If Mj was legal and taxed like tobacco and alcohol it would be OK with me. Since that isn't going to happen I'm OK with legal use for medical/religous reasons. Just get your prescription or permit to grow. Of course then someone is going to bitch that they are buying Mj from the evil drug companies and/or Government.
There are a LOT of Federal Crimes on the books with which the DOJ is charged with enforcing and prosecuting.
Unconstitutional federal crimes, right?
Eh? The DOJ handles federal CRIMES. Constitutionality is a matter of LAW. Completely different subjects. Normally groups like the ACLU are the ones filing constituional cases.
Based on what you said the Feds could never have gone after Enron, Worldcomm or others except on SEC crimes like stock fraud.
Actually, Enron and Worldcomm used powerful lawyers and accountants to find loopholes in the SEC rules -- loopholes that did exist. I blame the SEC for overregulating accounting practices that end up costing consumers tens of billions of dollars in higher costs and less choice.
Give me a break! You talk out of both sides of your mouth. Loopholes and over-regulation. Sounds like you want no laws on accounting so you can freely defraud anyone you want. Caveat Emptor after all.
They could have never prosecuted the KKK
I'm not sure what the KKK did that was a federal crime. Anything the KKK might have done that was illegal would be better suited in State or County court.
Then you obviously are not competent to argue this issue. Google or Wikipedia it and Learn.
they could have never enforced Handgun Registrations,
I'm against registering handguns and I believe handgun registrations are tyrannical.
Doesn't matter WHAT you believe, you have to obey laws on the books. Work via legislation to get them changed. Folks at the DOJ don't have to LIKE the laws just enforce them.
or broken up Chid Porn rings
This is a State crime per the 9th and 10th amendments.
Not if it involves Interstate Commerce. Last time I checked the Internet (and mail) crossed state lines. The FEDERAL Government has the power in that regard.
or intercept drugs from Colombia.
The War on Drugs is a war on freedoms. I don't do drugs but I support the right of others to.
I think there are limits, I think medical/religous uses of Marijuna should be OK, but not other drugs like Cocaine. I'll support legislation to that regard. But until the laws are passed, the DOJ has to enforce them.
The DOJ is the parent organization of the FBI, Civil Rights, BATF,DEA and many others.
Civil Rights laws are unconstitutional and these laws were passed in order to combat other bad laws of government. On top of that many Civil Rights legislations makes it harder to hire minorities. The FBI, the BATF and the DEA are unconstitutional.
Give me a F*cking break, You are an Anarchist. And racist too it appears. I'm against minority hiring quota's but the Civil Rights laws directly follow from the quote ".. we hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." Since you have such disregard for our system of laws, break a few and get caught and you can see they ARE real and are VERY constitutional.
Take a look at http://wwww.doj.gov./ Therefore your post is 99.75% WRONG QED
You mean DED because I just showed you all the unconstitutional departments the DOJ supports.
So, if they ARE such then spend some of your mega-$$$ and file a lawsuit challenging such. Griping about it on the Internet ain't going to help.
I'm surprised you have so much time to post on/. on such topics since you are supposed to be managing a LOT of projects and putting in mega-hours to earn your 60% profit margins in your consulting business.
Actually, I'm waiting for my barber to free up for the past 45 minutes. Nice to have slashdot on the go so I can take are of e-mails, handle questions from customers and browse slashdot while I make money. What are you doing?
I just do walk-ins at less busy times..Walk right in and walk back out 10 mins later.
Lunch and waiting for a telcon to start about a several million dollar deal we are closing.
What a dummy. Did you grow up in the USA and never even learn how your Government works?
There are a LOT of Federal Crimes on the books with which the DOJ is charged with enforcing and prosecuting. Based on what you said the Feds could never have gone after Enron, Worldcomm or others except on SEC crimes like stock fraud. They could have never prosecuted the KKK, they could have never enforced Handgun Registrations, or broken up Chid Porn rings, or intercept drugs from Colombia.The DOJ is the parent organization of the FBI, Civil Rights, BATF,DEA and many others. Take a look at http://wwww.doj.gov./ Therefore your post is 99.75% WRONG QED
I'm surprised you have so much time to post on/. on such topics since you are supposed to be managing a LOT of projects and putting in mega-hours to earn your 60% profit margins in your consulting business.
