from the US Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed
I wish that we could have a national referendum on this RFID question. In many states, the acts of the legislatures can be put to a direct vote of the public, and the public, through the initiative process, can make law or amend the state constitution. I think it's time we got those processes into the US Constitution through a constitutional amendment...
Linus is no idiot... this is clearly a political stance.
"If you want to get along, you have to go along."- Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House, quoted by Lyndon Johnson, US President.
I am dubious of most politician's motives, and of what they produce. The "proof is in the puding" in the case of really good men and women in politics. Linus has held together what amount to a herd of cats: we programmers. It's obvious that we've produced good outcomes. Not optimal or ideal, but useful, even very useful. His role has been crucial, and I thank him, and wish I had his management skills to compliment my technical skills.
in aerospace since '71 (9 of those yrs in Europe)
on
Airbus A380 Under Fire
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I find this report very disturbing. The lack of protection for European whistle-blowers is terrible.
If the guy is wrong about his concerns, he should still be allowed to have them heard. I'd rather have 9 out of ten "squalks" amount to nothing, than suffer the consequenses of the tenth.
I'm shocked at the shortsightedness of Airbus response. Since Boeing is deploying the chips, in the American legal environment, there is no way an open process can be avoided. What in the world is the Airbus executive suite thinking? They have made a "no win" choice.
If Boeing confirms the problem, then Airbus looks like they were playing fast-and-loose with peoples lives. If Boeing, in an open process, confirms the safety of the part... Well then folks will ask why Airbus didn't open the process. And all the while Airbus looks like an ugly outfit to work for...
I just don't understand why they're playing it this way. This closed-process "deny, deny, deny" attitude destroyed Douglas Aircraft's business after the Chicago DC-10 crash. I hope the A-380 will prove safe in service, but I do wish they allowed whistle-blowers to live in peace, and addressed the claims with engineers, not lawyers.
Politically, pornography is a wedge issue to split the middle-of-the-road voters from the Democrats, and activate them to vote for Republicans. It's really no different from "School Prayer", "Flag Burning", and a bunch of other issues that have been used to get the vote out for Republicans. My guess is that some political strategist like Carl Rove initiated this. Bush's terrible polling numbers bode poorly for Republicans in the mid-term elections. This smacks of a put-up issue to activate a segment of the Republican party base...
In the old days, an announcement like this would have been an instant death blow to the competing company. I am happy to note these days it is a relative non-event.
Hardly a non-event: this will be the first application win for the OSS community. Linux is, of course a fantastic platform success. Firefox doing OK, but had to deal with entrenched competition: IE.
This time the shoe is on the other foot. OSS has the jump on Gates and MS.
Sure, Microsoft would love to sing its old song: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD). It can't though, because of open standards and open source.
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the VOIP client PhoneGaim, for example, are entrenched competition that won't be dislodged by FUD. There are no OSS investors to scare away. And of course, Microsoft can't drop the consumer's price point below zero.
This upcoming defeat for Gates & Co. will convince Wall Street that MS has nowhere to go but down. That, in turn, will open up the software field to "the Bazaar" that Eric Raymond described so well. This head-to-head fair fight is something to celebrate. This is the morning of our success and freedom.
I think you're right: Google management sure looks foolish! I , for one, feel safer with that (Google) to an outfit (MS) that looks and sounds like a thief and a bully. There's a huge difference, isn't there?
As an aside, Google seems to have ignored the first rule when dealing with the press. That is: "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel!".
I wonder how that bit of wisdom can be brought into the internet age. Maybe "Never pick a fight with someone who serves up unicode at gigbits per second!"
simple physics: the tidal foces are greatest on the crust at the equator. It's the differential between the gravity farthest fromthe moon and closest to the moon that drives the tides. Clearly, right near the center of the earth there isn't any force to speak of then, and there's more and more as you get closer to the surface.
In addition, the stiffness of the crust, and the extremely high viscosity of the mantle both limit deformation. Thus the effects of the tidal pulls transport far more mass in the very fluid oceans. That fluid motion is what visibly causes the tie to rise and fall. Nothing like obseveable facts to help us sift wheat from chaff in a scientific discussion!
so yes, it is so simple. The tides swishing water round the earth do tow things in this regard: They speed the Moon up in its orbit (so its orbit is actually dropping!) and they slow the rotation of the earth. So it's exactly as gowen says: Given that the Earth's rotation is slowing down, isn't it immediately apparent that the liquid core must spin faster than the outside. It's just basic fluid dynamics. If apply a torque to the outside of a fluid filled region, the middle of that region will feel the effect last.
