So this is purely opinion, naturally because This Is Slashdot.
The Root Cause of the problem which is personified by The (perceived, if nothing else) Failure of The Facebook IPO is that Facebook (and others, eg Twitter) is not much more than a MASSIVE degradation of the Signal To Noise Ratio across the internet.
Sure it facilitates and contributes (or contributes to) many useful things, but the NOISE so excessively overwhelms any actual benefit.
Net Profit To Society is severely negative.
Not that I'm denying that millions of people use it, not that I'm denying millions of people *enjoy* using it, but seriously folks all arguments based around the concept that popular == good belong in Junior High School.
As frustrating as it is, this is a good example of the System Works and Learning From Past Mistakes.
Now if only we could secure sufficient funding for NASA and space exploration in general, because no matter whether we had a shutdown or a catastrophe every failed launch is an expensive exercise.
If Facebook ends up close to $38 at the end of the day, it will be a rare example of the stock having been priced correctly at the start.
Not true because it ONLY maintained said price by MASSIVE support from the underwriters.
In all fairness needing support from the underwriters says NOTHING about the long term value/viability of FB and/or its share price, all it says is the initial price was too high.
If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living. - SENECA, Epistles
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1933
Fear is the parent of cruelty. - JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, Short Studies on Great Subjects
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. -EDMUND BURKE, On the Sublime and Beautiful
And, of course, inevitably:
Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. - YODA, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
A long time ago when the earth was greener someone promoted the concept of an internet with ZERO packet loss.
My InterTubes are BETTER because I HAVE ZERO LOSS!!!
Oddly enough such a business model turned out to be unsustainable due to (1) it's finanically expensive (between one thing an another) (2) doing this the less expensive way (ie by slathering on bigger buffers) introduces excessive latency (for some customer designated value of "excessive")
For the life of me I don't understand how ANYBODY can be allowed to run a company without at least vaguely understanding the concept TANSTAAFL.
You cannot change the laws of physics
Perpetual Motion never is
There is no Miracle Cure
There is no Get Rich Quick Scheme
And, finally: No that Hot Blonde Supermodel with MASSIVE Bazingas does NOT find you attractive, not in the slightest, no matter how much she may drink/snort/inject or pop.
If you want to fix throughput issues without spending lots of money or sacrificing latency then you're going to need a beter algorithm (yes folks, hard research and careful thinking).
If a significant number of people in your country hate the "other" people so much that they would rather everybody suffer than allow them to succeed, then you country is rotten to the core and will fail no matter what anyone does.
I can accept the argument that it costs more to deliver a digital-download to "the rest of the internet" vs The US of A (due to many and various special deals cut by content providers) but not that much more. Especially for something like a song/album/movie or whatever where there is literally zero customisation for the geography or nationality of the end-consumer.
The worst part is that this pricing disparity is heaping insult upon injury.
Not only do we pay more than US based customers, but our downloads are often objectionably slow due to the inherent lesser throughput as a result of US based content hosting.
Seriously folks, when are you going to MAN UP and host some servers in Down Under Land? The NBN is coming, end-customers will have 100Mbps links, and you will NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY SERVE THEM.
I already know my exact position *before* being teleported (ie HERE), what I'm looking for is to find what my exact position will be *after* being teleported and with more detail than just "HERE".
It's sad to see how much effort they had to go through. This case is EXACTLY what patents are for: a bunch of scientists did some research and patented the results - companies took their results and made commercial products out of that and believed they could get away with not paying any kind of royalty or license fee.
The vast majority of this money will go back into further research, slowly making the world a better place.
Until now the world has bene DOMINATED by business operating under the "well yes but NOT IN YOUR PART OF THE WORLD" methodology.
And nobody (with a voice) thought that was a bad thing.
Suddenly companies are discovering that insert weasel words here is insufficient protection from lawsuits and punitive damages.
It's about time!
For the life of me I do not understand why "if you cannot deliver said functionality in a given country, then YOU CANNOT MARKET UNDER SAID TECHNOLOGY BANNER (in said country)" is such a difficult concept.
Here's hoping for a groundswell realisation that you cannot have your cake and eat it too applies to corporations as well as it applies to individuals.
Slashdot Mirror
Are we taking bets on which Next Generation Launch Technology will be the first to reach deployment?
(1) Space Elevator
(2) ElectroMagnetic Launcher
(3) Anti-Gravity
(4) ?
NB I expect that "Nuclear rockets" will never be deployed as a surface-launch technology due to radiation hazard issues.
So this is purely opinion, naturally because This Is Slashdot.
The Root Cause of the problem which is personified by The (perceived, if nothing else) Failure of The Facebook IPO is that Facebook (and others, eg Twitter) is not much more than a MASSIVE degradation of the Signal To Noise Ratio across the internet.
Sure it facilitates and contributes (or contributes to) many useful things, but the NOISE so excessively overwhelms any actual benefit.
Net Profit To Society is severely negative.
Not that I'm denying that millions of people use it, not that I'm denying millions of people *enjoy* using it, but seriously folks all arguments based around the concept that popular == good belong in Junior High School.
I blame Bugs Bunny.
