Population decline is not inevitable. Population growth must eventually stop, but we may well be able to stop it before overshooting the maximum supportable (which could well be much much higher than current populations, depending on future advances in technology) and then just have a stable population.
Exponential is still incremental. Technically, I think they are complying with that particular ruling at the moment (the fine is for the time they wasted before complying) - it's the other investigations that are going to get them fined at every increasing rates.
That ought to do it... MS would need to continue failing to comply for a few more years before they can justifiably be fined their entire European market share, though. Knowing their history, they probably will continue to fail to comply for a few more years - time will tell.
Yeah, that's pretty much what would happen, and that would be devastating, at least in the short term. A mass changeover like that is never going to go smoothly or cheaply.
Banning MS products in Europe would be devastating to the world economy (and even worse for the European economy). The switching costs would be enormous, and then you have problems with communicating between MS-users outside Europe and non-MS-users in Europe. (The whole point of this ruling is that MS products aren't properly compatible with non-MS products.)
$1.3 billion is a lot of money, sure, MS can afford it, but do they really think it's worth it? If they continue not to comply, the fines will increase.
There's no problem with shipping a media player with your OS. There is a problem with shipping just your media player with your OS. It's using a monopoly in one market to gain a monopoly in another, which is not allowed.
I think "24/7" generally means all of each hour. Even so, I'm sure he would have spent an hour doing something not related to the project at some point during the 10 years. You were using hyperbole, you were not being literal. Just accept it.
So he never thought about or did anything else? Seems unlikely. Especially when asleep - you don't dream constantly when asleep, so even if he did dream about the project that doesn't help.
That's not really how the legal system works, to my knowledge. What would actually happen is there would be a test case which would establish a precedent, and then each individual studio would be tried separately (the hope being they would settle out of court, based on the precedent established by the test case). I'm not sure if the cases are similar enough for that to work, though - it might be necessary to deal with each individually until they get the picture.
Those affects are neglibible over the short time frame of carving and selling one statue, so my point stands.
Interesting that you should mention the US - last time I saw the numbers, the US was very unusual among developed nations for still having an above-replacement birth rate (ie. above about 2.1 children per woman). Japan is certainly leading the way, but Europe is going to follow far sooner than the US. One obvious step (which is being taken in some countries) is raising the retirement age (these days, people are still perfectly active into their late 60's/early 70's, so it makes sense), although that's likely only a stall. I'm not sure what median age we're likely to level out at...
You can elect the people that run the central bank if you like (personally, I prefer such positions to be determined by expertise rather than popularity), what's important is that it is separate. Everyone (with any knowledge of economics, anyway) knows it's a bad idea to just print money, governments sometimes think (usually incorrectly) that it's worth it for some reason. A separate central bank would never have that reason, since public spending isn't anything to do with them.
If the problem is just that the government are printing too much money, it's easier just to make the central bank independent so they can't do that any more.
A ten pound note can be exchanged for £10 worth of goods. Therefore, it is worth £10. That's what value means. The statue in my example can be exchanged for a ten point note, therefore it is also worth £10. £10+£10=£20 which is more than £11. It's perfectly real. (By all means exchange "pounds" for "gold coins" throughout if that makes it seem more real - fiat currency is imaginary in a sense, it only works because we all accept it and believe it will work. Gold coins have inherent value, as does a statue, so exchanging them is much easier to get your head around.)
All absolutely true, but in general, the total supply of gold is pretty much fixed. Barring events like the California gold rush, the amount of gold mined is negligible. You could get deflation (or inflation) because of economic growth (or recession), but under non-extreme conditions, the affect is pretty small.
Of course, the gold standard didn't work. Mainly because of extremes, I believe - the system only works while everything is staying pretty much as it is, once things change dramatically, it all falls down.
I buy a piece of wood for £1, carve a statue out of it and sell it for £10. Before I carved it, I owned a piece of wood worth £1 and the purchaser owned money worth £10, that's a total of £11. After selling it, I own money worth £10 and the purchaser owns a statue worth £10, that's a total of £20. That extra £9 is new wealth. It didn't previously exist.
The money might disappear, but the wealth doesn't, since a new item is created from nowhere. Money supply isn't the only thing that affects inflation - simple wealth creation also has an affect.
Gold only works as a store of value in the real world because the amount of gold being mined is such a tiny proportion of the total gold in circulation - there is pretty much a fixed amount of gold in existence. That's not the case in a game like WoW. A gold standard in WoW is meaningless, you would need a standard based on something fixed (is there any such thing? Land maybe? I'm not sure how Wow handles land, or how often new areas are opened).
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Population decline is not inevitable. Population growth must eventually stop, but we may well be able to stop it before overshooting the maximum supportable (which could well be much much higher than current populations, depending on future advances in technology) and then just have a stable population.