Yes, both IBM and Bill Gates' Microsoft became feared and hated. WHY is the $64. question!
And: is the same reason applicable to Google?
Well, Both MS and IBM were perceived to be bullys. They used their overwhelming advantages in one market to extend control to other markets. Typically, they cut prices in the new markets in order to drive competitors out, even competitors with superior products. The investment community saw this, and feared investing in excellent products and technologies whenever Microsoft trumpeted that they were moving into a market. I can only think of two products that survived that onslaught: Oracle and Quicken. This is the fear, uncertainty, doubt (FUD) strategy.
The other bullying tactic which both used was to offer low ball buyouts to companies with promising technologies. They would, at the same time, threaten to buy similar technologies elsewhere, and then overwhelm their target company. In many cases, Microsoft seemed to steal technology outright, both from buyout targets, as well as from partner companies. In short, they were thugs, and were known as such.
IBM has changed over the last 20 years. Bill Gates still sings the same tune that he did 20 years ago. I haven't heard those notes from Google.
I've read TRN for a few years... so obviously, I like your content. I wondered from day one where you were getting your money...
I agree that you can devote more of the page to advertising... For example the whole right column is ads on many free information sites.
First things first: Find out about your audience demographics. Demographics is what sells targeted advertising. Clicks sold is less 1% of the world's advertising. A lot of advertising is geared towards garnering brand recognition in a target group. For example the "Diamonds are Forever" campaign by deBeers. If you can show that 20% of your audience is repeat viewership, and has high disposable income, then selling that kind of ads becomes possible. Another example is investor services: The high net worth individual only has to be 5% of your audience, and suddenly folks at Morgan Stanley or Credit Suisse First Boston will be interested...
Also consider an "in depth" page for subscribers, and pick up say $5 with PayPal for an annual subscription. The Economist has a web site with that kind of subscription model.
Be sure to check out high-income glossy magazines, and see which ads might be good in your pages. Look at magazines like Fortune, The Economist, Cigar Aficionado, Yachting, and so on. Also find out which ad agencies represent the likes of deBeers, Cartier, Ferrari, and Netjets. They may try some "small bucks" ads on your site, which are big bucks to you!
But start with demographics: You are selling a product to the advertisers, and that product is your viewers attention. Emotional advertising is very effective when folks are geared towards picking up factual data. Your site is perfect for that. You have to "know your product"; that's the first rule of sales. Your demographics characterize the product which you sell to advertisers.
The article points out that if Earth was a bit farther away from the Sun, then the Carbon Dioxide would have frozen out of the atmosphere, thus preventing that particular greenhouse gas from bringing on a subsequent warming period. Mars has almost exactly that situation. One or the other of the poles is always cold enough to freeze Carbon Dioxide out of its atmosphere. Too little greenhouse gas ==>>planet stays too cold==>> water permenantly locked up as ice.
With the discoveries of the last couple of years we know Mars has lots of water and Carbon Dioxide, and Methane to boot! AND we know that temperatures permitted liquid surface water in the distant past.
Is this reasonable? Could cyanobacteria have doomed Mars? anyone?
As a rough figure, to get to orbit you need to go Mach 25 (M25), as measured at sea level (STP), say 1100 fps.
The energy required for the acceleration to M25, and for lifting the vehicle from the surface to orbital altitiude is supplied by the fuel. The fraction for acceleration dominates completely, so, in a rough order of magnitude (ROM) discussion, the aerospace community usually ignores the lift fraction.
Since the kinetic energy of a body varies as the square of the velocity, the acceleration from M12->M24 needs 4x the energy of a M0->M12, and M6->M12 needs 4x the energy of M0->M6. So we see that, as a ROM, the energy expended to get from M0->M6 is at most 2% of the energy needed to get to orbit.
