Well, SCOX doesn't have any tradable options, so the point is moot, but in any case...
The leverage is nice, but the timing would be the difficult part. With options, time literally is money, so you pay more for an option that expires later. This means that if you know that SCOX will dump at a certain date, you can make a killing. But if you only know "in the long run, SCOX will go bankrupt", this doesn't really help you. You'd have to buy an option with a long expiration date, which would cost you through the nose, and probably make the option trade unprofitable.
The plain and simple fact of the matter is that the Gates foundation has helped put PC's into the hands of people who would not otherwise use one.
Whether they run nothing but Microsoft software, or something else, is not an issue, IMHO
On the contrary, I think the fact that the PCs run only Windows is directly relevant. Consider for a moment if it was Microsoft (the company) making these donations instead of Bill Gates' charitable trust. What would the reaction be? Would people be praising Microsoft's noble ambitions? Or would they think that it's a similar strategy to the one Apple employed in the 80's, and Microsoft still employs for college students: give your product away (free/cheap) to get people hooked on it. The answer is of course the latter option: this would make sense from a business perspective, and it would be reasonable for Microsoft to do it.
The bottom line is that this is an effective marketing strategy for Microsoft, whether or not that's Gates' intention. The fact that he gets richer as a buyproduct of his "charitable" donation makes it "tainted philanthropy" in my opinion.
Call him what you like (and I'm sure some of you will) he's doing a good thing here and I, for one, will take my hat of to the guy
I don't think he's doing a good thing here. I think he's doing a self-serving thing that makes him look cheap and greedy. On the other hand, he has donated to at least one worthy cause, and he deserves respect for that.
But Heisenberg never did this because he was a Nazi, he did it because he chose to stay in Germany instead of emigrating.
Oh geez... well that makes it all better then, doesn't it? He didn't really believe in the mass murder of millions of jews, he just helped the nazis because he didn't feel like moving. And OBTW, he was just following orders...
Sorry, but the Nuremberg defense didn't work then and it doesn't work now. Heisenberg made his choice, and history is judging him accordingly.
While the implications of this treaty are truly frightening, the amazing thing about it is that it originated in Europe. Judging by all the anti-American trolls here on Slashdot, you would think that such legislation was only possible in a land corrupted by people like Jack Valenti and John Ashcroft. This treaty really goes a long way toward shattering my illusions of Europe as the land of the free and the home of the brave.
A movie that involves sticks finding its way into holes that fit?
That's a GREAT idea! Some folks in the San Fernando valley may want to buy the option for that script.
Since when have the filmmakers in the San Fernando valley been interested in plots and scripts?
I am not saying that Einstein was wrong (not in the sense that Newton was wrong either), but that true science is keeping an open mind, rather than cower to the politically favorable theory of the moment.
I think Thomas Kuhn would disagree with you. Your "true science" doesn't exist in practice.
I'm not one to fawn over eyecandy, but seeing the WinXP interface side by side with the twm GUI (actually twm inside of XP!), I really see a major lack of user interface design effort on the Linux side.
You're comparing twm (an ancient window manager used by basically nobody these days) vs. WinXP (the latest and "greatest" from Microsoft)? Give me a break... A comparable Windows GUI for twm is Win1.0...
Even with the KDE shell (via Knoppix), the XP UI is much more polished and 'consumer friendly' than the KDE shell.
I respectfully disagree. The WinXP UI is much more "fisher price": big primary colors, and almost insulting to look at. Win95/98 was much better. But KDE is prettier than both.
Thanks for reading this far. I've had to get this off my chest for a long time.
Don't you mean: I've had to get this off my rack for a long time?
Re:WinFS WILL be in the next version, just no netw
on
Microsoft Clips Longhorn
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Some people work in industries where music and videos ARE the business, and they ARE the data. And those businesses need DRM in order to make their business viable in the digital age.
True enough, but most businesses do not need DRM, because they are not in the music/TV/video/etc. industries. So what do these customers want, and why isn't Microsoft releasing a product that addresses the needs of the vast majority of their customers? I see two possibilities: 1) there really isn't much else that their customers need; they're happy with Windows the way it is, or 2) MS is putting its interests ahead of its customers' interests (which it can do because it is a monopoly -- most companies can't get away with this). Now which do you think is more plausible?
