Microsoft is a joke. I can't believe they are a successful business, let alone the premiere provider of operating systems and office software. They have no vision for the future, and no drive to make great products. They don't even seem to be interested in making cheap products. They failed when they tried to follow Apple into the MP3 player market, and now they are planning on following Apple into the mobile phone market?! By the time they have a workable solution (if they are ever able to develop one) the market will be saturated with competing devices from manufacturers who actually care about the quality of the products they are making. They should shutter their business and release all their developers to go work on real projects that have a hope of succeeding. The only division worth keeping is the gaming division.
I'm inclined to believe that Aristotle was right, that his teacher made up Atlantis to flesh out an argument, much like Ann Ryan made up a series of books (and heroes) to flesh out her argument.
I'm pretty sure she wrote a series of books. The distinction is the same is the difference between imagining a house and building one. And while it's true that she made up characters and stories, most of the places in her books are real. Just as in comic books most places are real (or are at least based on real places). It's hard to make something up from nothing, and it's counterproductive if you are trying to make arguments you want other people to understand.
I understand what you're saying, so I guess I'd put it this way. New entries to market demand high markup because retailers need to put extra effort into selling them. Apple can charge their usual markup for two reasons, 1) they usually have high markup, 2) their distribution channel allows them to move and sell new products like they were established ones. Other manufacturers need to sell at a higher margin than Apple to make money thanks to point 2.
I do not have an iPad. My brother has one, and he almost never uses his laptop for reading the internet now because the experience is so much better with the iPad. I've been holding out 'till the 11th because I wanted the latest one.
Retailers sometimes mark up a product 50% over wholesale, they call it keystoning. The companies building the products have to mark them up as well in order to make a profit and cover overhead expenses, new product development and marketing. A 50% total markup is low for a new, expensive product like this because they are hard to sell. You can't just throw out a number for markup and say it's too much, you have to put it into it's proper context. If a commodity manufacturer could sell you something like the $830 iPad for $420, they would. But the reality is that no one has been able to match Apple's price, let alone beat it. The reason is Apple doesn't have to spend as much selling the iPad as the other manufacturers do, they operate their own highly efficient distribution channel, and the benefit from a lot of free advertising in the press, so they don't have to mark it up as much as other retailers have to.
That first link you posted says that the parts are $250 for the 16GB version (which is $500 so the markup is $250), $290 for the 32GB version (which is $600 so the markup is $310) and $350 for the 64GB version (which is $700, so the markup is $350). The other looks at the cellular enabled 32GB model, they're saying the parts for that are $320 (it retails at $730, so the markup is $410).
You said $500 markup, but the highest one you cited was $410 and a difference of $90 is not trivial when it's taken from $730. You were off by 12% for the highest margin device. You were off by 50% for the 16GB model, 32% for the 32 GB model and 21% for the 64GB model cited in the first article. You should not be standing by your original comment.
Taken as a whole, a proposing that $500 of margin is made on the typical iPad they sell is unrealistic, the actual number is probably not greater than $400.
I'm not taking any credit away from the demonstrators by also crediting wikileaks. There's enough credit to go around. If you have the attitude that it must be one and not the other, you miss a lot of important details of the event.
Apple runs it's own retail chain that is extremely cost effective (I believe they make the most $/square foot of any retailer). So while their competitors sell products wholesale and end up with two layers of markup (one for them and one for the retailer), Apple handles the marketing and retail aspect itself, and that's where they achieve their savings over the competition. Even the article you're responding to is free advertising for Apple, savings in action. So next time you're complaining about the free advertising Apple gets, keep in mind it's part of the reason you can buy an iPad for $500.
I don't think it makes sense to ask job candidates to spend 4 years in school so that a recruiter can save 30 minutes not considering candidates without degrees. It's hard to imagine that works out to the benefit of society. Especially when you consider how many qualified applicants they overlook because of the requirement.
I think I made it pretty clear that I don't think it's appropriate to take credit away from the people of Tunisia. But just because you give credit to one source, doesn't mean there weren't any other contributing factors. All I'm saying is that Wikileaks contributed to the revolution, and that it might not have happened without it. At the very least, you have to admit that it had some effect.
