It's just like the axiom about divorce that goes something like "It's not the fact that divorce is legal that's killing our marriages, it's the bad marriages that are causing so much divorce."
Because of the n millions of lines of code in Redmond it's certainly daunting to actually go through and make good code out of the mess, rather than the obscurity.
The fact that there's an open vulnerable port is a flaw, and the FIX is to make the port secure, rather than to shift its address every five seconds or whatever, which is only a Band-Aid.
MS is just lucky that the bulk of its customers don't truly know what's going on, otherwise the business model they have wouldn't work.
I.e. since I'm not a doctor, my doctor can prescribe whatever for me, or insist that I do whatever, and I'll take it as scripture. If what he recommends is the stupidest thing in the world, or he's blatantly a horrible doctor, I would have no idea and suffer the consequences. If I were also a doctor, though, I'd be able to call shenanigans the very second he did something wrong. That's why educating the consumer is the most crucial point of this whole issue.
I agree. With my experience at a company that develops in Java, those that use Java become lethargic and lazy such that the actual code itself is typically very uninteresting (as Java does all of the "optimizations" that a developer in other languages could tool around with). Beyond that, most of the developers in my company are obsessed with performance because Java crushes our performance.
But then again, our software isn't on 90% of all computers or whatever, so I guess we're less worried about exploits.
The medical profession deals with viruses by identifying our weaknesses, and exposing them to the viruses (the ultimate "reverse engineering"?). If there were a biological DMCA, developing vaccines would certainly violate it on the illegality of "hacking into the body".
With software, though, people still insist on trying hide and pretend as if there were no viruses out there and that we would be impervious to them.
Can we finally just open all of our code so we can vaccinate it against all these exploits?
I'm not sure how flushed out the whole thing is (the article wasn't terribly detailed, but it seems like this sort of thing relies on you having an up-to-date whitelist. If somebody changes their email and your whitelist isn't updated, then if that person sends you (or anybody that they know through you) an email, it won't get through because your whitelist is wrong.
It seems to me that they are trying to use the idea of UserNames (ala Friendster or whatever) where a person's email may change daily, but your whitelist will remain updated because the User Name or the User Id is in your network. So in Friendster you can change your location, email, user name, whatever, but still be connected to your friends by some immutable Id. So what makes this different from Friendster, then?
And I'm not sure if I follow the thing about the "cumbersomeness of other spam filters". I use a Mozilla Bayesian and it works beautifully, I only see maybe 3 spams a day, which are promptly marked "Junk".
And from the sounds of it, what makes it different from black(or white)lists? True, it's more sophisticated because it uses the whitelists of those on your whitelists, but why not just use a plain whitelist anyway?
And how does this allow email from internet transactions or other non-social sources through? The article didn't seem to address that so clearly.
Since those bond holders would have had to reinvest at last year's lower interest rates, Apple would have been doing them a dis-service.
Not really. Unless there are specific covenants on the bond (typically not), Apple wouldn't have given them the capital back, but sold the debt for its market value (on the Bond market) or whatever.
If the bond-holders were sitting on bonds that were paying a higher rate than the market rate, then Apple would have had to give them more than just the principal to pay off the debt.
Bond prices fluctuate with the interest rates as well, so paying off early would have netted bond-holders a premium and the opportunity to reinvest. If things were as you say they were, Apple could quite easily commit arbitrage by getting $1000 of cheap debt and paying off $1000 of expensive debt. But what would have happened is they could have bought $1000 of cheap debt but would have had to pay, say, $1100 to clear their $1000 of expensive debt (for the projected interest).
You must not be an American, because if you were you'd know that the Republicans have all but erased any semblance of a surplus that Clinton left us with.
Sure, many economists believe that in a faltering economy it is the government's responsibility to increase spending to "pick up the slack", but Bush has gotten out of control, spending $100B+ on war (apparently it costs San Francisco about $284M alone). Not to mention the human cost of course.
And, oh, the war did bring some great amount of wealth to America. In the form of contracts to big American corporations. So altruistic.
So running a deficit isn't a big deal, as long as you have good credit and you can finance the interest (or equivalent). It doesn't seem that Bush is doing us any favors by running up a deficit and hurting our credibility globally.
