Actually 4267 KBytes/second or 34.13 Kbit/second. Stange as I thought they said they had a 128 kbps connection to Odyssey. Maybe the 12 minutes referred to when the data was going to be received. And they actually started transmitting some minutes later. Or it could be the 9 minutes delay from Mars to the Earth, which they included in the 12 minutes as well. In this case, the transmission would have only taken 3 minutes, which would be a speed of 136.5 kbps - this seems about right. So, they said: Odyssey is starting transmitting now and the data will be with us in 12 minutes - 9 minutes travelling through space + 3 minutes of actual transmission.
(apologies if that gets posted multiple, I get a 500 error)
Hm, in the spirit of global peace I wouldn't go that far. Competition authorities are usually fairly unbiased when it comes to foreign and local firms. Still they manage to produce incredibly bad decisions!
You are not familiar with antitrust procedings. I have not followed this case, but from the article it looks like Micron is a "whistleblower" in this cartel. If you are the first to go to the competition authorities to admit to a cartel and co-operate in providing evidence, then the fine will be lowered substantially; in some cases, it would even be reduced to zero.
As much as I can read into it: Micron went to the FTC and said: "Hey, we had a cartel with Infineon, Samsung and Hynix. Hee is all the evidence, we co-operate, please don't fine us!" No doubt that there will be large fines on the other alleged cartel members, if those allegations were to be proven true.
Note that Micron would still be liable for damages in any civil follow-up law suit. Oh, and the European Commission will start investigating as well, no doubt.
The problem is that something is very unlikely become profitable only in 2100. You have to take into account the huge upfront cost required, while the revenues come in only later, which have to be discounted. And given the somewhat bleak economic basis that builds on, the required discount rate would have to be very high. 3 hours to the tunnel from Madrid is still too long - it takes about 1 hour from London, Paris and Brussels to the Eurotunnel. Add to that 1/2 hour in the tunnel and you have 2 1/2 hours. And still, only half the potential passengers uses the Eurostar. On the Spanish-Moroccon tunnel, this time would at least be 5 hours. You can't use it for a daytrip.
Don't get me wrong - I love travelling by train compared to the plane, but I am also economist who sees the costs of building this tunnel.
The Eurostar is great - it connects London with Paris and Brussels. All these are big cities, and a lot of business travel is happening between them. It's extremely comfortable, you have space and get a nice 4 course meal (I'm doing this every month...). Still, the market share on London/Paris and London/Brussels is only about 50% - many people still prefer flying to save an hour. Also, Eurochunnel was bankrupt once, this implies that the whole project was not efficient to undertake (ex post).
How on Earth could it ever be profitable to connect Spain and Morocco? It's impossible. Madrid is the only city in Spain that could rival London, Paris or Brussels. And it already takes 6 hours to get from Madrid to the proposed tunnel! And then, there is no large business city on the other side. No business traveler will be taking the train. The plane will always be preferred on such distances.
Am I making sense? Had to work throughout the night.
No, you DON'T have to pay interest to the owner. You have to pay the owner the dividends that are paid out by the company. And you have to give back the shares to the owner if he wants them back (However, as the process is usually done through financial intermediaries, you are not in direct contact with the owner, and the intermediary manages everything for you, ie borrows the share from someone else instead).
Note: Shorting is risky! Your downside is unlimited (a stock can skyrocket) and your upside is limited (a stock can't fall below a price of 0). At the moment, with an SCO price of $16, you can at most gain $16 per share you short. Also, while it is true in theory that you get money from a short sale, any normal person will be required to have a margin account (on which interest is paid though) to cover losses due to rising share price. I am not sure what margin would be required for SCO, but given its volatility, probably quite a large percentage of the share price.
Yes, that is correct. AOL's market capitalisation at the time of the merger was more than $100B and a bit more than the market cap of Time Warner. Amazing.
I think the sample is big enough to allow for an extrapolation. Standard errors would be very low. However, calculating standard errors requires an unbiased sample. Yet, you are right: a voluntary participation sample is likely to be very biased. Hence, the study is b0ll0cks.
I think the sample is big enough to allow for an extrapolation. Standard errors would be very low. However, calculating standard errors requires However, you are right: a voluntary participation sample is likely to be very biased. Hence, the study is b0ll0cks.
But why did I not get the nvidia drivers to work on Windows 2000 (and I tried hard!), whereas they just worked on Mandrake 9.2? Even the hardware support issue is not as clear-cut as you say.