A lot of news articles mention protesters citing wikileaks during their protests, though I can't find and direct quotes (except in blogs, which you say aren't credible). Here is one such article from the New Yorker (I don't know if you will consider it credible or not). Here is what it says:
Some demonstrators also cited the evidence of cables from the United States Embassy in Tunisia that were released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks providing vividly detailed accounts of the first family’s self-enrichment and opulent lifestyle.
Admittedly, that is supposedly cited from an article from the New York Times, but when you check the source article, it seems to have since been edited, and says instead:
The protesters, led at first by unemployed college graduates like Mr. Bouazizi and later joined by workers and young professionals, found grist for the complaints in leaked cables from the United States Embassy in Tunisia, released by WikiLeaks, that detailed the self-dealing and excess of the president’s family.
Still, the meaning is the same. The leaks added credibility to the protesters complaints. Without them the protests may not have found the popular support they needed to succeed.
Here is a Tunisian website that translated and distributed the leaks prior to the revolution. If the leaks weren't important, why would Tunisian activists risk doing something like that?
Here's the thing, people have to be careful when saying wikileaks contributed to it because it's bad to imply that the revolution may not have happened were it not for a western news source (which is really what wikileaks is). Certainly, the Tunisians did the work (and paid in blood) to get these guys out of power, and they deserve credit for it.
You seem to be saying that the leak had no impact, and that it is only a bad thing. Then someone tells you that it's "arguably responsible for triggering the revolution in Tunisia" and you flip a switch. But it's true, a valid argument can be made that a revolution might not have happened without the credible disclosures of corruption contained in the leaked documents. If you search the internet, you will find no shortage of people making exactly that argument. We can never know whether or not the revolution would have happened without the leaked cables because the reality is that the revolution happened when the leak happened. We can't retrospectively separate the two.
You asked for evidence. I gave you the evidence you asked for and you said it wasn't good enough. Sorry, there's nothing else I can do beyond that. I don't know what you will consider a credible source of information, nor do I know whether or not such a source would support my argument (for the reason I mentioned above).
Yes, but fossil fuels like petroleum and natural gas do not require a subsidy in order to be economical. We have wars in the middle east to increase the volume of oil available. It would still be cost effective to pump oil out of the ground here, but we would have to use less of it.
As for coal, it seems like that could still be cost effective as well, since you can use scrubbers to clean the exhaust and you can properly dispose of the ash and still be cheaper than oil. I'm not sure why they insist on doing it the dirty way on existing power plants, I guess they just like the $$$.
Nuclear power could have been developed without government funding. They built reactors before they ever build a bomb (no, they did not generate electricity), and the only difference between a nuke plant and any power plant is the heat source. The big expense with nukes is handling the fuel and dealing with the waste, that's what makes them uneconomical.
So yeah, they all receive a subsidy, but they don't all require it.
Ok, here is a quote from a young tunisian directly linking the cable to the revolution. Here is an article about the tunisian government blocking a website which posted the leaked cable. Here is an article about Gaddafi's statement that the leaked cables were responsible for the revolution (you didn't ask for that but I saw it from the other article and it seemed relevant).
Again, I'm not saying that the leaks caused the revolution, only that they contributed to it. There's enough information here to support that hypothesis.
The iPod Touch is significantly different than these other devices, in that it has a large capitative touch screen. In reality none of these products is comparable to any apple product. Their features are too different.
The fact that the leaks happened soon before the revolution, and people were talking about it at the time is all the evidence you're going to get. That is satisfactory to me. If you are looking for more evidence than that, what are you looking for? If you can't think of anything, that means a lack of evidence (in your eyes) was a foregone conclusion.
If the leaks had happened a long time before the revolution, or if they'd not contained anything about the government of Tunisia, or if they hadn't been discussed and shared among protestors in the time leading up to and during the revolution, I'd concede that they probably weren't a factor. But as it is, there's no good reason to say they did not contribute.