Yes, debt does reduce the cost of capital because every $1 of new equity will cost you an expected value of $1 (if it were higher, people would bid up the stock price; if it were lower, nobody would buy the stock). Every $1 of debt will cost you interest (typically less than 100%, so maybe $0.05). The reason why people ever issue equity over debt is that you can typically raise much more money more more easily in the stock market than at a bank. Put yourself on the market and millions of people might contribute equity, looking to get some of the profits, and they'll do it (essentially) no questions asked, as long as you pad their wallets. If you get some debt, you'll have to deal with restrictions, you'll have to keep some amount of cash in the bank, the bank could liquidate your assets and shut you down.... In short, with equity, if you screw up (within the law) nothing bad will happen to you beyond that -- shareholders lose money, sell their stock, oh well. With debt, if you screw up it's a big hassle, banks can sell your stuff, assume management, etc. Risk of bankruptcy is the only reason why equity is ever issued.
So if Apple's not at risk of bankruptcy (they're not), they should have no problem finding cheap debt to invest. In this case, I think it's foolish for Apple to pay it's debt off.
Plus, the interest you pay on debt is tax deductible itself (as an expense) and that's just an extra bonus to load up on debt (assuming you can afford it, and aren't at risk of failing).
Pleasing investors has nothing to do with being debt-free. If you have a friend that will loan you money at 1% interest, and you can turn and loan that money to somebody else at 2% interest, you'd want as much debt as possible, and your investors (in this case, you) would be thrilled that you have so much debt.
In fact, in successful companies, investors might actually prefer debt. If you and a friend have a project that will cost $1200 but will net you $1800 in a year, you each stand to gain $900 minus your investment. But you only have $800 total. If you get another friend in on it, all three of you will only net $200 apiece ($600 - $400). If you get $400 debt at 5%, then the two of you will make $1800 - $420 (debt + interest) = $1380 / 2 = $690 - $400 = $290.
So the current investors end up making more by taking debt. Of course new investors would love an opportunity at profiting from this project, but companies tend to look out for current shareholders more than anything else.
According to recent financial statements they did have about $302M in debt, and they had plenty ($3B) of "Cash" (or equivalents, which presumedly includes very liquid financial assets), so it seems reasonable that they would have paid it off. To be absolutely sure, I feel that we'd need to wait for the next batch of statements (March).
What they don't mention is that (of course) they have plenty of accounts payable. Not explicitly debt, they are still liabilities that are owed. No big deal, though, every company's got that.
I don't understand, though, why they're so eager to get rid of their debt. $300M isn't that much money (when they've got $3B cash, i.e.) and there's nothing wrong with a moderately leveraged firm (debt is of course usable capital, and they've effectively just lost $300M of "project money"), and I don't think that Apple was at any risk of defaulting.
If this debt was raised long ago (when rates were high), then I figure it's reasonable, but if this debt is recent, then it doesn't explicitly make sense to me (IANACFO), because that's cheap money for... well, whatever Apple does.
To me, this seems to be an indication that Apple's going to be a bit more conservative and slow down new projects and products and such. When a company pays off debt, this must mean that interest rates cost more than the returns of the projects this money could finance.
This ranks Apple right up with Microsoft (since Microsoft started dividends a while back) as cash cow companies. I would be careful about buying.
It might be more trouble than it's worth. From my recollection, and from perhaps common sense, it's a heavily pranked number. Your friends and customers might not have any problem remembering it, but you'd have as much trouble trying to screen your calls as you'd see benefit from memorability.
Yes, I don't understand what the issue is. People sell things they don't "own" all the time. Services and, as the parent mentioned, domain names.
Plus it's too weak for this to last, people are going to find the loopholes. Remember when they banned selling burned CDs on ebay and so you had people bidding on a pencil with a free burned CD/bootleg video, because making profit off a pencil is legit, and (I guess in those days?) not-for-profit music distribution hadn't become the huge agenda it has been now.
So maybe we'll see something complicated where the winner has to mail there cell phone, have the seller transfer numbers, and send it back. Or for somebody interested in a new plan, just have the seller open an account using the old number (and that's what they'll be bidding on).