Blogging can also be a new way of communicating, outside the "normal" channels and/or to expand on the communication from those channels. The article takes an old fashioned view, and also tries to correlate two things that really cannot be show to correlate. Besides they use bad statistics, you need a sample size of at least 30 "blogging firms" to derive meaningful statistics.
I'll bet there are more than 20 firms that have internal only blogs, but there are not a lot that have external blogs. I don't think it is a case of not supporting the concept (any good exec knows communication is very important) but an exec who blogs has to be careful about what they say due to things like SEC and SOX rules. It's a double edged sword.
Where I work blogging IS a company culture and it is encouraged from the CEO down to the "peon".
Since when did FACTS become a TROLL..oh yea, this is/.
Quoting PBS as a source is laughable, they are as anti-Bush as it comes (except maybe CNN).
Look at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50/us c_sup_01_50_10_36.html. Read it and you'll find (in Subsection 1802) that the Bush admin followed the rules as stated in this law. You'll also find that (in Subsection 1811) that no court order or notification to Congress is needed in time of war for 15 day periods. Looks like a loophole that if there was a skip of at least 1 day every 15 then the period could start over.
FYI, every administration of BOTH PARTIES since the 1950's has done this, it has been challenged in court and is LEGAL.CONGRESSS has know about it as well, up until the last 10 yrs DEMOCRATS controlled COngress and could have shut it down by zeroing the NSA budget.
Spying on domestic communications between suspected enemy agents was done during every war in US History dating back to the Civil War in which Lincoln authorized Union agents to tap telegraph lines in the South.
And before you say Iraq is NOT a war, there was a joint resolution of Congress passed in late Nov 2001 that gave the President the authority to wage war on terrorists and thier allies.
Before you say Iraq is not the "terrorists", it was very clear Iraq was supporting terrorism, hell we found several training bases, Government documents of agreement with Terrorists for funding, and numerous statements from former Saddaam officals that were captured verify the findings. We have former Saddam party members who are funding the terrorists there NOW. These guys are all inter-connected.
So, you are either trying to pass disinformation and/or are just plain ignorant of the facts.
Go ahead liberal moderators..mod me down. But you can't deny the facts.
Check your sources on that.5 degree C rise in 1 yr. The mosst reputable sources in the USA (Global Hydrology and Climate Center, University of Alabama - Huntsville, USA) if not the world says something different.
"Previously, the long-term (December 1978 through July 2005) climate trend in the UAH satellite dataset showed average global warming at the rate of about 0.88 C (about 1.58 degrees Fahrenheit) per century. The new trend, which includes the extra warming in the tropics, shows average global warming at the rate of about 1.23 C (about 2.21 degrees Fahrenheit) per century. " NOTE THAT THE WARMING RATE IS PER CENTURY (100 YRS) NOT PER YEAR (365 days).
Good catch!! Several other posters wondered if the results were somehow slanted towards M$. Re-couting *NIX '04 bugs as '05 bugs would sure skew the numbers! Like I said when we get an UNBIASED study with severity levels, OSes and releases of each indicated then we can make a fair comparison of "bugginess".
As someone pointed out some of these "flaws" are not OS flaws but issues with application software, and the Severity level are not indicated. So, until the list is sorted accurately it's hard to tell if Win of *NIX was better.
The way I read the results, *NIX list cover the whole set of OSes of this type. There are at least three major versions of UNIX (Solaris, AIX, HP-UX) and multiple releases/versions of each in production. I know that Solaris 8,9 and 10 are all still supported by Sun in 2005 and that is a very big base of installed servers. There are about a dozen LINUX distros, some with serveral releases/versions in production. The Windows numbers cover XP, Win2K, Win2K server, Win2003server. If you count desktops, the Windows installed base is bigger meaning a flaw may affect more users.