Re:WinFS WILL be in the next version, just no netw
on
Microsoft Clips Longhorn
·
· Score: 1, Funny
I don't see a compelling reason for the existance of this "upgrade" other than to feed the M$ coffers and lock in a steady revenue stream for them.
Indeed. This is truly a dramatic shift in Microsoft corporate policy.
Science is all about finding evidence to *refute*, not support, a hypothesis.
On the contrary, Popper's ideas about the nature of scientific inquiry have been proven incorrect for the simple reason that hypotheses are not tested in vacuums. If you disprove a conjunction, you only know that one of the components is false, but you don't know which one. In reality, science works both ways: finding evidence both for and against certain hypotheses and most importantly, independently validating them.
consider this: the hypothesis of the famous Riemann Zeta problem has been tested for trillions of different solutions, and it has held true in every case. (If you want an explanation of the Zeta problem, look elsewhere, I don't have the time) Now that means that it's *probably* true, but nobody accepts that as mathematical proof.
On the other hand, the classification problem for finite simple groups has been rigorously solved, but the collected proof (done in bits by hundreds of mathematicians working over 30 years) is tens of thousands of pages in many different journals. given the standards of review, it is a virtual certainty that there is an error somewhere in there that hasn't been found. So, again, the solution to this problem is *probably* right, but it has been accepted as solved.
What's the difference between these two cases really?
That one claims to be a proof and the other doesn't? You simply can't prove the Riemann Hypothesis by testing trillions of numbers (though if you find one case where it fails, you have disproved it). As a simple example, I can find trillions of numbers whose base-10 expansion is less than a googolplex digits long. Does this mean that all integers have this property? Of course not... So even if all of the calculations are right, you still don't have a proof.
On the other hand, the classification of finite simple groups does claim to be a proof, and if there are no errors, it is a proof. You're right that there are probably errors, but these may be only minor errors that can be fixed. At least no one seems to have found evidence that the proof is completely flawed yet. But it's certainly possible that someone will find an insurmountable error in one of the proofs. There have been cases of propositions that were "proved" true for more than 80 years before a counterexample was found.
What's the difference between these and relying on computer proofs that are, again, *probably* right?
Again, it depends upon what the computer is trying to show. The computer proofs I'm familiar with are ones where the methods are documented, it's just that the computations are too tedious to do by hand. So you can read the proof and say "modulo software bugs, it's a proof". And then it works the same as science: anyone who wants to can repeat the proof for themselves, and see that they get the same answer. As more people validate these results, the likelihood of bugs goes down exponentially, and the likelihood of the proof being accepted increases.
I guess the April Fools jokes are starting in earnest now. I plan to not read Slashdot for the next two days. I hope that all of you who hate the editors' habit of repeating every April Fools joke they find (or worse yet, making up their own!) will join me.
And I *hate* the way some people take it to extremes, say, for example a news site posting random garbage all day.
No shit. It's also a lot more effective when it comes from someone you don't expect it from. Everyone knows that Slashdot will be loaded with fake stories on Thursday, so the prank loses its impact.
Now, something like the "Taco Liberty Bell" prank is the way it should be done... it comes out of left field, and it's just believable enough that you get all pissed off about it before realizing what the date is.
Excuse me, but political beliefs are different from religious beliefs, sexual orientation etc. The latter are properly private and need concern no-one else. But your political beliefs, if enacted, will result in changes to policies and laws that will affect EVERYONE. So long as you don't act on them, then OK, they too are private. But if you're giving money to a campaign to bring about those changes, then yes, you should be ready to defend those views in public.
And what about my vote itself? That's the most powerful thing I can do to affect the changes I want. Do you think that I should have to defend my vote in public too?
I'm talking about the CHOICE that EVERYONE makes when they speak up about the things that are important to them.
And with that should come the choice of when to speak up, and when not to. There is a time and place for everything, but not all times and places are suitable for all things. By revealing who I financially supported, you take this choice away.
if you're not making yourself heard about your choice of beliefs because you're worried people will treat you differently, then that's just plain cowardice and that's why you're still being treated like you're a minority.
Again, that's easy for you to say if you don't have beliefs that are far from the mainstream. There are some battles that you simply can't win, and I'd rather be a "coward" and walk away than go in swinging and lose.
Your political beliefs simply can't be none of my business because your political contributions, be they voting, funding, or speaking, affects my business.