As frustrating as it is, this is a good example of the System Works and Learning From Past Mistakes.
Now if only we could secure sufficient funding for NASA and space exploration in general, because no matter whether we had a shutdown or a catastrophe every failed launch is an expensive exercise.
not interfering except for extremes
Judging by recent behaviour, the US of A (amongst others) is happy to interfere even if the only EXTREME is the extremely fabricated "evidence".
Whoever would want to fire a nuke, however small the yield, with a launcher limited to a 4000 m range is beyond be, though.
Says you, conveniently ignoring every suicide bomber in the known universe.
If Facebook ends up close to $38 at the end of the day, it will be a rare example of the stock having been priced correctly at the start.
Not true because it ONLY maintained said price by MASSIVE support from the underwriters.
In all fairness needing support from the underwriters says NOTHING about the long term value/viability of FB and/or its share price, all it says is the initial price was too high.
PLUS ONE on the above!
If an IPO settles down to slightly more than the initial offered price then it was WELL MANAGED.
But only if that was organic support by the market, not artificial support by the underwriters.
Needing support from the underwriters on the day of the IPO is a clear sign somebody screwed up BIGTIME.
er, call me crazy but isn't that what the UNDERWRITERS are actually for?
ie to write-UNDER the stock price a line labelled "you shall not pass".
searching for things like puppet recipes
for the pedantic, yes I know perfectly what he meant by "puppet recipe" but it's funny(er) this way
If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.
- SENECA, Epistles
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, First Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1933
Fear is the parent of cruelty.
- JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, Short Studies on Great Subjects
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
-EDMUND BURKE, On the Sublime and Beautiful
And, of course, inevitably:
Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
- YODA, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Slashdot already has the equivalent: ACM (Anonymous Coward Management).
They also have ATF (Assisted Troll Flagging) as a kind of belt-n-suspenders thing.
My InterTubes are BETTER because I HAVE ZERO LOSS!!!
Oddly enough such a business model turned out to be unsustainable due to
(1) it's finanically expensive (between one thing an another)
(2) doing this the less expensive way (ie by slathering on bigger buffers) introduces excessive latency (for some customer designated value of "excessive")
For the life of me I don't understand how ANYBODY can be allowed to run a company without at least vaguely understanding the concept TANSTAAFL.
And, finally: No that Hot Blonde Supermodel with MASSIVE Bazingas does NOT find you attractive, not in the slightest, no matter how much she may drink/snort/inject or pop.
If you want to fix throughput issues without spending lots of money or sacrificing latency then you're going to need a beter algorithm (yes folks, hard research and careful thinking).
So to be rebellious they'll create Assbook.
Judging by your comment I'd be guessing you're new here.
Unrelated to The Story of O.
You can thank me later (or not).
If a significant number of people in your country hate the "other" people so much that they would rather everybody suffer than allow them to succeed, then you country is rotten to the core and will fail no matter what anyone does.
Well, what do you call people who make up their own reality which can not be penetrated by facts?
Religious?
Then there is Google, which will gladly convert from feet to meters, Angstroms, fathoms or whatever other unit of length you want.
For those of you who were wondering, the ANGSTROM is the unit of measurement for ANGST.
You start using feet then proceed to tons (metric or US), then proceed to square kilometers...
Go easy on him, it's a rough life being a NASA scientist.
There's a little black spot on the sun today
(That`s my soul up there)
I can accept the argument that it costs more to deliver a digital-download to "the rest of the internet" vs The US of A (due to many and various special deals cut by content providers) but not that much more. Especially for something like a song/album/movie or whatever where there is literally zero customisation for the geography or nationality of the end-consumer.
The worst part is that this pricing disparity is heaping insult upon injury.
Not only do we pay more than US based customers, but our downloads are often objectionably slow due to the inherent lesser throughput as a result of US based content hosting.
Seriously folks, when are you going to MAN UP and host some servers in Down Under Land? The NBN is coming, end-customers will have 100Mbps links, and you will NOT BE ABLE TO PROPERLY SERVE THEM.
w00t!!!!
I Am The Two Percent!
I already know my exact position *before* being teleported (ie HERE), what I'm looking for is to find what my exact position will be *after* being teleported and with more detail than just "HERE".
It's sad to see how much effort they had to go through. This case is EXACTLY what patents are for: a bunch of scientists did some research and patented the results - companies took their results and made commercial products out of that and believed they could get away with not paying any kind of royalty or license fee.
The vast majority of this money will go back into further research, slowly making the world a better place.
For those who care to know (PDF): Their Most Recent Annual Report.
Until now the world has bene DOMINATED by business operating under the "well yes but NOT IN YOUR PART OF THE WORLD" methodology.
And nobody (with a voice) thought that was a bad thing.
Suddenly companies are discovering that insert weasel words here is insufficient protection from lawsuits and punitive damages.
It's about time!
For the life of me I do not understand why "if you cannot deliver said functionality in a given country, then YOU CANNOT MARKET UNDER SAID TECHNOLOGY BANNER (in said country)" is such a difficult concept.
Here's hoping for a groundswell realisation that you cannot have your cake and eat it too applies to corporations as well as it applies to individuals.