However, until someone publishes a more detailed study,with the methodology described, we are ALL just speculating.
What does each group think about having the 10 Commandments in the Courthouse?;) And does the student population really care as long as the football team beats Auburn and Tennessee?
I spent almost 8 yrs in Huntsville with Army Missle Command and NASA. Interesting place, lots of history of space flight there.
LOL..Fail a Lifestyle Polygraph and see if they (DOD) care. They will terminate your clearances so fast your head will spin. Even just a small "blip" that the examiner thinks is an indication of possible lack of full truthfullness and you'll understand what the Spanish Inquistition was like! Mind you, this test is NOT proven, is NOT admissible in court in ANY state, and is given by hacks with NO psychological training (i.e. machine operators). But it's been held up time and again as "sufficient" when those who failed it challenged it.
No. At least in the USA there is no such thing as a permanent employee. It is exceedingly rare. Firms downsize at the hint of a bad quarter, so no one really has any job security, everyone is uncertain about thier job.
Working conditions vary. Last place I was a contractor there was NO difference in the way we were treated versus an employee.
As a freelance you can bid on work at a rate you can live at versus a corporation with lot's of overhead and the need to make profit at a rate the shareholders expect. This guy has basically formed a kind of "co-op" of contractors who are willing to take the risks for the rewards that may be earned.
Right now ANY Law Enforcement agency can check your license for warrants anywhere in the USA. They just radio back to base, the officer there logs in to the system of the State you are from and checks for warrants, or they make a phone call to that State. This is nothing new.
I know for a FACT the FBI isn't going to share data with anyone else unless they get ordered to by Congress/President and then it will be only for a specific person(s) such as a suspected terrorist.
I also know by the time this thing is built, it will be 3-5X overbudget and years late. The requirements will change 6 or 7 times and each change will cost money.
Basically you are just a "body shop" for contractors that does good work. Nothing wrong with that, I've worked for them myself. You probably pay on a 1099 basis and everyone who works for you is really self-employed. That keeps your costs very low. If you can keep your rates low and do decent work you get rehired, thats the plan, long term repeat business pays better than 1 shot deals. He makes a salary for himself for managing the firm, plus he gets to keep 34% of the profit. That's sweet!
If you do a lot of jobs that you understand well, scope accurately and manage the customer well you can make big $$$. However, one big mistake and you get hammered, no one gets a big check at the end so they all leave. This concept is very much like some Sales jobs I have seen where they have a "target" earnings of which 20% is paid as Salary and the rest paid as a type of commisssion or bonus for meeting certain objectives. The KEY to getting people to work in this way is to be 100% open with your books, your philosophy and your processes. People MUST trust he isn't going to screw them. If they have a couple good projects with this system the trust gets stronger and they develop loyalty. They really work as a "team" where each one wins when the team wins. I don't see anything illegal or unethical about the system, it's just different.
No doubt. BUT the big deal is the possibilty these guys try to run everyone else out of the market by selling at low costs, grabbing market share until everyone else who wants to compete cannot afford to compete. These guys could become a market cartel for these chips, much like OPEC is for oil. I'm not sure the Japanese Gov't would let that happen these days as they are not nearly as much bought and paid for by business as they used to be 20 yrs ago. We just need to keep our eyes open to what is going on so they don't slip one over on us!
THere has got to be more to it than just R&D costs. You don't build a foundry to do R&D you build it to make chips. If everyone investor owns equal share of production then they should be able to produce chips for pretty much the same price. And I don't see one firm willing to take a market share hit by pricing higher than the others. So you don't have a formal price fixing but you have it informally. It's a backdoor (Loophole?) . Of course they could each take the technology, build a 45nm fab and cut each others throats, but IIRC that is what this agreement is supposed to AVOID as that is the way they do things now.