My examples probably have too high a risk for some sort of fraud on either end, especially the information required to open an account (but if they live in the same area, maybe they could just meet up...). But I'm sure there's a way around it.
Speaking of, did you see the bidding for that number? I think it got up to $100,000 - $200,000.
Maybe ebay shutting bidding down is for the best, to prevent somebody from making (IMO) a foolish purchase that they'll slap themselves for tomorrow.
It is too bad, but it will continue to be like this (as an afterthought or, more aptly, foreword) because movies are regarded primarily as "artistic achievements", when they are as much technical achievements.
When people watch ROTK's technically amazing battle scenes the instinctive thought is how beautiful and lifelike and well-conceived the battle is and not necessarily how it was done (something most people don't give a thought to). It's all "Those Oliphants are kick-ass" and not "I wonder how many polygons or what sort of wireframe", etc.
So people applaud Jackson and perhaps the writers for conceiving the battle scenes so beautifully rather than the tech artists and technology for rendering it (as important, but not "artistic"). It's because (and perhaps naturally so) we are a culture so obsessed with entertainment that the acting, etc. are the primary awards. I mean, pretending to be an older woman still with some sex appeal (Diane Keaton) is more of a headliner award than rendering those battle scenes? Perhaps, and perhaps not, but you (and especially the/. crowd) have to admit some technical achievements are much more impressive than the acting ones.
It's a shame because technology's purpose is really to hide itself, to absolutely convince you that it isn't there, that the movie is a whole experience, and so it often gets disregarded as people become immersed in the wonder of it. Despite what everybody says about actors' purposes being to hide themselves and disappear (and likewise hide themselves in a similar manner as technology) I'm not sure if that's actually the goal. Actors are intent on getting noticed and crying out and reacting with the magnitude of their emotion. To be seen. In fact, if you see some older movies (and to some extent modern movies) the acting ("method acting"? IANAA) is very over-wrought with glares and articulated gestures and the like, not to convince you that it's real, but to convince you of the emotion. I.e. if I am angry I would make this subtle gesture, but since I want you to know I am angry, I'll make this blatant gesture.
Controversial statement: Special effects are more about acting than acting.
"The greatest trick the devil ever did was convincing everybody that he didn't exist." Thrown in as a gratuitous Usual Suspects quote.
I was there. It wasn't that great of a ceremony, as the average time to get a winner on stage was 5 minutes, since they were all refreshing their browsers like crazy to get a "Frist Psot".
You're right. From my understanding these sorts of nuisance restrictions are just an elaborate song and dance between companies (spammers/telemarketers) and the government. The government hears all the complaining from consumers (via Dateline or whatever) and some elaborate method of restricting such marketing without trampling the Constitution (upheld because telephone lines/bandwidth are private commodities?) and then it's the telemarketers' turn to peruse the writing and find the loopholes (which the parent mentioned) to sneak past the regulation, and the government has to redraft a new law, ad infinitum.
If the government violates the Constitution, game over. Likewise if these businesses violate legitimate law.
Who loses? Well, of course, the citizens, who must contend with increasingly restrictive laws regarding telephone/email usage and increasingly sophisticated and much-more-difficult-to-screen marketing tactics.
Politicians get their big victory (yeah, in an election year). And as always lawyers win on both sides trying to uphold or crack through these laws.
And it does seem ironic (and soft) that the exemptions are for those businesses that telemarket the most. Banks about mortgages and credit cards, "airlines" offering travel packages, and the like. Seems reminiscent of the recent "anti-spam" initiative. It sounds good to the voting populace, but it also has the campaign-financing corporations drooling with delight.
Apple could be seen as targetting a niche OS market, and generally making a nice profit.
Yes, the prevalent stereotype, evidenced in, say, this comment is that Apple, and its OSs, are "high-class", "name brand" OSs, much like the Bentley or the Prada of the computer world.
It may seem obvious, but simple supply and demand states that the smaller the market is, reasonably, the more that suppliers will need to charge, while the greater the consumer base, the lower the product will generally cost. Apple is (I must admit) a quality product that has a high-class appeal, and so they get to charge a premium.