The leaks happened before the revolution, they contained information about the government of Tunisia, therefore the potential for a causal link exists. You are correct that the man was not a student, as he was a graduate who was unable to find work and was fed up after the government shut down his vegetable stand. If you would to read a discussion of the link, here's a discussion of it. But honestly, I don't know what kind of "evidence" would prove such a link to your satisfaction. Do you? Would you like signed statements from all the participants saying that Wikileaks had something to do with it? All I said was that Wikileaks may well have had something to do with it. You say there's zero evidence, but I don't know what kind of evidence you're looking for, it's not like there's going to be fingerprints or DNA evidence. The fact that the leaks happened soon before the revolution, and people were talking about it at the time is all the evidence you're going to get (and it's all the evidence you could possibly hope to get). If that's not enough for you that's fine, but there's no reason for you to shout down people who think it is good enough.
And what's with you saying that I'm arrogant or that I don't know what I'm talking about? All I have to go on is news reports, I've never been to Tunisia. If you'd been there and were involved with the rebellion, maybe you'd have a point. But as it stands, I don't see any reason to think you know any more about it than I do.
Once again, I would like to reiterate to you how unnecessary and pointless your name-calling and inflammatory remarks are. If you don't want to talk to me, you don't have to reply. You're really just wasting your fingers typing all that. I'm not going to get upset and my feelings will not be hurt by some random person on the internet for calling me names.
Freedom means freedom from "consequences" specifically legal ones. I'd be free to should my political views on the streets of Zimbabwe, if only it weren't for the consequences. Freedom of speech means that you will not face legal repercussions for voicing your opinion or sharing information online or otherwise. The only reason a court would be looking for information to identify anonymous posters is to dole out legal consequences to them based solely on what they've said.
Here's the thing. I'm not necessarily saying that people need to remain anonymous. What I am saying is that the only reason the courts would want to know the identity of an anonymous poster is to do something bad to them for what they've said. By it's very definition, this is infringing on freedom of speech. The court is going after you for what you've said and for no other reason. This is a very dangerous thing to the field of public discourse. That courts are asking for information on anonymous posters is merely a symptom of the fact that the legal system is now going after people for what they've said.
Here's another problem. People need to be accountable for what they believe, not just what they say. So if someone goes on a website and makes a slanderous claim, anonymously, and you believe it, who's fault is that? Likewise, if someone posts a bomb threat. If it were a legitimate threat, they would post it somewhere they know it would be heard. Could it be a forum? Maybe, but it's better to phone it in so someone important. If I were to tell you right now that I am about the bomb the white-house, you wouldn't (and shouldn't) believe me.
This is a case where people are looking to the government to do something that the government has no business being involved in. They are not going to protect you from slander and bomb threats. You'd have to be an idiot to think they have that kind of power, or that they'd even want to use this authority for that purpose.
It's not an unreasonable assertion. As with any mass movement, we can't know why exactly it happened. More generally, social unrest happens when people feel they are being oppressed or taken advantage of. You say a student burning himself caused it, but that's really just like a match starting a fire. Fire needs more than just a spark, it needs fuel. One person burning themselves would not lead social unrest in the US today because everyone is fat and happy for the most part, and they all have too much to lose. In Tunisia, though, such a thing was possible. And really, it was only a matter of time. In any case, any evidence that discredits the government (even if it's the government of another country) contributes to the perception of oppression and usury. So it probably did have something to do with it.
On a side note, you should consider cutting back on the meaningless inflammatory remarks. They only serve to shut down discussion. It's the cyber equivalent of covering your ears and yelling "I'm not listening". If you're going to do that, you'd do just as well to say nothing at all.
The problem is that the harm done by people positing anonymously is practically nonexistent. People bring up slander, but an anonymous post in an internet forum isn't really slander, it's just at troll. People bring up bomb threats, but there are plenty of ways to make an anonymous bomb threat and tracking this information will not really help with that (honestly, if you're going to make a bomb threat, doing it anonymously in a forum is not a good way to go about it).
On the other hand, requiring websites to hand over identifying information on anonymous posters can be used by law enforcement for all kinds of activities that will stifle free speech. This is my complaint. I'm not saying that the constitution guarantees anonymity (I don't really care what it has to say, since the government doesn't abide in it). I don't even believe in posting anonymously (obviously, that's my email address right there, anyone can tell who I am and how to contact me from any of my posts). What I'm saying is that such a ruling has no purpose except to stifle the free expression of posters on websites.