WTO is the parent organization that enforces the GATT is how I recall it. WTO has the power to make nations "conform" to the agreements. Trade is really never based on reciprocity as some countries don't have a lot to offer someone in return for goods. If by reciprocity you mean if you tarriff my stuff X, I'll tarriff your stuff Y that can happen, but the GATT was setup to prevent such "trade wars" and instead have "fair" trade agreements.
Japan is a signee to GATT. If the other nations see Japan price fixing and/or dumping (they can do both at the same time) the GATT says they can sue them in The World Court for damages and to abolish the anti-competitive action. Of course that takes years, in the meantime the other nations will erect tariffs/subsidies to protect thier own makers of such chips. This is NOT a smart move by the Japanese, sure it's radical but radical the wrong way.
Pay one or two guys to take care of the Office server and network gear and support for your current users AND your growth, or constantly add techs to keep Windoze boxes running and secure. If you are small and want to stay small that is OK, but you still need to be sure your systems are secure and it is much easier to secure one system than 500.
IMNSHO, The RIGHT solution is an intelligent thin client on the desktop, large servers on the backend that run all the apps including web browsing. There is not any need for every user in the firm to have a full-up PC on thier desk and it is a much more secure and scalable solution than adding a new PC each time you add a new employee.
You would be surprised at the really smart IT execs who don't put lower power and less heat together. We have to tell them that all the time. I work for one of the largest providers of AMD x64 (hint: Starts with a "S") servers and we make sure we hit both points.
I think it is ironic the site "HotHardware" has the review. That sucker has got to be running very very hot. AMD beats Intel in price, performance, power use and runs cooler as well. Intel still has it's massive marketing machine though which keeps its' name up front when people are considering buying a PC. Kinda like that big Seattle area software company that has great Marketing and not to good performance.
Check out Solaris 10 and other new products from Sun before you assume that. Also, Linux is a WORLDWIDE development effort, which obviously has folks working on something 24x7. Other software products don't have this "staff" for development. There is still a lot of corporations that do NOT embrace (and will not embrace) the open-source concepts of Linux. So that limits Linux use in Corporate computing. However, on the desktop, Linux is GREAT. It kicks Windows butt.
Yes, there are quite a few on Sun's web page. Look down at the bottom of this page:
http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/index.jsp
Sun has over $5B in the bank, they are not going anywhere. They are the largest supplier of computers to the US Gov't.
Comparing Standard plans, RHEL is about $799/yr maintenance. AIX is $299. (IBM web site). Solaris 10 is $240 (Sun web site) However, there ARE a lot of small shops that will use the 'Net as the source for Maintenance. RIsky in my opinon.
Linux works very well as web/print servers. Lightweight tasks it handles well.
Actually SMPs still are hot, there are problems where it fits well. Oracle runs just fine on SMPs or on distributed. You really need to know more about HOW a company uses Oracle to tell which way they should go. Beowolf clusters where all the machines are connected in a "network" and the scheduling is managed centrally. That's good for problems that can be broken into parallel threads that can come back together (synchronize) as needed. I can't think of a General Purpose business problem that can be that parallelized to take advantage of this approach. There are certainly problems in Science that can be done this way. Genetics comes to mind. Graphics (high end rendering) can also benefit.
Name me any large business that does NOT use Software? ANY tax they have to pay will be passed on in price increases to the consumers. Perhaps it will only be a few cents but it'll come. One of the places it may be seen first is on your FedEx packages,since they are based in Memphis and every package (sent via FedEx in the USA) comes from Point A to Memphis then out to Point B. Imagine the software that tracks all this, what would be the value of that? It was written over many years and has multiple facets, it's not a easily valued entity like say MS-Office. The same concept can be applied to a lot of IT systems in a company. The more software a company has to help them be efficient the more they will be taxed. Sounds like a regressive tax on progress. Even if it's only a fraction of a cent, it'll add up to "pretty good sized" tax bills. I'm glad I left TN over 10 yrs ago when Tourism was still the hot industry instead of taxation.
