I *am* a business major, and one of the most consistent themes from my professors is that responsible behavior is supposedly financially better in the long run anyways, in addition to whatever ethical/moral claims involved.
Unfortunately, there are too many CEOs whose compensation is linked to short term goals. This, IMHO, is due to the fact that the board members frequently don't have have significant shareholdings and the CEOs have too much control over the board. This, is IMHO, due to the legal framework under which companies operate and the lack of opportunity for shareholders to control the board.
Indeed, the court system does seem to favor the wealthy (unless you are the deep pockets being sued), but even loser pay rules struck me as unfair.
Loser pays in the UK is not quite as simple as many people think. The definition of "loser" is usually based on whether any award was more or less than what was previously offered (and paid into the court) by the defendant. For example if the defendant offered to settle for 100k pounds and the judge awards damages of 99k pounds (less than was offered), then the plaintiff is considered the loser and has to pay the defendant's legal costs even though he was awarded 99k.
Furthermore, legal costs include the cost of the lawyers' time, unlike the USA.
Do you know how many bombs are defused? By a "controlled explosion". As soon as the bomb squad realise what they are dealing with, what is the likelihood of a "controlled explosion" being used on your car?
Alternate suggestion: attach the GPS unit to another vehicle. A bus? Your neighbor's car?
There is no need to hire a celebrity reader. I assume publishers do this in order to maximise profits and justify the vastly increased price of the audiobook.
But how does ATI know that you bought an ATI card because of the open-source drivers?
Perhaps an alternative (and cheaper approach) is to go and download the drivers from ATI's website while using a browser that sends a user agent that is clearly identifiable as a Linux system.
In my household, we have 3 Thinkpads with ATI graphics, all now running Ubuntu 10.04 and have not seen any of the issues you describe. At work, we also have Thinkpads with ATI graphics running Ubuntu 10.04 and have not seen these issues. I have been running a desktop with nVidia chipset and ATI graphics under Gentoo Linux and it is rock solid.
I would suggest it isn't so much an "American" trait as it is a convenient news tactic in America. People naturally want answers to questions. The neater and tighter the answer, the more readily it is accepted
I would disagree with that assessment. I have had multiple conversations in which the topic is "THE cause of..." while it seems perfectly obvious to me that there are multiple causes. So I don't think it is limited to the media.
Before this post gets modded as a troll or flamebait, it is my humble and sincere view as someone born and raised outside the USA, that Americans are often obsessed by finding a single cause for a problem and the idea that there might be multiple causes is rarely explored.
Is not an overloaded server (or router, or any other stop along the way) a "clog"?
I still don't see how he was ever that far off.
The point that he was trying to make was that his email was delayed by several days because the "tubes" were overloaded, which was clearly untrue. That's why he was so far off. Overloaded or offline mail servers were unrelated to the topic of the discussion. Context is important in this discussion.
It wasn't so much the content, as he was, in a laymans way, more or less correct.
Apart from the fact that he seemed to think that the long delay in delivering "an Internet" [email] was due to those tubes being clogged, rather than the more likely explanation of a mail server being overloaded or offline.
Doesn't it just use micro USB like all the other new phones?
I thought that the EU had forced all of the cell phone makers to adopt micro USB for charging and that they had complied by adopting the standard everywhere (not just in the EU).
This is the EU that you are discussing. Rules don't come into force overnight. Also, it appears that the rules can be satisfied by selling an adapter. Apple sells such adapters.
Or, as in the case of a laptop I bought recently for work, it simply won't burn the recovery disks. I tried several times, with media from two different (high quality) brands. It failed every time.
USCG stole something else as well then, their Acronym. USCG is the US COAST GUARD, not the US Copyright Group. These guys should get a clue.
Thank you so much for using "their" in the proper context! At last! I have read a slashdot comment with proper grammar!!!
Except, no! Usual american grammar uses the singular for groups such as companies, sports teams, etc.. So in this case, it should be "its", not "their"!
I fully expect someone to point out errors in my post. Such is the fate of anyone who posts about grammar!
Every corporation of a decent size has divisions that do not, and have never, contributed directly to the bottom line.