Slashdot Mirror
Who would you say they're following?
Microsoft is a joke. I can't believe they are a successful business, let alone the premiere provider of operating systems and office software. They have no vision for the future, and no drive to make great products. They don't even seem to be interested in making cheap products. They failed when they tried to follow Apple into the MP3 player market, and now they are planning on following Apple into the mobile phone market?! By the time they have a workable solution (if they are ever able to develop one) the market will be saturated with competing devices from manufacturers who actually care about the quality of the products they are making. They should shutter their business and release all their developers to go work on real projects that have a hope of succeeding. The only division worth keeping is the gaming division.
I'm pretty sure she wrote a series of books. The distinction is the same is the difference between imagining a house and building one. And while it's true that she made up characters and stories, most of the places in her books are real. Just as in comic books most places are real (or are at least based on real places). It's hard to make something up from nothing, and it's counterproductive if you are trying to make arguments you want other people to understand.
I understand what you're saying, so I guess I'd put it this way. New entries to market demand high markup because retailers need to put extra effort into selling them. Apple can charge their usual markup for two reasons, 1) they usually have high markup, 2) their distribution channel allows them to move and sell new products like they were established ones. Other manufacturers need to sell at a higher margin than Apple to make money thanks to point 2.
I do not have an iPad. My brother has one, and he almost never uses his laptop for reading the internet now because the experience is so much better with the iPad. I've been holding out 'till the 11th because I wanted the latest one.
Retailers sometimes mark up a product 50% over wholesale, they call it keystoning. The companies building the products have to mark them up as well in order to make a profit and cover overhead expenses, new product development and marketing. A 50% total markup is low for a new, expensive product like this because they are hard to sell. You can't just throw out a number for markup and say it's too much, you have to put it into it's proper context. If a commodity manufacturer could sell you something like the $830 iPad for $420, they would. But the reality is that no one has been able to match Apple's price, let alone beat it. The reason is Apple doesn't have to spend as much selling the iPad as the other manufacturers do, they operate their own highly efficient distribution channel, and the benefit from a lot of free advertising in the press, so they don't have to mark it up as much as other retailers have to.
That first link you posted says that the parts are $250 for the 16GB version (which is $500 so the markup is $250), $290 for the 32GB version (which is $600 so the markup is $310) and $350 for the 64GB version (which is $700, so the markup is $350). The other looks at the cellular enabled 32GB model, they're saying the parts for that are $320 (it retails at $730, so the markup is $410).
You said $500 markup, but the highest one you cited was $410 and a difference of $90 is not trivial when it's taken from $730. You were off by 12% for the highest margin device. You were off by 50% for the 16GB model, 32% for the 32 GB model and 21% for the 64GB model cited in the first article. You should not be standing by your original comment.
Taken as a whole, a proposing that $500 of margin is made on the typical iPad they sell is unrealistic, the actual number is probably not greater than $400.
I'm not taking any credit away from the demonstrators by also crediting wikileaks. There's enough credit to go around. If you have the attitude that it must be one and not the other, you miss a lot of important details of the event.
What did you think of the links I provided?
The iPad starts at $500. I think it's safe to say that your $500 figure is off by at least the cost of the parts (whatever that is).
Apple runs it's own retail chain that is extremely cost effective (I believe they make the most $/square foot of any retailer). So while their competitors sell products wholesale and end up with two layers of markup (one for them and one for the retailer), Apple handles the marketing and retail aspect itself, and that's where they achieve their savings over the competition. Even the article you're responding to is free advertising for Apple, savings in action. So next time you're complaining about the free advertising Apple gets, keep in mind it's part of the reason you can buy an iPad for $500.
I don't think it makes sense to ask job candidates to spend 4 years in school so that a recruiter can save 30 minutes not considering candidates without degrees. It's hard to imagine that works out to the benefit of society. Especially when you consider how many qualified applicants they overlook because of the requirement.
I think I made it pretty clear that I don't think it's appropriate to take credit away from the people of Tunisia. But just because you give credit to one source, doesn't mean there weren't any other contributing factors. All I'm saying is that Wikileaks contributed to the revolution, and that it might not have happened without it. At the very least, you have to admit that it had some effect.