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If Mj was legal and taxed like tobacco and alcohol it would be OK with me. Since that isn't going to happen I'm OK with legal use for medical/religous reasons. Just get your prescription or permit to grow. Of course then someone is going to bitch that they are buying Mj from the evil drug companies and/or Government.
There are a LOT of Federal Crimes on the books with which the DOJ is charged with enforcing and prosecuting. Unconstitutional federal crimes, right? Eh? The DOJ handles federal CRIMES. Constitutionality is a matter of LAW. Completely different subjects. Normally groups like the ACLU are the ones filing constituional cases. Based on what you said the Feds could never have gone after Enron, Worldcomm or others except on SEC crimes like stock fraud. Actually, Enron and Worldcomm used powerful lawyers and accountants to find loopholes in the SEC rules -- loopholes that did exist. I blame the SEC for overregulating accounting practices that end up costing consumers tens of billions of dollars in higher costs and less choice. Give me a break! You talk out of both sides of your mouth. Loopholes and over-regulation. Sounds like you want no laws on accounting so you can freely defraud anyone you want. Caveat Emptor after all. They could have never prosecuted the KKK I'm not sure what the KKK did that was a federal crime. Anything the KKK might have done that was illegal would be better suited in State or County court. Then you obviously are not competent to argue this issue. Google or Wikipedia it and Learn. they could have never enforced Handgun Registrations, I'm against registering handguns and I believe handgun registrations are tyrannical. Doesn't matter WHAT you believe, you have to obey laws on the books. Work via legislation to get them changed. Folks at the DOJ don't have to LIKE the laws just enforce them. or broken up Chid Porn rings This is a State crime per the 9th and 10th amendments. Not if it involves Interstate Commerce. Last time I checked the Internet (and mail) crossed state lines. The FEDERAL Government has the power in that regard. or intercept drugs from Colombia. The War on Drugs is a war on freedoms. I don't do drugs but I support the right of others to. I think there are limits, I think medical/religous uses of Marijuna should be OK, but not other drugs like Cocaine. I'll support legislation to that regard. But until the laws are passed, the DOJ has to enforce them. The DOJ is the parent organization of the FBI, Civil Rights, BATF,DEA and many others. Civil Rights laws are unconstitutional and these laws were passed in order to combat other bad laws of government. On top of that many Civil Rights legislations makes it harder to hire minorities. The FBI, the BATF and the DEA are unconstitutional. Give me a F*cking break, You are an Anarchist. And racist too it appears. I'm against minority hiring quota's but the Civil Rights laws directly follow from the quote ".. we hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." Since you have such disregard for our system of laws, break a few and get caught and you can see they ARE real and are VERY constitutional. Take a look at http://wwww.doj.gov./ Therefore your post is 99.75% WRONG QED You mean DED because I just showed you all the unconstitutional departments the DOJ supports. So, if they ARE such then spend some of your mega-$$$ and file a lawsuit challenging such. Griping about it on the Internet ain't going to help. I'm surprised you have so much time to post on /. on such topics since you are supposed to be managing a LOT of projects and putting in mega-hours to earn your 60% profit margins in your consulting business.
Actually, I'm waiting for my barber to free up for the past 45 minutes. Nice to have slashdot on the go so I can take are of e-mails, handle questions from customers and browse slashdot while I make money. What are you doing?
I just do walk-ins at less busy times..Walk right in and walk back out 10 mins later.
Lunch and waiting for a telcon to start about a several million dollar deal we are closing.
True, but there are laws about shipping guns across State Lines w/o a FFL.
What a dummy. Did you grow up in the USA and never even learn how your Government works?
/. on such topics since you are supposed to be managing a LOT of projects and putting in mega-hours to earn your 60% profit margins in your consulting business.