I agree with you that my sample may not be representative.
I also respect a business decision of RH to stop RHL. That's not the point. But why is he publicly endorsing Windows? The only real advantage of Windows is that in runs many games. This is not important for most home users. I think it is much more of an advantage for home users that Linux comes bundled with many useful applications. It takes 20 minutes to install a Linux distribution, including all applications, and you are ready to go. Does he not realise that it is far more convenient for most home users to just click on Programs->Word Processor rather than shelling out $$$ for the MS Office or download the 60MB OpenOffice? What about viruses?
Also: Would his 90-year old father really be able to install Windows painlessly?
I don't want to say that a Linux desktop is the best for all home users - but Linux is ready for the desktop for many home users. Thus, a statement like that from the CEO of the biggest Linux company strikes me as very odd.
The only obvious way to block this would by the EU would be by using Merger Control Regulations. The deal will probably have to be notified to the European Commission, but I can't see any serious competition problems that would prevent the Commission from clearing this merger in Phase I.
You are only partly right. What you are referring to are antitrust laws (in the EU: Article 81 and 82) that target dominant firms (if they exist). However, we are looking at a merger here. And merger regulation is a very different thing. The FTC has recently introduced the test of "significant lessening of competition" (and the EU will follow shortly). This means that if prices are likely to rise after a merger, the merger will be blocked. And believe me, 76% + 15% are very likely to raise suspicions about a "significant lessening of competition"). You would need very good competition lawyers and economists to convince the authorities to even allow that merger subject to strict conditions. I would definitely expect an outright blocking of the merger.
I am fairly confident that the relevant market would be defined as advertising in search engines. Hence, a monopolist could raise the price for this advertisement.
The concern you try to address (search engine in IE) is a vertical concern, which might be a problem as well. However, there is a straightforward horizontal issue - Google has 16% of the search engine market and Microsoft 15%. That's why they care.
This merger would most certainly have to be approved by the European Commission as well. My guess for the probability of this merger being approved by the Commission without any serious conditions is 0%.
According to this site, Google powers 76% of all search results, and MSN 15% (numbers seem to be for August 2003). I cannot see the FTC or European Commission approve this merger. This merger would eliminate the only serious competitor to Google on the search engine market.
All right, I see that it has its uses. However, the great-grand (?) parent poster suggested to tell people to save their work, because the server is going down in 15 minutes. If people have to save their work, this rather implies that he was referring to a file server, not an e-mail server. Yet, it will probably miss those people that are actually working on a document, as they are likely to press space before they see the message. But enough of that, I am getting a bit nick-pitty and just wanted to warn people that those message are not necessarily seen. Windows should pop up the message with "always on top" but out of focus to prevent that.
Another funny story is when the girl-friend of a friend of mine sent a message to him on the university network. By accident she put a * in front of his user name. She also named him in the message, and the message was, well, somewhat private... Because the star meant that the message gets sent to every computer on the domain, the whole university, 1000s of people, including professors etc, saw that message... He got a lot of comments in the following days...
Slashdot Mirror
(apologies if that gets posted multiple, I get a 500 error)
24 Mbit, not 22MByte.
Hm, in the spirit of global peace I wouldn't go that far. Competition authorities are usually fairly unbiased when it comes to foreign and local firms. Still they manage to produce incredibly bad decisions!
Don't worry, they are going after De Beers and Microsoft...
As much as I can read into it: Micron went to the FTC and said: "Hey, we had a cartel with Infineon, Samsung and Hynix. Hee is all the evidence, we co-operate, please don't fine us!" No doubt that there will be large fines on the other alleged cartel members, if those allegations were to be proven true.
Note that Micron would still be liable for damages in any civil follow-up law suit. Oh, and the European Commission will start investigating as well, no doubt.
tits?
The problem is that something is very unlikely become profitable only in 2100. You have to take into account the huge upfront cost required, while the revenues come in only later, which have to be discounted. And given the somewhat bleak economic basis that builds on, the required discount rate would have to be very high. 3 hours to the tunnel from Madrid is still too long - it takes about 1 hour from London, Paris and Brussels to the Eurotunnel. Add to that 1/2 hour in the tunnel and you have 2 1/2 hours. And still, only half the potential passengers uses the Eurostar. On the Spanish-Moroccon tunnel, this time would at least be 5 hours. You can't use it for a daytrip. Don't get me wrong - I love travelling by train compared to the plane, but I am also economist who sees the costs of building this tunnel.