The thing is that Microsoft is not necessarily a high-quality/high-class product (we rant and rave about all the security holes and such) with a huge consumer base that is still relatively expensive (due to standards, compatability, monopoly), and this is an anomaly, economically.
Likewise, OSS and such are products of reasonable quality (trying to stay objective) with a relatively small consumer base that are much more affordable, which is another anomaly.
If economics were to hold, OSS would be the standard, and MS products would be the ones catering to a "niche market", which is why I feel something's gotta be screwed up that so many would choose an expensive OS over one that is so much cheaper.
While you could argue that the strength of a company or a brand is in its scope, and how big its market is, many businesses have been quite successful in being very targeted to certain customers.
Just look at Bentley and Burberry who have very specialized markets and enjoy actually seek these markets, as seen when, if I recall, Burberry was upset when Ja Rule wore and promoted their products, thus giving them a widespread appeal and "cheapening" their product.
Of course, the irony is that Microsoft products generally have wide use, large market share, and cost significantly more than OSS, so I guess the explanation is that OSS caters to the high-class "knowledgable" customer, even if it is not necessarily much more lucrative.
I have to agree with the parent. Generally, those who will be affected most are those with some substantial money and knowledge to use sophisticated tax shelters. Obviously, these will usually be businesses (big corporations) and high-powered investors. Typically, somebody making $20K won't have the means or the savvy to cheat taxes with anything more sophisticated than merely lying.
Which is, of course, why some "little guys" will get hurt. I used to wait tables (during college) and many servers would claim only 10% of sales (assuming an average of 15% tips), some would only claim credit card slips (because they are recorded), and some wouldn't claim tips at all. Dangerous because the whole restaurant could get audited, but as far as I know it never did. Of course, many of these people were strapped for cash in one way or another, so it'd be kind of sad how it affects them.
I don't, however, see this as a "Big Brother" thing if there's no direct invasion of our privacy beyond what is already occurring. It says that this tactic collects data it already has and analyzes it to determine potential cheats. The information is already there, it is, I imagine, Massachusetts' right to use it. And at $1M a week, hopefully they put some good use to it.
And hopefully they'll be able to more easily detect and nail Enron/Ken Lay/etc. sorts of investors who act beyond their capacities.
I think by default Apple users don't care about market share. In fact, my experience is that they abhor market share and extol the "uniqueness" and individuality that comes from being an Apple user. I mean, not any geek could hack on a purple box.
But also, lest you forget, remember that OS X, of course is based on Unix itself (FreeBSD). (Does that in any way qualify OS X for a "Linux distro"?).
Linux installations to reach 3.2%, for the first time overtaking Macintosh market share. By 2007, IDC forecasts, Linux will be installed on 6% of the desktops.
So that means in 2052 we'll have over 50% market share!
And in 2102 we'll be on 100% of all machines!!
And in 2202 there'll be 2 Linux distros on every machine!!!
Oh, I'm not ragging on music, but one thing that you will have to admit is that a lot of music (and further, a lot of the most popular music is produced to death and written by somebody else (towards the bottom of the link is a note that Britney writes some of her own songs, but the "successful" one was written for her). It is the same with movies when the top movie this year so far is Somethi^H^H^H^H^H^H^HAlong Came Polly (which we've seen before -- the ferret scene is similar enough to the dog scene to be considered "knock-off").
How does this relate to business? Well, IANAM/MP (music/movie producer), but my feeling is that they have a pretty good idea of how long it takes to go from conception to packed theaters (and if not they have a clever tactic called "Coming Soon"). Same with music.
Don't get me wrong, I love good music (I lean to folk, indie rock), movies (Magnolia is up there), and games (good old WC3), but for a lot of the music and movies out there it's as scientific as anything else.
Slashdot Mirror
It's just like the axiom about divorce that goes something like "It's not the fact that divorce is legal that's killing our marriages, it's the bad marriages that are causing so much divorce."
Because of the n millions of lines of code in Redmond it's certainly daunting to actually go through and make good code out of the mess, rather than the obscurity.
