count. On Windows and Mac the user interface makes a windows automatically "raise to front" if it gets input focus, obscuring other windows behind it. If you want to keep view the contents of another window you need to do a resize and move for two windows. If you have two monitors you can put an otherwise obscured window on the second monitor and no resizing is needed. (Of course, this assumes you work on a UI that does auto-raise, not all do)
This is not true for virtual goods, such as music. I have a web site with yahoo in the US, for example, and they do not charge Dutch taxes. When I buy a pdf from a US bookstore I don't pay Dutch taxes either. To differentiate price based on location within the EU is an idea from Apple and/or the music labels and it's simply not allowed.
Ok, I must not have made myself clear, but what we are talking about here is price differentiation WITHIN THE SAME SHOP ON THE SAME LOCATION. That's what's happening here. If you go into a NY Apple store to buy a iTunes prepaid card you get charged the same amount whether I am from NY or from NJ, and I would be very surprised if they were allowed to check your ID and set the price accordingly. If you go into the same iTunes store as a Dutchmen (and I have) I was told my dollars were no good, since to get the card to work you need to use a US based credit card (which I doubt is true). Even if that's legal in the US, it is not in the EU and I think that's a good thing.
For once the EU seems to be applying one of the more useful laws they made. It always seemed wrong to me that you could blatently discriminate customers on the basis of their nationality. I don't think a judge is going to buy the "record labels made me do it" defence. IANAL, but I just cannot see how that's going to be an excuse.
I wonder if the WTO could also go after them for charging different prices to US and non-US customers. I know there are many other web stores that do that so that's probably allowed. I understand why a marketeer would like to have different prices for different areas but it is just hampering price transparency and free trade.
Within the US would you be allowed to charge someone from, say, NY a different price than someone from NJ? (apart from tax & shipping?) Would any US judge care if you said the record labels made you do that? I think they just price differentiated because they thought they could get away with it.
Insert snide male chauvinist remarks here. For extra points mention plastic and conductivity.- 683e-4db7-9675-c5c57399329c&la
By the way, she's not bad looking at all, picture (and phone number!) here: http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=40a4cfdf
I'm sure Microsoft must have thought about doing this feature too. My guess is it would be too risky for them from a publicity stand point, since there would be people that actively dislike getting graded by others.
Since there is an order of magnitude more energy contained in the ocean than in wind you should be more afraid that windmills change the wind than that the ocean gradient would be changed.
I watched the whole movie and there wasn't a single funny thing in there. The design reminds of newspaper comics. But "comic style" is not the same as "comical".
Well, if you had bothered to look you would notice that most countries are like that, with several going quite a bit further with regards to ensuring equal oportunity for all. However, none of that is relevant to the original argument that companies should prefer Americans over foreigners. As others have pointed out, it really does not help the American economy to be a proud American in that way, so your pride seems misplaced on multiple levels.
Funny that, most of us outside the US are more worried about the nationalistic tendencies you innocently call "pride" than any other aspect of US policy. Just why exactly should you be proud simply on the spot you happen to be born? Most Americans never had to make an effort to become an American. It's a bit like a king being so proud he's the king.
Why on earth are Apple employees downloading a preview copy of an Apple OS that has been handed out to thousands of developers? That would seem like carrying water to the sea. It seems silly not to give your own employees a copy for free, especially if they want to play with it in own free time. You would get much better feedback than from a third party and employees are bound by much stricter secrecy than third party developers. Steve Jobs has trust issues.
I can think of only one explanation: this is a publicity stunt by some company who is going to pop up in a few days with a big "ha ha, we fooled you, but from today on you can buy our product X". Product X is probably very energy efficient or something. Or perhaps it's a save-the-earth type group looking to generate publicity. In which case we are doing exactly what they hoped we would do. This might also explain why the main stream press hasn't picked this up, they have looked into it, found out is was an ad agency creating the campaign, and abandoned it.
Well, yes it is, the technical name would be a cartel. They are not even hiding that fact, the C in OPEC stands for cartel. Unfortunately most of the oil is outside the US and anti-cartel laws do not apply. Same goes for diamonds and several other products which are not found much in the west. Unfair by our standards but perfectly fair by their standards. By the way, cartels were fair game in the US only a century ago, and I think it will take quite a while before anyone the Middle East starts caring that the world as a whole is not served best by allowing cartels.
Actually, your view turns out to be too pessimistic, the rating system for WoW called Playrate works very well with almost no abuse http://www.playrate.net/. As long as there are many more good sports than bad sports the rating system will work, since the unfair and irrational ratings average out. Just look at eBay, the rating system there works fine too, for the same reason.
You're in luck. There is such a rating system for WoW, and it works very well: http://www.playrate.net/
(full disclosure: I created it)
No, 5% is way too low an estimate. Given that the average economic life of a PC is somewhere around 5 years, the segment of the market looking for a replacement should be about 1/5 = 20%. To double in size Apple would need only about 10% of that 20%. Which is not that spectaculair in absolute numbers, Micheal Dell is not losing sleep over this just yet.