How on Earth could it ever be profitable to connect Spain and Morocco? It's impossible. Madrid is the only city in Spain that could rival London, Paris or Brussels. And it already takes 6 hours to get from Madrid to the proposed tunnel! And then, there is no large business city on the other side. No business traveler will be taking the train. The plane will always be preferred on such distances.
Am I making sense? Had to work throughout the night.
Note: Shorting is risky! Your downside is unlimited (a stock can skyrocket) and your upside is limited (a stock can't fall below a price of 0). At the moment, with an SCO price of $16, you can at most gain $16 per share you short. Also, while it is true in theory that you get money from a short sale, any normal person will be required to have a margin account (on which interest is paid though) to cover losses due to rising share price. I am not sure what margin would be required for SCO, but given its volatility, probably quite a large percentage of the share price.
AOL: $163.4B
Time Warner: $83.3B
Even more amazing.
Yes, that is correct. AOL's market capitalisation at the time of the merger was more than $100B and a bit more than the market cap of Time Warner. Amazing.
I think the sample is big enough to allow for an extrapolation. Standard errors would be very low. However, calculating standard errors requires an unbiased sample. Yet, you are right: a voluntary participation sample is likely to be very biased. Hence, the study is b0ll0cks.
I think the sample is big enough to allow for an extrapolation. Standard errors would be very low. However, calculating standard errors requires However, you are right: a voluntary participation sample is likely to be very biased. Hence, the study is b0ll0cks.
But why did I not get the nvidia drivers to work on Windows 2000 (and I tried hard!), whereas they just worked on Mandrake 9.2? Even the hardware support issue is not as clear-cut as you say.
I also respect a business decision of RH to stop RHL. That's not the point. But why is he publicly endorsing Windows? The only real advantage of Windows is that in runs many games. This is not important for most home users. I think it is much more of an advantage for home users that Linux comes bundled with many useful applications. It takes 20 minutes to install a Linux distribution, including all applications, and you are ready to go. Does he not realise that it is far more convenient for most home users to just click on Programs->Word Processor rather than shelling out $$$ for the MS Office or download the 60MB OpenOffice? What about viruses?
Also: Would his 90-year old father really be able to install Windows painlessly?
I don't want to say that a Linux desktop is the best for all home users - but Linux is ready for the desktop for many home users. Thus, a statement like that from the CEO of the biggest Linux company strikes me as very odd.
Linux on the desktop is ready now. And it will soon be a better choice than Windows for most users.
Makes me wonder why Red Hat is saying this now, right after they are withdrawing their home user distribution?
The only obvious way to block this would by the EU would be by using Merger Control Regulations. The deal will probably have to be notified to the European Commission, but I can't see any serious competition problems that would prevent the Commission from clearing this merger in Phase I.
You are only partly right. What you are referring to are antitrust laws (in the EU: Article 81 and 82) that target dominant firms (if they exist). However, we are looking at a merger here. And merger regulation is a very different thing. The FTC has recently introduced the test of "significant lessening of competition" (and the EU will follow shortly). This means that if prices are likely to rise after a merger, the merger will be blocked. And believe me, 76% + 15% are very likely to raise suspicions about a "significant lessening of competition"). You would need very good competition lawyers and economists to convince the authorities to even allow that merger subject to strict conditions. I would definitely expect an outright blocking of the merger.
The concern you try to address (search engine in IE) is a vertical concern, which might be a problem as well. However, there is a straightforward horizontal issue - Google has 16% of the search engine market and Microsoft 15%. That's why they care.
This merger would most certainly have to be approved by the European Commission as well. My guess for the probability of this merger being approved by the Commission without any serious conditions is 0%.
According to this site, Google powers 76% of all search results, and MSN 15% (numbers seem to be for August 2003). I cannot see the FTC or European Commission approve this merger. This merger would eliminate the only serious competitor to Google on the search engine market.
Another funny story is when the girl-friend of a friend of mine sent a message to him on the university network. By accident she put a * in front of his user name. She also named him in the message, and the message was, well, somewhat private... Because the star meant that the message gets sent to every computer on the domain, the whole university, 1000s of people, including professors etc, saw that message... He got a lot of comments in the following days...
But then it is also pointless to notify them with the Windows Messenger, no?
well, I guess you can't e-mail if your e-mail server is down :-) True.
But what's the problem e-mailing when the server is up again?