Exponential is still incremental. Technically, I think they are complying with that particular ruling at the moment (the fine is for the time they wasted before complying) - it's the other investigations that are going to get them fined at every increasing rates.
That ought to do it... MS would need to continue failing to comply for a few more years before they can justifiably be fined their entire European market share, though. Knowing their history, they probably will continue to fail to comply for a few more years - time will tell.
Yeah, that's pretty much what would happen, and that would be devastating, at least in the short term. A mass changeover like that is never going to go smoothly or cheaply.
You've read what I said, reworded it and posted it as a reply... why?
Banning MS products in Europe would be devastating to the world economy (and even worse for the European economy). The switching costs would be enormous, and then you have problems with communicating between MS-users outside Europe and non-MS-users in Europe. (The whole point of this ruling is that MS products aren't properly compatible with non-MS products.)
$1.3 billion is a lot of money, sure, MS can afford it, but do they really think it's worth it? If they continue not to comply, the fines will increase.
There's no problem with shipping a media player with your OS. There is a problem with shipping just your media player with your OS. It's using a monopoly in one market to gain a monopoly in another, which is not allowed.
I think "24/7" generally means all of each hour. Even so, I'm sure he would have spent an hour doing something not related to the project at some point during the 10 years. You were using hyperbole, you were not being literal. Just accept it.
So he never thought about or did anything else? Seems unlikely. Especially when asleep - you don't dream constantly when asleep, so even if he did dream about the project that doesn't help.
That's not really how the legal system works, to my knowledge. What would actually happen is there would be a test case which would establish a precedent, and then each individual studio would be tried separately (the hope being they would settle out of court, based on the precedent established by the test case). I'm not sure if the cases are similar enough for that to work, though - it might be necessary to deal with each individually until they get the picture.
Please look up what the word "literally" means.
Every lose in court increases the amount of precedent against them which makes it easier to beat them in future.
You trust SCO to get anything right?
"Dilemma solved. Nobody profits."
Except the cable repair company...
Have two islands and alternate which one is above water.
Those affects are neglibible over the short time frame of carving and selling one statue, so my point stands.
Interesting that you should mention the US - last time I saw the numbers, the US was very unusual among developed nations for still having an above-replacement birth rate (ie. above about 2.1 children per woman). Japan is certainly leading the way, but Europe is going to follow far sooner than the US. One obvious step (which is being taken in some countries) is raising the retirement age (these days, people are still perfectly active into their late 60's/early 70's, so it makes sense), although that's likely only a stall. I'm not sure what median age we're likely to level out at...
You can elect the people that run the central bank if you like (personally, I prefer such positions to be determined by expertise rather than popularity), what's important is that it is separate. Everyone (with any knowledge of economics, anyway) knows it's a bad idea to just print money, governments sometimes think (usually incorrectly) that it's worth it for some reason. A separate central bank would never have that reason, since public spending isn't anything to do with them.
Make it a bridge to an island that is completely underwater at high tide.
If the problem is just that the government are printing too much money, it's easier just to make the central bank independent so they can't do that any more.
If that were the case, fiat currency wouldn't work either - we would end up with hyperinflation.
A ten pound note can be exchanged for £10 worth of goods. Therefore, it is worth £10. That's what value means. The statue in my example can be exchanged for a ten point note, therefore it is also worth £10. £10+£10=£20 which is more than £11. It's perfectly real. (By all means exchange "pounds" for "gold coins" throughout if that makes it seem more real - fiat currency is imaginary in a sense, it only works because we all accept it and believe it will work. Gold coins have inherent value, as does a statue, so exchanging them is much easier to get your head around.)
All absolutely true, but in general, the total supply of gold is pretty much fixed. Barring events like the California gold rush, the amount of gold mined is negligible. You could get deflation (or inflation) because of economic growth (or recession), but under non-extreme conditions, the affect is pretty small.
Of course, the gold standard didn't work. Mainly because of extremes, I believe - the system only works while everything is staying pretty much as it is, once things change dramatically, it all falls down.
I buy a piece of wood for £1, carve a statue out of it and sell it for £10. Before I carved it, I owned a piece of wood worth £1 and the purchaser owned money worth £10, that's a total of £11. After selling it, I own money worth £10 and the purchaser owns a statue worth £10, that's a total of £20. That extra £9 is new wealth. It didn't previously exist.
The money might disappear, but the wealth doesn't, since a new item is created from nowhere. Money supply isn't the only thing that affects inflation - simple wealth creation also has an affect.
Gold only works as a store of value in the real world because the amount of gold being mined is such a tiny proportion of the total gold in circulation - there is pretty much a fixed amount of gold in existence. That's not the case in a game like WoW. A gold standard in WoW is meaningless, you would need a standard based on something fixed (is there any such thing? Land maybe? I'm not sure how Wow handles land, or how often new areas are opened).