A lot of news articles mention protesters citing wikileaks during their protests, though I can't find and direct quotes (except in blogs, which you say aren't credible). Here is one such article from the New Yorker (I don't know if you will consider it credible or not). Here is what it says:
Admittedly, that is supposedly cited from an article from the New York Times, but when you check the source article, it seems to have since been edited, and says instead:
Still, the meaning is the same. The leaks added credibility to the protesters complaints. Without them the protests may not have found the popular support they needed to succeed.
Here is a Tunisian website that translated and distributed the leaks prior to the revolution. If the leaks weren't important, why would Tunisian activists risk doing something like that?
Here's the thing, people have to be careful when saying wikileaks contributed to it because it's bad to imply that the revolution may not have happened were it not for a western news source (which is really what wikileaks is). Certainly, the Tunisians did the work (and paid in blood) to get these guys out of power, and they deserve credit for it.
You seem to be saying that the leak had no impact, and that it is only a bad thing. Then someone tells you that it's "arguably responsible for triggering the revolution in Tunisia" and you flip a switch. But it's true, a valid argument can be made that a revolution might not have happened without the credible disclosures of corruption contained in the leaked documents. If you search the internet, you will find no shortage of people making exactly that argument. We can never know whether or not the revolution would have happened without the leaked cables because the reality is that the revolution happened when the leak happened. We can't retrospectively separate the two.
You asked for evidence. I gave you the evidence you asked for and you said it wasn't good enough. Sorry, there's nothing else I can do beyond that. I don't know what you will consider a credible source of information, nor do I know whether or not such a source would support my argument (for the reason I mentioned above).
We have an entire industry built around this box-checking requirement. Does anyone else think that's a huge waste to time and money?
Yes, but fossil fuels like petroleum and natural gas do not require a subsidy in order to be economical. We have wars in the middle east to increase the volume of oil available. It would still be cost effective to pump oil out of the ground here, but we would have to use less of it.
As for coal, it seems like that could still be cost effective as well, since you can use scrubbers to clean the exhaust and you can properly dispose of the ash and still be cheaper than oil. I'm not sure why they insist on doing it the dirty way on existing power plants, I guess they just like the $$$.
Nuclear power could have been developed without government funding. They built reactors before they ever build a bomb (no, they did not generate electricity), and the only difference between a nuke plant and any power plant is the heat source. The big expense with nukes is handling the fuel and dealing with the waste, that's what makes them uneconomical.
So yeah, they all receive a subsidy, but they don't all require it.
Ok, here is a quote from a young tunisian directly linking the cable to the revolution. Here is an article about the tunisian government blocking a website which posted the leaked cable. Here is an article about Gaddafi's statement that the leaked cables were responsible for the revolution (you didn't ask for that but I saw it from the other article and it seemed relevant).
Again, I'm not saying that the leaks caused the revolution, only that they contributed to it. There's enough information here to support that hypothesis.
The iPod Touch is significantly different than these other devices, in that it has a large capitative touch screen. In reality none of these products is comparable to any apple product. Their features are too different.
The fact that the leaks happened soon before the revolution, and people were talking about it at the time is all the evidence you're going to get. That is satisfactory to me. If you are looking for more evidence than that, what are you looking for? If you can't think of anything, that means a lack of evidence (in your eyes) was a foregone conclusion.
If the leaks had happened a long time before the revolution, or if they'd not contained anything about the government of Tunisia, or if they hadn't been discussed and shared among protestors in the time leading up to and during the revolution, I'd concede that they probably weren't a factor. But as it is, there's no good reason to say they did not contribute.
The leaks happened before the revolution, they contained information about the government of Tunisia, therefore the potential for a causal link exists. You are correct that the man was not a student, as he was a graduate who was unable to find work and was fed up after the government shut down his vegetable stand. If you would to read a discussion of the link, here's a discussion of it. But honestly, I don't know what kind of "evidence" would prove such a link to your satisfaction. Do you? Would you like signed statements from all the participants saying that Wikileaks had something to do with it? All I said was that Wikileaks may well have had something to do with it. You say there's zero evidence, but I don't know what kind of evidence you're looking for, it's not like there's going to be fingerprints or DNA evidence. The fact that the leaks happened soon before the revolution, and people were talking about it at the time is all the evidence you're going to get (and it's all the evidence you could possibly hope to get). If that's not enough for you that's fine, but there's no reason for you to shout down people who think it is good enough.