The fact that there's an open vulnerable port is a flaw, and the FIX is to make the port secure, rather than to shift its address every five seconds or whatever, which is only a Band-Aid.
MS is just lucky that the bulk of its customers don't truly know what's going on, otherwise the business model they have wouldn't work.
I.e. since I'm not a doctor, my doctor can prescribe whatever for me, or insist that I do whatever, and I'll take it as scripture. If what he recommends is the stupidest thing in the world, or he's blatantly a horrible doctor, I would have no idea and suffer the consequences. If I were also a doctor, though, I'd be able to call shenanigans the very second he did something wrong. That's why educating the consumer is the most crucial point of this whole issue.
I agree. With my experience at a company that develops in Java, those that use Java become lethargic and lazy such that the actual code itself is typically very uninteresting (as Java does all of the "optimizations" that a developer in other languages could tool around with). Beyond that, most of the developers in my company are obsessed with performance because Java crushes our performance.
But then again, our software isn't on 90% of all computers or whatever, so I guess we're less worried about exploits.
The medical profession deals with viruses by identifying our weaknesses, and exposing them to the viruses (the ultimate "reverse engineering"?). If there were a biological DMCA, developing vaccines would certainly violate it on the illegality of "hacking into the body".
With software, though, people still insist on trying hide and pretend as if there were no viruses out there and that we would be impervious to them.
Can we finally just open all of our code so we can vaccinate it against all these exploits?
You mean he's producing something that's not 90% CG?
...
Skywalker Ranch is in Marin here by San Francisco, I think we can expect his wines to have at least 90% California Grapes.
I assume that's what you meant
I'm not sure how flushed out the whole thing is (the article wasn't terribly detailed, but it seems like this sort of thing relies on you having an up-to-date whitelist. If somebody changes their email and your whitelist isn't updated, then if that person sends you (or anybody that they know through you) an email, it won't get through because your whitelist is wrong.
It seems to me that they are trying to use the idea of UserNames (ala Friendster or whatever) where a person's email may change daily, but your whitelist will remain updated because the User Name or the User Id is in your network. So in Friendster you can change your location, email, user name, whatever, but still be connected to your friends by some immutable Id. So what makes this different from Friendster, then?
And I'm not sure if I follow the thing about the "cumbersomeness of other spam filters". I use a Mozilla Bayesian and it works beautifully, I only see maybe 3 spams a day, which are promptly marked "Junk".
And from the sounds of it, what makes it different from black(or white)lists? True, it's more sophisticated because it uses the whitelists of those on your whitelists, but why not just use a plain whitelist anyway?
And how does this allow email from internet transactions or other non-social sources through? The article didn't seem to address that so clearly.
Since those bond holders would have had to reinvest at last year's lower interest rates, Apple would have been doing them a dis-service.
Not really. Unless there are specific covenants on the bond (typically not), Apple wouldn't have given them the capital back, but sold the debt for its market value (on the Bond market) or whatever.
If the bond-holders were sitting on bonds that were paying a higher rate than the market rate, then Apple would have had to give them more than just the principal to pay off the debt.
Bond prices fluctuate with the interest rates as well, so paying off early would have netted bond-holders a premium and the opportunity to reinvest. If things were as you say they were, Apple could quite easily commit arbitrage by getting $1000 of cheap debt and paying off $1000 of expensive debt. But what would have happened is they could have bought $1000 of cheap debt but would have had to pay, say, $1100 to clear their $1000 of expensive debt (for the projected interest).
You must not be an American, because if you were you'd know that the Republicans have all but erased any semblance of a surplus that Clinton left us with.
Sure, many economists believe that in a faltering economy it is the government's responsibility to increase spending to "pick up the slack", but Bush has gotten out of control, spending $100B+ on war (apparently it costs San Francisco about $284M alone). Not to mention the human cost of course.
And, oh, the war did bring some great amount of wealth to America. In the form of contracts to big American corporations. So altruistic.
So running a deficit isn't a big deal, as long as you have good credit and you can finance the interest (or equivalent). It doesn't seem that Bush is doing us any favors by running up a deficit and hurting our credibility globally.