Absolutely, but those divisions are either failed divisions, or some kind or research division. Xbox is neither. It was intended as a product division, and should have either made a profit (which it probably has not) or, gained a central position for MS in the home (which it has not).
Or would you like to claim that the Xbox has helped sales of Windows and Office? If so, I have a bridge to sell you.
The simple fact is that while attempting to refute my argument, you have failed to provide one whit of evidence that the Xbox has helped (directly or indirectly) MS's bottom line. Perhaps the Xbox helped sales of the Kin?
sure, but he also managed the Xbox and that worked out pretty well.
Did it? The entertainment division lost money last quarter. Has the Xbox actually made a net profit over its lifetime? By that, have the total profits on the Xbox paid for the total losses incurred over the years taking into account the cost of money?
The intent was to get the Xbox into the living room as an entertainment center. How's that working out?
So now if Dell convinces a supplier to cut a great deal, but the supplier says "only if you don't tell everyone, or they'll ALL want the same deal" does Dell say, "No thanks, we'll pay the higher price."???
If the deal is: "we will give you a break on the price of our processors as long as you break the law by failing to publish proper accounts", then, yes, Dell should turn the deal down.
Actually, I think it is worse than that.
Management conned shareholders about how efficient the company was, and therefore how much the company could be expected to earn in the future. Who were the victims here: the shareholders.
The SEC investigates and now the company has to pay a fine. Whose money pays the fine? The shareholders.
Put simply, the victims of this fraud get to pay the fine. Yah! Well done SEC, that will provide a real incentive to stop execs doing this in the future.
[Yes, I know that Michael Dell has to pay $4M, but this is a small amount to him -- probably less than the fraud earned him]
... reason for the shutdown, they were being "economical with the truth"?
I can accept that, perhaps they had a reason to shut down their client (although the reason seems very weak), but to lie about it? They deserve to have their clients move elsewhere and be forced into bankruptcy.
One of the points made that first cast the claims into doubt was that some (most?) new cars now will cut the engine if you press the gas and brake at the same time. One specific case that they were trying to reproduce they concluded that if the gas was stuck and the driver had REALLY been holding down the brake, the engine would have shut off.
You assume that the ECU is working correctly. That's a bad assumption if you want to look for possible problems. However, it seems to me that if the brakes have been applied hard while the engine is running with wide open throttle, there will be visible effects in the brake pads and brake rotors. Since that condition should not occur, if these effects were seen, if would provide very good evidence of a problem.
The other troubling part of the investigation is that it requires specially equipped laptops provided by Toyota. Does no-one else think that there is a problem with the manufacturer providing a close-source system to interrogate the ECU?
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, there are too many CEOs whose compensation is linked to short term goals. This, IMHO, is due to the fact that the board members frequently don't have have significant shareholdings and the CEOs have too much control over the board. This, is IMHO, due to the legal framework under which companies operate and the lack of opportunity for shareholders to control the board.
Loser pays in the UK is not quite as simple as many people think. The definition of "loser" is usually based on whether any award was more or less than what was previously offered (and paid into the court) by the defendant. For example if the defendant offered to settle for 100k pounds and the judge awards damages of 99k pounds (less than was offered), then the plaintiff is considered the loser and has to pay the defendant's legal costs even though he was awarded 99k.
Furthermore, legal costs include the cost of the lawyers' time, unlike the USA.
Since so much news and political speech happens over the Internet, would not an order to shut it down be a violation of the first amendment?
You can bid on Darl's house on September 14:
Go here Select Utah, then Salt Lake, then Look down the page for "VINTAGE OAK"
You appear to have difficulty distinguishing between bandwidth limits and network neutrality.
FTFY Mr. Hoyle
It's ironic when you look at what happened in the wider context of Oracle's actions regarding open source software, for example OpenSolaris.
Do you know how many bombs are defused? By a "controlled explosion". As soon as the bomb squad realise what they are dealing with, what is the likelihood of a "controlled explosion" being used on your car?
Alternate suggestion: attach the GPS unit to another vehicle. A bus? Your neighbor's car?
There is no need to hire a celebrity reader. I assume publishers do this in order to maximise profits and justify the vastly increased price of the audiobook.
But how does ATI know that you bought an ATI card because of the open-source drivers?