There are a LOT of Federal Crimes on the books with which the DOJ is charged with enforcing and prosecuting. Based on what you said the Feds could never have gone after Enron, Worldcomm or others except on SEC crimes like stock fraud. They could have never prosecuted the KKK, they could have never enforced Handgun Registrations, or broken up Chid Porn rings, or intercept drugs from Colombia.The DOJ is the parent organization of the FBI, Civil Rights, BATF,DEA and many others. Take a look at http://wwww.doj.gov./ Therefore your post is 99.75% WRONG QED
I'm surprised you have so much time to post on
Blogging can also be a new way of communicating, outside the "normal" channels and/or to expand on the communication from those channels. The article takes an old fashioned view, and also tries to correlate two things that really cannot be show to correlate. Besides they use bad statistics, you need a sample size of at least 30 "blogging firms" to derive meaningful statistics.
I'll bet there are more than 20 firms that have internal only blogs, but there are not a lot that have external blogs. I don't think it is a case of not supporting the concept (any good exec knows communication is very important) but an exec who blogs has to be careful about what they say due to things like SEC and SOX rules. It's a double edged sword.
Where I work blogging IS a company culture and it is encouraged from the CEO down to the "peon".
Since when did FACTS become a TROLL..oh yea, this is /.
s c_sup_01_50_10_36.html. Read it and you'll find (in Subsection 1802) that the Bush admin followed the rules as stated in this law. You'll also find that (in Subsection 1811) that no court order or notification to Congress is needed in time of war for 15 day periods. Looks like a loophole that if there was a skip of at least 1 day every 15 then the period could start over.
Quoting PBS as a source is laughable, they are as anti-Bush as it comes (except maybe CNN).
Look at http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50/u
FYI, every administration of BOTH PARTIES since the 1950's has done this, it has been challenged in court and is LEGAL.CONGRESSS has know about it as well, up until the last 10 yrs DEMOCRATS controlled COngress and could have shut it down by zeroing the NSA budget.
Spying on domestic communications between suspected enemy agents was done during every war in US History dating back to the Civil War in which Lincoln authorized Union agents to tap telegraph lines in the South.
And before you say Iraq is NOT a war, there was a joint resolution of Congress passed in late Nov 2001 that gave the President the authority to wage war on terrorists and thier allies.
Before you say Iraq is not the "terrorists", it was very clear Iraq was supporting terrorism, hell we found several training bases, Government documents of agreement with Terrorists for funding, and numerous statements from former Saddaam officals that were captured verify the findings. We have former Saddam party members who are funding the terrorists there NOW. These guys are all inter-connected.
So, you are either trying to pass disinformation and/or are just plain ignorant of the facts.
Go ahead liberal moderators..mod me down. But you can't deny the facts.
Check your sources on that .5 degree C rise in 1 yr. The mosst reputable sources in the USA (Global Hydrology and Climate Center, University of Alabama - Huntsville, USA) if not the world says something different.
c e.htm which references the Global Hydrology and Climate Center, University of Alabama - Huntsville, USA among others.
http://uahnews.uah.edu/read.asp?newsID=574
"Previously, the long-term (December 1978 through July 2005) climate trend in the UAH satellite dataset showed average global warming at the rate of about 0.88 C (about 1.58 degrees Fahrenheit) per century. The new trend, which includes the extra warming in the tropics, shows average global warming at the rate of about 1.23 C (about 2.21 degrees Fahrenheit) per century. " NOTE THAT THE WARMING RATE IS PER CENTURY (100 YRS) NOT PER YEAR (365 days).
You can also look at http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Glan
Good catch!! Several other posters wondered if the results were somehow slanted towards M$. Re-couting *NIX '04 bugs as '05 bugs would sure skew the numbers! Like I said when we get an UNBIASED study with severity levels, OSes and releases of each indicated then we can make a fair comparison of "bugginess".
As someone pointed out some of these "flaws" are not OS flaws but issues with application software, and the Severity level are not indicated. So, until the list is sorted accurately it's hard to tell if Win of *NIX was better.
The way I read the results, *NIX list cover the whole set of OSes of this type. There are at least three major versions of UNIX (Solaris, AIX, HP-UX) and multiple releases/versions of each in production. I know that Solaris 8,9 and 10 are all still supported by Sun in 2005 and that is a very big base of installed servers. There are about a dozen LINUX distros, some with serveral releases/versions in production. The Windows numbers cover XP, Win2K, Win2K server, Win2003server. If you count desktops, the Windows installed base is bigger meaning a flaw may affect more users.