Yes, debt does reduce the cost of capital because every $1 of new equity will cost you an expected value of $1 (if it were higher, people would bid up the stock price; if it were lower, nobody would buy the stock). Every $1 of debt will cost you interest (typically less than 100%, so maybe $0.05). The reason why people ever issue equity over debt is that you can typically raise much more money more more easily in the stock market than at a bank. Put yourself on the market and millions of people might contribute equity, looking to get some of the profits, and they'll do it (essentially) no questions asked, as long as you pad their wallets. If you get some debt, you'll have to deal with restrictions, you'll have to keep some amount of cash in the bank, the bank could liquidate your assets and shut you down .... In short, with equity, if you screw up (within the law) nothing bad will happen to you beyond that -- shareholders lose money, sell their stock, oh well. With debt, if you screw up it's a big hassle, banks can sell your stuff, assume management, etc. Risk of bankruptcy is the only reason why equity is ever issued.
So if Apple's not at risk of bankruptcy (they're not), they should have no problem finding cheap debt to invest. In this case, I think it's foolish for Apple to pay it's debt off.
Plus, the interest you pay on debt is tax deductible itself (as an expense) and that's just an extra bonus to load up on debt (assuming you can afford it, and aren't at risk of failing).
Pleasing investors has nothing to do with being debt-free. If you have a friend that will loan you money at 1% interest, and you can turn and loan that money to somebody else at 2% interest, you'd want as much debt as possible, and your investors (in this case, you) would be thrilled that you have so much debt.
In fact, in successful companies, investors might actually prefer debt. If you and a friend have a project that will cost $1200 but will net you $1800 in a year, you each stand to gain $900 minus your investment. But you only have $800 total. If you get another friend in on it, all three of you will only net $200 apiece ($600 - $400). If you get $400 debt at 5%, then the two of you will make $1800 - $420 (debt + interest) = $1380 / 2 = $690 - $400 = $290.
So the current investors end up making more by taking debt. Of course new investors would love an opportunity at profiting from this project, but companies tend to look out for current shareholders more than anything else.
According to recent financial statements they did have about $302M in debt, and they had plenty ($3B) of "Cash" (or equivalents, which presumedly includes very liquid financial assets), so it seems reasonable that they would have paid it off. To be absolutely sure, I feel that we'd need to wait for the next batch of statements (March).
... well, whatever Apple does.
What they don't mention is that (of course) they have plenty of accounts payable. Not explicitly debt, they are still liabilities that are owed. No big deal, though, every company's got that.
I don't understand, though, why they're so eager to get rid of their debt. $300M isn't that much money (when they've got $3B cash, i.e.) and there's nothing wrong with a moderately leveraged firm (debt is of course usable capital, and they've effectively just lost $300M of "project money"), and I don't think that Apple was at any risk of defaulting.
If this debt was raised long ago (when rates were high), then I figure it's reasonable, but if this debt is recent, then it doesn't explicitly make sense to me (IANACFO), because that's cheap money for
To me, this seems to be an indication that Apple's going to be a bit more conservative and slow down new projects and products and such. When a company pays off debt, this must mean that interest rates cost more than the returns of the projects this money could finance.
This ranks Apple right up with Microsoft (since Microsoft started dividends a while back) as cash cow companies. I would be careful about buying.
Just my thoughts.br.
It might be more trouble than it's worth. From my recollection, and from perhaps common sense, it's a heavily pranked number. Your friends and customers might not have any problem remembering it, but you'd have as much trouble trying to screen your calls as you'd see benefit from memorability.
Yes, I don't understand what the issue is. People sell things they don't "own" all the time. Services and, as the parent mentioned, domain names.
...). But I'm sure there's a way around it.
Plus it's too weak for this to last, people are going to find the loopholes. Remember when they banned selling burned CDs on ebay and so you had people bidding on a pencil with a free burned CD/bootleg video, because making profit off a pencil is legit, and (I guess in those days?) not-for-profit music distribution hadn't become the huge agenda it has been now.
So maybe we'll see something complicated where the winner has to mail there cell phone, have the seller transfer numbers, and send it back. Or for somebody interested in a new plan, just have the seller open an account using the old number (and that's what they'll be bidding on).