The Oxygen saved by an air-breathing propulsion system is as a ROM, limited to the total Liquid Oxygen (LOX) consumption in the air-breather's flight envelope, which is M1->M7. So as a ROM we are talking about MAX a 2% LOX saving.
In that discussion, a few potentially significant elements are ignored: 1>plus side: a lot of weight is shed early on in flight, so the total liftoff weight is not accelerated to M25 2>plus side: air entrainment can increase the mass flow of a propulsion system, which improves propulsion efficiency 3>minus side: a flight profile which derives max benefit from air for propulsion will also have higher drag, which costs fuel
4> minus side: the air-breather's flight profile include very signficant dynamic pressures (MAX Q), which need a beefier structure, which in turn reduces vehicle payload.
5> minus side: sustained operations near MAXQ limited high Mach number flight result in large aerodynamic heat loads, which must be delt with by additional structure, again at the direct cost of payload.
In summary, even ROM discussions show that air breathers have little to recomend them at this time. However, at some point our knowledge of high Mach/high Reynolds flight aerdynamics will allow for more precise design, and better materials will reduce structural weight and heat load problems. At that point, we should see a mixed cycle, hybrid engine which utilizes air entrainment, waverider aerodynamics, and aerospike expansion. Those technologies are, for now, mostly hand waving.
I hope this helps by sorting out some first order issues and opportunities. Good luck with your studies.
Well, that's a reasonable comment. It misses a few other points that need consideration:
NASA/Congress is poor at cooperating with private industry. NASA suffers from "not invented here" syndrome. NASA does wonderful research, but is a very expensive and poor launch-operations organization. NASA in tandem with Congress has prefered to select designs that look like "high tech" to the man on the street. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is what the airlines rely on when buying airplanes, which is why Concorde is a thing of the past, and a 737 takes off every 30 seconds, 24/7, 365.
The shuttle basic design revolves around 60's technologies, with a 80's digital flight management system and communications links.
We have two policy choices, and they are not derivative vs "all new".
The choice is this: Continue with NASA centric launch operations and vehicle development (business as usual) OR contract for performance: buy pounds to orbit and passenger seats to orbit from the lowest bidder. Since some bidders such as the Arianne or Soyuz folks are subsidized, match those to Boeing, Lockheed, or any new American startup bidders.
The sooner we get NASA focused on technology research, the faster TCO will come down.
The first incarnation for the mass market that I'm aware of was for the original IBM PC (type 029) with the 8 bit chip, running PC-DOS. AST Research had a plug-in memory card before they came out with the "Six-Pak" card, but I don't think it had the ramdisk software. The "ramdisk" software was a "Terminate and Stay Resident" (TSR) program that was usually run from the AUTOEXEC.BAT.
As it happens, I'm the owner of such a setup, which is in near pristine condition. I'm missing the original Floppy that came wth the Six-Pak, and the original manual as well. If anyone want's to donate.... email me, please... sixpack at binaryblitz com thx
come to think of it, there may have been a similar setup for the Apple II, as early as 1981... Can't remember! Anyone?
20 years ago I wrote a security system, and offered the staff a free lunch if they could find any "undocumented behavior". It's a quick and cheap way to build confidence. I had a couple of takers, but both quit their spiel while they were laying out their case... Seem they didn't RTFM! ; )
you said "[let's not ]attribute to malice that which can be fully explained by incompetence.
on the other hand...
the best guide to future performance is past performance...
forewarned is forearmed
and George Santayana: "He who cannot remember the past is condemed to repeat it."
In the US courts, past behavior can be used to show an indication of intent. Intel has been convicted of illegal anti-competitive behavior. Of course folks are quick to say "here they go again!"; that's only natural, and reasonable as well.
If MS asks to talk to you, you should bear in mind that they are known for looking out for themselves. They often seem intent on screwing those who they approach with "partnership" or "purchase" inquiries. Not surprisingly, they can also jerk folks around who they offer invitations for employment interviews.
I suggest that if they approach you, that you respond by requireing some money up front. For an interview, say $1000 to your favorite charity, and another $1000 to you personally if the process goes nowhere. For exploritory talks on a takeover $100K seems a reasonable amount. In each case, the sum has to be big enough to give them pause, but small enough that it's loose change compared to the value of their proposal.