However, until someone publishes a more detailed study,with the methodology described, we are ALL just speculating.
What does each group think about having the 10 Commandments in the Courthouse? ;) And does the student population really care as long as the football team beats Auburn and Tennessee?
I spent almost 8 yrs in Huntsville with Army Missle Command and NASA. Interesting place, lots of history of space flight there.
LOL..Fail a Lifestyle Polygraph and see if they (DOD) care. They will terminate your clearances so fast your head will spin. Even just a small "blip" that the examiner thinks is an indication of possible lack of full truthfullness and you'll understand what the Spanish Inquistition was like! Mind you, this test is NOT proven, is NOT admissible in court in ANY state, and is given by hacks with NO psychological training (i.e. machine operators). But it's been held up time and again as "sufficient" when those who failed it challenged it.
No. At least in the USA there is no such thing as a permanent employee. It is exceedingly rare. Firms downsize at the hint of a bad quarter, so no one really has any job security, everyone is uncertain about thier job.
Working conditions vary. Last place I was a contractor there was NO difference in the way we were treated versus an employee.
As a freelance you can bid on work at a rate you can live at versus a corporation with lot's of overhead and the need to make profit at a rate the shareholders expect. This guy has basically formed a kind of "co-op" of contractors who are willing to take the risks for the rewards that may be earned.
Right now ANY Law Enforcement agency can check your license for warrants anywhere in the USA. They just radio back to base, the officer there logs in to the system of the State you are from and checks for warrants, or they make a phone call to that State. This is nothing new.
I know for a FACT the FBI isn't going to share data with anyone else unless they get ordered to by Congress/President and then it will be only for a specific person(s) such as a suspected terrorist.
I also know by the time this thing is built, it will be 3-5X overbudget and years late. The requirements will change 6 or 7 times and each change will cost money.
Basically you are just a "body shop" for contractors that does good work. Nothing wrong with that, I've worked for them myself. You probably pay on a 1099 basis and everyone who works for you is really self-employed. That keeps your costs very low. If you can keep your rates low and do decent work you get rehired, thats the plan, long term repeat business pays better than 1 shot deals. He makes a salary for himself for managing the firm, plus he gets to keep 34% of the profit. That's sweet!
If you do a lot of jobs that you understand well, scope accurately and manage the customer well you can make big $$$. However, one big mistake and you get hammered, no one gets a big check at the end so they all leave. This concept is very much like some Sales jobs I have seen where they have a "target" earnings of which 20% is paid as Salary and the rest paid as a type of commisssion or bonus for meeting certain objectives. The KEY to getting people to work in this way is to be 100% open with your books, your philosophy and your processes. People MUST trust he isn't going to screw them. If they have a couple good projects with this system the trust gets stronger and they develop loyalty. They really work as a "team" where each one wins when the team wins. I don't see anything illegal or unethical about the system, it's just different.
No doubt. BUT the big deal is the possibilty these guys try to run everyone else out of the market by selling at low costs, grabbing market share until everyone else who wants to compete cannot afford to compete. These guys could become a market cartel for these chips, much like OPEC is for oil. I'm not sure the Japanese Gov't would let that happen these days as they are not nearly as much bought and paid for by business as they used to be 20 yrs ago. We just need to keep our eyes open to what is going on so they don't slip one over on us!
THere has got to be more to it than just R&D costs. You don't build a foundry to do R&D you build it to make chips. If everyone investor owns equal share of production then they should be able to produce chips for pretty much the same price. And I don't see one firm willing to take a market share hit by pricing higher than the others. So you don't have a formal price fixing but you have it informally. It's a backdoor (Loophole?) . Of course they could each take the technology, build a 45nm fab and cut each others throats, but IIRC that is what this agreement is supposed to AVOID as that is the way they do things now.