And what's with you saying that I'm arrogant or that I don't know what I'm talking about? All I have to go on is news reports, I've never been to Tunisia. If you'd been there and were involved with the rebellion, maybe you'd have a point. But as it stands, I don't see any reason to think you know any more about it than I do.
Once again, I would like to reiterate to you how unnecessary and pointless your name-calling and inflammatory remarks are. If you don't want to talk to me, you don't have to reply. You're really just wasting your fingers typing all that. I'm not going to get upset and my feelings will not be hurt by some random person on the internet for calling me names.
Freedom means freedom from "consequences" specifically legal ones. I'd be free to should my political views on the streets of Zimbabwe, if only it weren't for the consequences. Freedom of speech means that you will not face legal repercussions for voicing your opinion or sharing information online or otherwise. The only reason a court would be looking for information to identify anonymous posters is to dole out legal consequences to them based solely on what they've said.
This isn't about skype accounts, it's about anonymous comments on web forums.
Here's the thing. I'm not necessarily saying that people need to remain anonymous. What I am saying is that the only reason the courts would want to know the identity of an anonymous poster is to do something bad to them for what they've said. By it's very definition, this is infringing on freedom of speech. The court is going after you for what you've said and for no other reason. This is a very dangerous thing to the field of public discourse. That courts are asking for information on anonymous posters is merely a symptom of the fact that the legal system is now going after people for what they've said.
Here's another problem. People need to be accountable for what they believe, not just what they say. So if someone goes on a website and makes a slanderous claim, anonymously, and you believe it, who's fault is that? Likewise, if someone posts a bomb threat. If it were a legitimate threat, they would post it somewhere they know it would be heard. Could it be a forum? Maybe, but it's better to phone it in so someone important. If I were to tell you right now that I am about the bomb the white-house, you wouldn't (and shouldn't) believe me.
This is a case where people are looking to the government to do something that the government has no business being involved in. They are not going to protect you from slander and bomb threats. You'd have to be an idiot to think they have that kind of power, or that they'd even want to use this authority for that purpose.
It's not an unreasonable assertion. As with any mass movement, we can't know why exactly it happened. More generally, social unrest happens when people feel they are being oppressed or taken advantage of. You say a student burning himself caused it, but that's really just like a match starting a fire. Fire needs more than just a spark, it needs fuel. One person burning themselves would not lead social unrest in the US today because everyone is fat and happy for the most part, and they all have too much to lose. In Tunisia, though, such a thing was possible. And really, it was only a matter of time. In any case, any evidence that discredits the government (even if it's the government of another country) contributes to the perception of oppression and usury. So it probably did have something to do with it.
On a side note, you should consider cutting back on the meaningless inflammatory remarks. They only serve to shut down discussion. It's the cyber equivalent of covering your ears and yelling "I'm not listening". If you're going to do that, you'd do just as well to say nothing at all.
The problem is that the harm done by people positing anonymously is practically nonexistent. People bring up slander, but an anonymous post in an internet forum isn't really slander, it's just at troll. People bring up bomb threats, but there are plenty of ways to make an anonymous bomb threat and tracking this information will not really help with that (honestly, if you're going to make a bomb threat, doing it anonymously in a forum is not a good way to go about it).
On the other hand, requiring websites to hand over identifying information on anonymous posters can be used by law enforcement for all kinds of activities that will stifle free speech. This is my complaint. I'm not saying that the constitution guarantees anonymity (I don't really care what it has to say, since the government doesn't abide in it). I don't even believe in posting anonymously (obviously, that's my email address right there, anyone can tell who I am and how to contact me from any of my posts). What I'm saying is that such a ruling has no purpose except to stifle the free expression of posters on websites.
The only reason a court would be gathering such information is to stifle free speech.
Are you being serious right now?