My examples probably have too high a risk for some sort of fraud on either end, especially the information required to open an account (but if they live in the same area, maybe they could just meet up
Speaking of, did you see the bidding for that number? I think it got up to $100,000 - $200,000.
Maybe ebay shutting bidding down is for the best, to prevent somebody from making (IMO) a foolish purchase that they'll slap themselves for tomorrow.
It is too bad, but it will continue to be like this (as an afterthought or, more aptly, foreword) because movies are regarded primarily as "artistic achievements", when they are as much technical achievements.
/. crowd) have to admit some technical achievements are much more impressive than the acting ones.
When people watch ROTK's technically amazing battle scenes the instinctive thought is how beautiful and lifelike and well-conceived the battle is and not necessarily how it was done (something most people don't give a thought to). It's all "Those Oliphants are kick-ass" and not "I wonder how many polygons or what sort of wireframe", etc.
So people applaud Jackson and perhaps the writers for conceiving the battle scenes so beautifully rather than the tech artists and technology for rendering it (as important, but not "artistic"). It's because (and perhaps naturally so) we are a culture so obsessed with entertainment that the acting, etc. are the primary awards. I mean, pretending to be an older woman still with some sex appeal (Diane Keaton) is more of a headliner award than rendering those battle scenes? Perhaps, and perhaps not, but you (and especially the
It's a shame because technology's purpose is really to hide itself, to absolutely convince you that it isn't there, that the movie is a whole experience, and so it often gets disregarded as people become immersed in the wonder of it. Despite what everybody says about actors' purposes being to hide themselves and disappear (and likewise hide themselves in a similar manner as technology) I'm not sure if that's actually the goal. Actors are intent on getting noticed and crying out and reacting with the magnitude of their emotion. To be seen. In fact, if you see some older movies (and to some extent modern movies) the acting ("method acting"? IANAA) is very over-wrought with glares and articulated gestures and the like, not to convince you that it's real, but to convince you of the emotion. I.e. if I am angry I would make this subtle gesture, but since I want you to know I am angry, I'll make this blatant gesture.
Controversial statement: Special effects are more about acting than acting.
"The greatest trick the devil ever did was convincing everybody that he didn't exist." Thrown in as a gratuitous Usual Suspects quote.
I was there. It wasn't that great of a ceremony, as the average time to get a winner on stage was 5 minutes, since they were all refreshing their browsers like crazy to get a "Frist Psot".
Some geek machismo thing, I guess.
They don't get an Oscar ... they get an ASCII-char.
Okay, horrible pun.
You're right. From my understanding these sorts of nuisance restrictions are just an elaborate song and dance between companies (spammers/telemarketers) and the government. The government hears all the complaining from consumers (via Dateline or whatever) and some elaborate method of restricting such marketing without trampling the Constitution (upheld because telephone lines/bandwidth are private commodities?) and then it's the telemarketers' turn to peruse the writing and find the loopholes (which the parent mentioned) to sneak past the regulation, and the government has to redraft a new law, ad infinitum.
If the government violates the Constitution, game over. Likewise if these businesses violate legitimate law.
Who loses? Well, of course, the citizens, who must contend with increasingly restrictive laws regarding telephone/email usage and increasingly sophisticated and much-more-difficult-to-screen marketing tactics.
Politicians get their big victory (yeah, in an election year). And as always lawyers win on both sides trying to uphold or crack through these laws.
And it does seem ironic (and soft) that the exemptions are for those businesses that telemarket the most. Banks about mortgages and credit cards, "airlines" offering travel packages, and the like. Seems reminiscent of the recent "anti-spam" initiative. It sounds good to the voting populace, but it also has the campaign-financing corporations drooling with delight.
Politics.
Apple could be seen as targetting a niche OS market, and generally making a nice profit.
Yes, the prevalent stereotype, evidenced in, say, this comment is that Apple, and its OSs, are "high-class", "name brand" OSs, much like the Bentley or the Prada of the computer world.
It may seem obvious, but simple supply and demand states that the smaller the market is, reasonably, the more that suppliers will need to charge, while the greater the consumer base, the lower the product will generally cost. Apple is (I must admit) a quality product that has a high-class appeal, and so they get to charge a premium.