WTO is the parent organization that enforces the GATT is how I recall it. WTO has the power to make nations "conform" to the agreements. Trade is really never based on reciprocity as some countries don't have a lot to offer someone in return for goods. If by reciprocity you mean if you tarriff my stuff X, I'll tarriff your stuff Y that can happen, but the GATT was setup to prevent such "trade wars" and instead have "fair" trade agreements.
Japan is a signee to GATT. If the other nations see Japan price fixing and/or dumping (they can do both at the same time) the GATT says they can sue them in The World Court for damages and to abolish the anti-competitive action. Of course that takes years, in the meantime the other nations will erect tariffs/subsidies to protect thier own makers of such chips. This is NOT a smart move by the Japanese, sure it's radical but radical the wrong way.
Pay one or two guys to take care of the Office server and network gear and support for your current users AND your growth, or constantly add techs to keep Windoze boxes running and secure. If you are small and want to stay small that is OK, but you still need to be sure your systems are secure and it is much easier to secure one system than 500.
IMNSHO, The RIGHT solution is an intelligent thin client on the desktop, large servers on the backend that run all the apps including web browsing. There is not any need for every user in the firm to have a full-up PC on thier desk and it is a much more secure and scalable solution than adding a new PC each time you add a new employee.
You would be surprised at the really smart IT execs who don't put lower power and less heat together. We have to tell them that all the time. I work for one of the largest providers of AMD x64 (hint: Starts with a "S") servers and we make sure we hit both points.
I think it is ironic the site "HotHardware" has the review. That sucker has got to be running very very hot. AMD beats Intel in price, performance, power use and runs cooler as well. Intel still has it's massive marketing machine though which keeps its' name up front when people are considering buying a PC. Kinda like that big Seattle area software company that has great Marketing and not to good performance.
Check out Solaris 10 and other new products from Sun before you assume that. Also, Linux is a WORLDWIDE development effort, which obviously has folks working on something 24x7. Other software products don't have this "staff" for development. There is still a lot of corporations that do NOT embrace (and will not embrace) the open-source concepts of Linux. So that limits Linux use in Corporate computing. However, on the desktop, Linux is GREAT. It kicks Windows butt.
Yes, there are quite a few on Sun's web page. Look down at the bottom of this page: http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/index.jsp Sun has over $5B in the bank, they are not going anywhere. They are the largest supplier of computers to the US Gov't. Comparing Standard plans, RHEL is about $799/yr maintenance. AIX is $299. (IBM web site). Solaris 10 is $240 (Sun web site) However, there ARE a lot of small shops that will use the 'Net as the source for Maintenance. RIsky in my opinon. Linux works very well as web/print servers. Lightweight tasks it handles well. Actually SMPs still are hot, there are problems where it fits well. Oracle runs just fine on SMPs or on distributed. You really need to know more about HOW a company uses Oracle to tell which way they should go. Beowolf clusters where all the machines are connected in a "network" and the scheduling is managed centrally. That's good for problems that can be broken into parallel threads that can come back together (synchronize) as needed. I can't think of a General Purpose business problem that can be that parallelized to take advantage of this approach. There are certainly problems in Science that can be done this way. Genetics comes to mind. Graphics (high end rendering) can also benefit.
Name me any large business that does NOT use Software? ANY tax they have to pay will be passed on in price increases to the consumers. Perhaps it will only be a few cents but it'll come. One of the places it may be seen first is on your FedEx packages,since they are based in Memphis and every package (sent via FedEx in the USA) comes from Point A to Memphis then out to Point B. Imagine the software that tracks all this, what would be the value of that? It was written over many years and has multiple facets, it's not a easily valued entity like say MS-Office. The same concept can be applied to a lot of IT systems in a company. The more software a company has to help them be efficient the more they will be taxed. Sounds like a regressive tax on progress. Even if it's only a fraction of a cent, it'll add up to "pretty good sized" tax bills. I'm glad I left TN over 10 yrs ago when Tourism was still the hot industry instead of taxation.