Perhaps an alternative (and cheaper approach) is to go and download the drivers from ATI's website while using a browser that sends a user agent that is clearly identifiable as a Linux system.
In my household, we have 3 Thinkpads with ATI graphics, all now running Ubuntu 10.04 and have not seen any of the issues you describe. At work, we also have Thinkpads with ATI graphics running Ubuntu 10.04 and have not seen these issues. I have been running a desktop with nVidia chipset and ATI graphics under Gentoo Linux and it is rock solid.
Perhaps you got some bad hardware?
I would disagree with that assessment. I have had multiple conversations in which the topic is "THE cause of ..." while it seems perfectly obvious to me that there are multiple causes. So I don't think it is limited to the media.
Wow, a nuanced view of the problems.
Before this post gets modded as a troll or flamebait, it is my humble and sincere view as someone born and raised outside the USA, that Americans are often obsessed by finding a single cause for a problem and the idea that there might be multiple causes is rarely explored.
The point that he was trying to make was that his email was delayed by several days because the "tubes" were overloaded, which was clearly untrue. That's why he was so far off. Overloaded or offline mail servers were unrelated to the topic of the discussion. Context is important in this discussion.
Apart from the fact that he seemed to think that the long delay in delivering "an Internet" [email] was due to those tubes being clogged, rather than the more likely explanation of a mail server being overloaded or offline.
This is the EU that you are discussing. Rules don't come into force overnight. Also, it appears that the rules can be satisfied by selling an adapter. Apple sells such adapters.
Or, as in the case of a laptop I bought recently for work, it simply won't burn the recovery disks. I tried several times, with media from two different (high quality) brands. It failed every time.
What part of "I own the router, not them" do you not understand?
That goes for you too, mods!
I expect that I'll be modded down as a troll for pointing out facts that contradict the parent post.
Except, no! Usual american grammar uses the singular for groups such as companies, sports teams, etc.. So in this case, it should be "its", not "their"!
I fully expect someone to point out errors in my post. Such is the fate of anyone who posts about grammar!
Absolutely, but those divisions are either failed divisions, or some kind or research division. Xbox is neither. It was intended as a product division, and should have either made a profit (which it probably has not) or, gained a central position for MS in the home (which it has not).
Or would you like to claim that the Xbox has helped sales of Windows and Office? If so, I have a bridge to sell you.
The simple fact is that while attempting to refute my argument, you have failed to provide one whit of evidence that the Xbox has helped (directly or indirectly) MS's bottom line. Perhaps the Xbox helped sales of the Kin?
Did it? The entertainment division lost money last quarter. Has the Xbox actually made a net profit over its lifetime? By that, have the total profits on the Xbox paid for the total losses incurred over the years taking into account the cost of money?
The intent was to get the Xbox into the living room as an entertainment center. How's that working out?
If the deal is: "we will give you a break on the price of our processors as long as you break the law by failing to publish proper accounts", then, yes, Dell should turn the deal down.
Actually, I think it is worse than that. Management conned shareholders about how efficient the company was, and therefore how much the company could be expected to earn in the future. Who were the victims here: the shareholders. The SEC investigates and now the company has to pay a fine. Whose money pays the fine? The shareholders. Put simply, the victims of this fraud get to pay the fine. Yah! Well done SEC, that will provide a real incentive to stop execs doing this in the future. [Yes, I know that Michael Dell has to pay $4M, but this is a small amount to him -- probably less than the fraud earned him]
... reason for the shutdown, they were being "economical with the truth"?
I can accept that, perhaps they had a reason to shut down their client (although the reason seems very weak), but to lie about it? They deserve to have their clients move elsewhere and be forced into bankruptcy.
You assume that the ECU is working correctly. That's a bad assumption if you want to look for possible problems. However, it seems to me that if the brakes have been applied hard while the engine is running with wide open throttle, there will be visible effects in the brake pads and brake rotors. Since that condition should not occur, if these effects were seen, if would provide very good evidence of a problem.
The other troubling part of the investigation is that it requires specially equipped laptops provided by Toyota. Does no-one else think that there is a problem with the manufacturer providing a close-source system to interrogate the ECU?