I'm not suggesting that you jerk them around this way, only that you can protect yourself from their usual practices...
I am disappointed to hear that the stock markets are selling off just because of terrorism
You may be mistaken. As I understand it, the markets reacted to a predictable dip in tourism and travel which almost always happens in reaction to attacks on tourist destinations (London) or travel modes (such as airliners). The markets also reacted by driving spot oil prices down. This was because economic activity may be reduced, which in turn reduces upward pressure on oil prices.
I think the shifts in the market are not panic, rather they are calculated responses to predictable economic consequences.
My heart goes out to the victims and their family and friends.
MENDING WALL
by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
...
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
...
Slashdot Mirror
from the US Declaration of Independence:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed
I wish that we could have a national referendum on this RFID question. In many states, the acts of the legislatures can be put to a direct vote of the public, and the public, through the initiative process, can make law or amend the state constitution. I think it's time we got those processes into the US Constitution through a constitutional amendment...
Linus is no idiot... this is clearly a political stance.
"If you want to get along, you have to go along."- Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House, quoted by Lyndon Johnson, US President.
I am dubious of most politician's motives, and of what they produce. The "proof is in the puding" in the case of really good men and women in politics. Linus has held together what amount to a herd of cats: we programmers. It's obvious that we've produced good outcomes. Not optimal or ideal, but useful, even very useful. His role has been crucial, and I thank him, and wish I had his management skills to compliment my technical skills.
If the guy is wrong about his concerns, he should still be allowed to have them heard. I'd rather have 9 out of ten "squalks" amount to nothing, than suffer the consequenses of the tenth.
I'm shocked at the shortsightedness of Airbus response. Since Boeing is deploying the chips, in the American legal environment, there is no way an open process can be avoided. What in the world is the Airbus executive suite thinking? They have made a "no win" choice.
If Boeing confirms the problem, then Airbus looks like they were playing fast-and-loose with peoples lives. If Boeing, in an open process, confirms the safety of the part... Well then folks will ask why Airbus didn't open the process. And all the while Airbus looks like an ugly outfit to work for...
I just don't understand why they're playing it this way. This closed-process "deny, deny, deny" attitude destroyed Douglas Aircraft's business after the Chicago DC-10 crash. I hope the A-380 will prove safe in service, but I do wish they allowed whistle-blowers to live in peace, and addressed the claims with engineers, not lawyers.
Politically, pornography is a wedge issue to split the middle-of-the-road voters from the Democrats, and activate them to vote for Republicans. It's really no different from "School Prayer", "Flag Burning", and a bunch of other issues that have been used to get the vote out for Republicans. My guess is that some political strategist like Carl Rove initiated this. Bush's terrible polling numbers bode poorly for Republicans in the mid-term elections. This smacks of a put-up issue to activate a segment of the Republican party base...
Billie Holiday & Arthur Herzog Jr said it best:
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own
That's got his own
He just worry 'bout nothin'
Cause he's got his own
Hardly a non-event: this will be the first application win for the OSS community. Linux is, of course a fantastic platform success. Firefox doing OK, but had to deal with entrenched competition: IE.
This time the shoe is on the other foot. OSS has the jump on Gates and MS. Sure, Microsoft would love to sing its old song: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD). It can't though, because of open standards and open source.
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the VOIP client PhoneGaim, for example, are entrenched competition that won't be dislodged by FUD. There are no OSS investors to scare away. And of course, Microsoft can't drop the consumer's price point below zero.
This upcoming defeat for Gates & Co. will convince Wall Street that MS has nowhere to go but down. That, in turn, will open up the software field to "the Bazaar" that Eric Raymond described so well. This head-to-head fair fight is something to celebrate. This is the morning of our success and freedom.
As an aside, Google seems to have ignored the first rule when dealing with the press. That is: "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel!".
I wonder how that bit of wisdom can be brought into the internet age. Maybe "Never pick a fight with someone who serves up unicode at gigbits per second!"