What is dishartening to me is the fact the so many people can cast aside the enormous amount of evidence that global climate change is occuring. Is it just because your in denial that some of the choices that we all make when it comes to energy use has detrimental effects on the environment?
I think it's pretty well documented that climate change is occuring (though still, the heteroskedasticity of the data makes this hard to prove). However, the link that's never been made is that our actions are what's causing it. There have been many major shifts in world climate over the last few million years, and we certainly didn't cause any of them. So it's rather poor science to make the leap that "we're pumping out greenhouse gasses" + "we have a theory as to how greenhouse gasses can lead to global climate change" + "the global climate is changing" => "we're causing the global climate change".
If you're hiding any of your beliefs or opinions because you're worried about offending or alienating someone, then you just simply don't believe in them strongly enough to justify raising a fuss when those beliefs or opinions are trampled on.
Spoken like a true member of the white male heterosexual christian majority...
Why should I have to defend my beliefs to you or anyone else? Why can't my political beliefs be simply none of your business? Like it or not, when you hold political/religious/sexual/etc. views that are different than the majority -- and make these views public -- people will look at you and treat you differently. Saying that if you don't publicize your beliefs then you don't believe them strongly enough is simply naive.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, SCOX doesn't have any tradable options, so the point is moot, but in any case...
The leverage is nice, but the timing would be the difficult part. With options, time literally is money, so you pay more for an option that expires later. This means that if you know that SCOX will dump at a certain date, you can make a killing. But if you only know "in the long run, SCOX will go bankrupt", this doesn't really help you. You'd have to buy an option with a long expiration date, which would cost you through the nose, and probably make the option trade unprofitable.
On the contrary, I think the fact that the PCs run only Windows is directly relevant. Consider for a moment if it was Microsoft (the company) making these donations instead of Bill Gates' charitable trust. What would the reaction be? Would people be praising Microsoft's noble ambitions? Or would they think that it's a similar strategy to the one Apple employed in the 80's, and Microsoft still employs for college students: give your product away (free/cheap) to get people hooked on it. The answer is of course the latter option: this would make sense from a business perspective, and it would be reasonable for Microsoft to do it.
The bottom line is that this is an effective marketing strategy for Microsoft, whether or not that's Gates' intention. The fact that he gets richer as a buyproduct of his "charitable" donation makes it "tainted philanthropy" in my opinion.
Call him what you like (and I'm sure some of you will) he's doing a good thing here and I, for one, will take my hat of to the guy
I don't think he's doing a good thing here. I think he's doing a self-serving thing that makes him look cheap and greedy. On the other hand, he has donated to at least one worthy cause, and he deserves respect for that.
Oh geez... well that makes it all better then, doesn't it? He didn't really believe in the mass murder of millions of jews, he just helped the nazis because he didn't feel like moving. And OBTW, he was just following orders...
Sorry, but the Nuremberg defense didn't work then and it doesn't work now. Heisenberg made his choice, and history is judging him accordingly.
At what time? At the time the crime was committed? I think Dmitry Sklyarov would beg to differ with you on that point.
That's a GREAT idea! Some folks in the San Fernando valley may want to buy the option for that script.
Since when have the filmmakers in the San Fernando valley been interested in plots and scripts?
I think Thomas Kuhn would disagree with you. Your "true science" doesn't exist in practice.
You're comparing twm (an ancient window manager used by basically nobody these days) vs. WinXP (the latest and "greatest" from Microsoft)? Give me a break... A comparable Windows GUI for twm is Win1.0...
Even with the KDE shell (via Knoppix), the XP UI is much more polished and 'consumer friendly' than the KDE shell.
I respectfully disagree. The WinXP UI is much more "fisher price": big primary colors, and almost insulting to look at. Win95/98 was much better. But KDE is prettier than both.
Thanks for reading this far. I've had to get this off my chest for a long time.
Don't you mean: I've had to get this off my rack for a long time?
True enough, but most businesses do not need DRM, because they are not in the music/TV/video/etc. industries. So what do these customers want, and why isn't Microsoft releasing a product that addresses the needs of the vast majority of their customers? I see two possibilities: 1) there really isn't much else that their customers need; they're happy with Windows the way it is, or 2) MS is putting its interests ahead of its customers' interests (which it can do because it is a monopoly -- most companies can't get away with this). Now which do you think is more plausible?