The thing is that Microsoft is not necessarily a high-quality/high-class product (we rant and rave about all the security holes and such) with a huge consumer base that is still relatively expensive (due to standards, compatability, monopoly), and this is an anomaly, economically.
Likewise, OSS and such are products of reasonable quality (trying to stay objective) with a relatively small consumer base that are much more affordable, which is another anomaly.
If economics were to hold, OSS would be the standard, and MS products would be the ones catering to a "niche market", which is why I feel something's gotta be screwed up that so many would choose an expensive OS over one that is so much cheaper.
While you could argue that the strength of a company or a brand is in its scope, and how big its market is, many businesses have been quite successful in being very targeted to certain customers.
Just look at Bentley and Burberry who have very specialized markets and enjoy actually seek these markets, as seen when, if I recall, Burberry was upset when Ja Rule wore and promoted their products, thus giving them a widespread appeal and "cheapening" their product.
Of course, the irony is that Microsoft products generally have wide use, large market share, and cost significantly more than OSS, so I guess the explanation is that OSS caters to the high-class "knowledgable" customer, even if it is not necessarily much more lucrative.
Must have something to do with the old Puritanical "God is watching" paranoia and persecution that they are apparently notorious for.
I mean, just talk to any buddy who's a Red Sox fan, especially these days.
I have to agree with the parent. Generally, those who will be affected most are those with some substantial money and knowledge to use sophisticated tax shelters. Obviously, these will usually be businesses (big corporations) and high-powered investors. Typically, somebody making $20K won't have the means or the savvy to cheat taxes with anything more sophisticated than merely lying.
Which is, of course, why some "little guys" will get hurt. I used to wait tables (during college) and many servers would claim only 10% of sales (assuming an average of 15% tips), some would only claim credit card slips (because they are recorded), and some wouldn't claim tips at all. Dangerous because the whole restaurant could get audited, but as far as I know it never did. Of course, many of these people were strapped for cash in one way or another, so it'd be kind of sad how it affects them.
I don't, however, see this as a "Big Brother" thing if there's no direct invasion of our privacy beyond what is already occurring. It says that this tactic collects data it already has and analyzes it to determine potential cheats. The information is already there, it is, I imagine, Massachusetts' right to use it. And at $1M a week, hopefully they put some good use to it.
And hopefully they'll be able to more easily detect and nail Enron/Ken Lay/etc. sorts of investors who act beyond their capacities.
Yes, isn't there an adage:
"The enemy of your enemy is your friend"
I think by default Apple users don't care about market share. In fact, my experience is that they abhor market share and extol the "uniqueness" and individuality that comes from being an Apple user. I mean, not any geek could hack on a purple box.
But also, lest you forget, remember that OS X, of course is based on Unix itself (FreeBSD). (Does that in any way qualify OS X for a "Linux distro"?).
Linux installations to reach 3.2%, for the first time overtaking Macintosh market share. By 2007, IDC forecasts, Linux will be installed on 6% of the desktops.
...
So that means in 2052 we'll have over 50% market share!
And in 2102 we'll be on 100% of all machines!!
And in 2202 there'll be 2 Linux distros on every machine!!!
And in 2302
Oh, I'm not ragging on music, but one thing that you will have to admit is that a lot of music (and further, a lot of the most popular music is produced to death and written by somebody else (towards the bottom of the link is a note that Britney writes some of her own songs, but the "successful" one was written for her). It is the same with movies when the top movie this year so far is Somethi^H^H^H^H^H^H^HAlong Came Polly (which we've seen before -- the ferret scene is similar enough to the dog scene to be considered "knock-off").
How does this relate to business? Well, IANAM/MP (music/movie producer), but my feeling is that they have a pretty good idea of how long it takes to go from conception to packed theaters (and if not they have a clever tactic called "Coming Soon"). Same with music.
Don't get me wrong, I love good music (I lean to folk, indie rock), movies (Magnolia is up there), and games (good old WC3), but for a lot of the music and movies out there it's as scientific as anything else.