In addition, the stiffness of the crust, and the extremely high viscosity of the mantle both limit deformation. Thus the effects of the tidal pulls transport far more mass in the very fluid oceans. That fluid motion is what visibly causes the tie to rise and fall. Nothing like obseveable facts to help us sift wheat from chaff in a scientific discussion!
so yes, it is so simple. The tides swishing water round the earth do tow things in this regard: They speed the Moon up in its orbit (so its orbit is actually dropping!) and they slow the rotation of the earth. So it's exactly as gowen says: Given that the Earth's rotation is slowing down, isn't it immediately apparent that the liquid core must spin faster than the outside. It's just basic fluid dynamics. If apply a torque to the outside of a fluid filled region, the middle of that region will feel the effect last.
And: is the same reason applicable to Google?
Well, Both MS and IBM were perceived to be bullys. They used their overwhelming advantages in one market to extend control to other markets. Typically, they cut prices in the new markets in order to drive competitors out, even competitors with superior products. The investment community saw this, and feared investing in excellent products and technologies whenever Microsoft trumpeted that they were moving into a market. I can only think of two products that survived that onslaught: Oracle and Quicken. This is the fear, uncertainty, doubt (FUD) strategy.
The other bullying tactic which both used was to offer low ball buyouts to companies with promising technologies. They would, at the same time, threaten to buy similar technologies elsewhere, and then overwhelm their target company. In many cases, Microsoft seemed to steal technology outright, both from buyout targets, as well as from partner companies. In short, they were thugs, and were known as such.
IBM has changed over the last 20 years. Bill Gates still sings the same tune that he did 20 years ago. I haven't heard those notes from Google.
I agree that you can devote more of the page to advertising... For example the whole right column is ads on many free information sites.
First things first: Find out about your audience demographics. Demographics is what sells targeted advertising. Clicks sold is less 1% of the world's advertising. A lot of advertising is geared towards garnering brand recognition in a target group. For example the "Diamonds are Forever" campaign by deBeers. If you can show that 20% of your audience is repeat viewership, and has high disposable income, then selling that kind of ads becomes possible. Another example is investor services: The high net worth individual only has to be 5% of your audience, and suddenly folks at Morgan Stanley or Credit Suisse First Boston will be interested...
Also consider an "in depth" page for subscribers, and pick up say $5 with PayPal for an annual subscription. The Economist has a web site with that kind of subscription model.
Be sure to check out high-income glossy magazines, and see which ads might be good in your pages. Look at magazines like Fortune, The Economist, Cigar Aficionado, Yachting, and so on. Also find out which ad agencies represent the likes of deBeers, Cartier, Ferrari, and Netjets. They may try some "small bucks" ads on your site, which are big bucks to you!
But start with demographics: You are selling a product to the advertisers, and that product is your viewers attention. Emotional advertising is very effective when folks are geared towards picking up factual data. Your site is perfect for that. You have to "know your product"; that's the first rule of sales. Your demographics characterize the product which you sell to advertisers.
Keep up the good writing! And good luck!
The article points out that if Earth was a bit farther away from the Sun, then the Carbon Dioxide would have frozen out of the atmosphere, thus preventing that particular greenhouse gas from bringing on a subsequent warming period. Mars has almost exactly that situation. One or the other of the poles is always cold enough to freeze Carbon Dioxide out of its atmosphere. Too little greenhouse gas ==>>planet stays too cold==>> water permenantly locked up as ice.
With the discoveries of the last couple of years we know Mars has lots of water and Carbon Dioxide, and Methane to boot! AND we know that temperatures permitted liquid surface water in the distant past.
Is this reasonable? Could cyanobacteria have doomed Mars? anyone?
The energy required for the acceleration to M25, and for lifting the vehicle from the surface to orbital altitiude is supplied by the fuel. The fraction for acceleration dominates completely, so, in a rough order of magnitude (ROM) discussion, the aerospace community usually ignores the lift fraction.
Since the kinetic energy of a body varies as the square of the velocity, the acceleration from M12->M24 needs 4x the energy of a M0->M12, and M6->M12 needs 4x the energy of M0->M6. So we see that, as a ROM, the energy expended to get from M0->M6 is at most 2% of the energy needed to get to orbit.
The Oxygen saved by an air-breathing propulsion system is as a ROM, limited to the total Liquid Oxygen (LOX) consumption in the air-breather's flight envelope, which is M1->M7. So as a ROM we are talking about MAX a 2% LOX saving.