Indeed. This is truly a dramatic shift in Microsoft corporate policy.
On the contrary, Popper's ideas about the nature of scientific inquiry have been proven incorrect for the simple reason that hypotheses are not tested in vacuums. If you disprove a conjunction, you only know that one of the components is false, but you don't know which one. In reality, science works both ways: finding evidence both for and against certain hypotheses and most importantly, independently validating them.
You need to read more.
I'd suggest you (re-)read Kuhn.
On the other hand, the classification problem for finite simple groups has been rigorously solved, but the collected proof (done in bits by hundreds of mathematicians working over 30 years) is tens of thousands of pages in many different journals. given the standards of review, it is a virtual certainty that there is an error somewhere in there that hasn't been found. So, again, the solution to this problem is *probably* right, but it has been accepted as solved.
What's the difference between these two cases really?
That one claims to be a proof and the other doesn't? You simply can't prove the Riemann Hypothesis by testing trillions of numbers (though if you find one case where it fails, you have disproved it). As a simple example, I can find trillions of numbers whose base-10 expansion is less than a googolplex digits long. Does this mean that all integers have this property? Of course not... So even if all of the calculations are right, you still don't have a proof.
On the other hand, the classification of finite simple groups does claim to be a proof, and if there are no errors, it is a proof. You're right that there are probably errors, but these may be only minor errors that can be fixed. At least no one seems to have found evidence that the proof is completely flawed yet. But it's certainly possible that someone will find an insurmountable error in one of the proofs. There have been cases of propositions that were "proved" true for more than 80 years before a counterexample was found.
What's the difference between these and relying on computer proofs that are, again, *probably* right?
Again, it depends upon what the computer is trying to show. The computer proofs I'm familiar with are ones where the methods are documented, it's just that the computations are too tedious to do by hand. So you can read the proof and say "modulo software bugs, it's a proof". And then it works the same as science: anyone who wants to can repeat the proof for themselves, and see that they get the same answer. As more people validate these results, the likelihood of bugs goes down exponentially, and the likelihood of the proof being accepted increases.
It's not their job, it's their nature. Their job is to serve the people.
Load in under 10 seconds?
What the fuck are you talking about? Don't you realize that the main stars have had long careers already ?
Ben Affleck & Matt Damon.
What about the sky-high taxes? And that annoying accent? And all the damn Kennedys?
No shit. It's also a lot more effective when it comes from someone you don't expect it from. Everyone knows that Slashdot will be loaded with fake stories on Thursday, so the prank loses its impact.
Now, something like the "Taco Liberty Bell" prank is the way it should be done... it comes out of left field, and it's just believable enough that you get all pissed off about it before realizing what the date is.
And what about my vote itself? That's the most powerful thing I can do to affect the changes I want. Do you think that I should have to defend my vote in public too?
And with that should come the choice of when to speak up, and when not to. There is a time and place for everything, but not all times and places are suitable for all things. By revealing who I financially supported, you take this choice away.
if you're not making yourself heard about your choice of beliefs because you're worried people will treat you differently, then that's just plain cowardice and that's why you're still being treated like you're a minority.
Again, that's easy for you to say if you don't have beliefs that are far from the mainstream. There are some battles that you simply can't win, and I'd rather be a "coward" and walk away than go in swinging and lose.
Your political beliefs simply can't be none of my business because your political contributions, be they voting, funding, or speaking, affects my business.
So you think you deserve to know who I voted for?
I think it's pretty well documented that climate change is occuring (though still, the heteroskedasticity of the data makes this hard to prove). However, the link that's never been made is that our actions are what's causing it. There have been many major shifts in world climate over the last few million years, and we certainly didn't cause any of them. So it's rather poor science to make the leap that "we're pumping out greenhouse gasses" + "we have a theory as to how greenhouse gasses can lead to global climate change" + "the global climate is changing" => "we're causing the global climate change".
Spoken like a true member of the white male heterosexual christian majority...
Why should I have to defend my beliefs to you or anyone else? Why can't my political beliefs be simply none of your business? Like it or not, when you hold political/religious/sexual/etc. views that are different than the majority -- and make these views public -- people will look at you and treat you differently. Saying that if you don't publicize your beliefs then you don't believe them strongly enough is simply naive.