In that discussion, a few potentially significant elements are ignored:
1>plus side: a lot of weight is shed early on in flight, so the total liftoff weight is not accelerated to M25
2>plus side: air entrainment can increase the mass flow of a propulsion system, which improves propulsion efficiency
3>minus side: a flight profile which derives max benefit from air for propulsion will also have higher drag, which costs fuel
4> minus side: the air-breather's flight profile include very signficant dynamic pressures (MAX Q), which need a beefier structure, which in turn reduces vehicle payload.
5> minus side: sustained operations near MAXQ limited high Mach number flight result in large aerodynamic heat loads, which must be delt with by additional structure, again at the direct cost of payload.
In summary, even ROM discussions show that air breathers have little to recomend them at this time. However, at some point our knowledge of high Mach/high Reynolds flight aerdynamics will allow for more precise design, and better materials will reduce structural weight and heat load problems. At that point, we should see a mixed cycle, hybrid engine which utilizes air entrainment, waverider aerodynamics, and aerospike expansion. Those technologies are, for now, mostly hand waving.
I hope this helps by sorting out some first order issues and opportunities. Good luck with your studies.
...of adding water vapor into the air. Just what I need in Seattle!
NASA/Congress is poor at cooperating with private industry. NASA suffers from "not invented here" syndrome. NASA does wonderful research, but is a very expensive and poor launch-operations organization. NASA in tandem with Congress has prefered to select designs that look like "high tech" to the man on the street. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is what the airlines rely on when buying airplanes, which is why Concorde is a thing of the past, and a 737 takes off every 30 seconds, 24/7, 365.
The shuttle basic design revolves around 60's technologies, with a 80's digital flight management system and communications links. We have two policy choices, and they are not derivative vs "all new".
The choice is this: Continue with NASA centric launch operations and vehicle development (business as usual) OR contract for performance: buy pounds to orbit and passenger seats to orbit from the lowest bidder. Since some bidders such as the Arianne or Soyuz folks are subsidized, match those to Boeing, Lockheed, or any new American startup bidders.
The sooner we get NASA focused on technology research, the faster TCO will come down.
Not in English, I guess! :-)
one spy is worth 10,000 troups
As it happens, I'm the owner of such a setup, which is in near pristine condition. I'm missing the original Floppy that came wth the Six-Pak, and the original manual as well. If anyone want's to donate .... email me, please... sixpack at binaryblitz com thx
come to think of it, there may have been a similar setup for the Apple II, as early as 1981... Can't remember! Anyone?
20 years ago I wrote a security system, and offered the staff a free lunch if they could find any "undocumented behavior". It's a quick and cheap way to build confidence. I had a couple of takers, but both quit their spiel while they were laying out their case... Seem they didn't RTFM! ; )
site blocked to telus isp customers by telus (this is seen directly, not through proxy)
blocked site seen through the proxy that they recommend
Telus corporate home page (this is the isp home page)
Telus fair use policy (part of agreement with telus isp customers)
on the other hand...
the best guide to future performance is past performance...
forewarned is forearmed
and George Santayana: "He who cannot remember the past is condemed to repeat it."
In the US courts, past behavior can be used to show an indication of intent. Intel has been convicted of illegal anti-competitive behavior. Of course folks are quick to say "here they go again!"; that's only natural, and reasonable as well.
I suggest that if they approach you, that you respond by requireing some money up front. For an interview, say $1000 to your favorite charity, and another $1000 to you personally if the process goes nowhere. For exploritory talks on a takeover $100K seems a reasonable amount. In each case, the sum has to be big enough to give them pause, but small enough that it's loose change compared to the value of their proposal.
I'm not suggesting that you jerk them around this way, only that you can protect yourself from their usual practices...
You may be mistaken. As I understand it, the markets reacted to a predictable dip in tourism and travel which almost always happens in reaction to attacks on tourist destinations (London) or travel modes (such as airliners). The markets also reacted by driving spot oil prices down. This was because economic activity may be reduced, which in turn reduces upward pressure on oil prices.
I think the shifts in the market are not panic, rather they are calculated responses to predictable economic consequences.
My heart goes out to the victims and their family and friends.
MENDING WALL by Robert Frost Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, ... There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'. Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. ...
good question. The answers will be known after they have a testable prototype.