I'm sure their are those in England still waiting for their jobs to return after being shipped to the US fifty years ago.
Jobs in England were not shipped to the US 50 years ago, where did you dream that up?!?!?! UK unemployment is low by historical standard, the UK has a welfare state and a free health service. The thing that hurt the UK the most in the last 50 years was protectionism and unionism in industry (protecting heavy industry, coal mining, widespread closed-shop government ownership) and a lack of investment in R+D and management skill. However since the 80s (when these 'old' industries were effectively crushed by Thatcher) the UK has managed to become a world leader (punching well above its weight) in Biotech, Oil and Finance, all 'new' industris.
Compare this to the US at present, over the next 50 years would you like to protect the programming, steel and textile industry so people would do the same jobs then as now, or would you like to free the production of these goods/service so other countries can produce these things (essential for the US), while US citizens go on to use its education/skill head-start to create greater, better technology/industry/services?
There is no 'cycle' in this process it is a constant transition. (BTW a 5/10 year cycle usually refers to the business cycle, the time from boom to bust to boom. There is growing evidence of a 50-150 year cycle in terms of global boom, which in the case of a 50 year cycle we are just passing the bottom turning point.)
Dell only moved some of the business support offshore, they never moved consumer support. Doesn't mean they won't sometime, but not right now. Infact for most of offshore things Dell move the support to Ireland.
It used to be something like "you can't eat your cake and still have it" but those crazy Victorians mixed up the word order. Those crazy Victorians are also to blame for Flutterby becoming Butterfly etc.
Firstly, he may not have been refering to their stock price at all.
I don't think he was, however what was he refering to? Stock prices contain info about the overall opinion redarding a stock, so whatever it was it was not contained in the stock price.
Even if he is, you should probably compare it to the general development of technology stocks, see comparison between HP/Compaq and Nasdaq composite index
The NASDAQ is a heavily pro-cyclical market, but HP/Compaq are one of the most defensive technology companies there are and fit into the S+P 500 better than NASDAQ, which they perform better against. One could bring up performance and benchmark numbers ad infinitum. Also note HP/Compaq pay a better dividend than most tech companies, but Yahoo doesn't provide total return (rather than price return) graphing functions. In terms of absolute return HP/Compaq did OK and certainly didn't slide into oblivion, no matter how t is benchmarked.
Given these comments were made for the year 2003 they are wrong. If you include 2002 you are including what had already past, I believe Cringley was talking about what was coming, rather than what had been. Why not add a few more years of the past?
If you buy from a good wine shop they should know. Not only do small bubbles enhance the tastes, they result in a creamy (rather than fizzy) texture which is most welcomed by the back of my throat as well as the taste buds, the stomach and the mind.
If you want fizzy wine to be 'a bit different' to get drunk on choose any cheap plonk (Cava fits the bill well and is also tasty), if you want a decent champagne you can get this for ~USD35 at a specialist wine shop or specialist (staffed by those who are passionate about wince, rather than in-between semesters or on remand) wine section of a shopping mall. Non-champagne sparkling wines are also improving in quality (And sometimes are excellent), but don't expect anything too cheap, if it is cheap it'll get you drunk but won't be the amazing experience good champagne can be.
Don't follow the big names either. For example Bollinger only starts getting good well past USD70/bottle, a lower priced bottle can be just as good at much less cost.
Purely regarding financial methodology, rather than Sun in specifiecs:
Profit and loss accounts refer to the past, not the future. If a company did restructuring and trimmed poor divisions it may make a short term loss but would benefit in the long term.
The price of a stock refers purely and simply to its supply and demand, i.e. where people are happy to buy the stock and where people are happy to sell.
So the price if a function of many agents' opinions of the future price and earnings of the said company. This is inclusive of technical trading, but I won't complicate going there.
The stock price does matter as it is the quantification of qualitive opinions regarding the company. If you don't think a company is priced well, put a massive short position on the company and report back sometime in the future. I look forward to seeing you on it.
I remember PC mags wrote 'Micro$oft' 10 years ago (mainstream DOS/Windows based mags like PCW or PC Magazine) when they were being less than complimentary about 'M$'. It is not a Linux thing, or a UNIX thing, it is a MSFT.O thing.
I think that is the point. The author always makes vague statements (well, the bold ones are usually false) so listening to them is self-defeating, because they can always say they are right (or bolster the credibility of their bold statements by claiming success on the vague ones).
For example:
1. A year ago, I wrote that HP/Compaq would continue its long slide to oblivion, and if you look underneath the corporate numbers, you'll see I was correct.
SO the corporate numbers are OK then, their stock is up over the year (reference) so I'd say so corporate numbers sure are decent, then what basis is there for saying they are performing badly? Perhaps if I refer to an unspecified quantity I can make up a story about it too. Like, er, Dell will start slide into oblivion, which if you look below the corporate numbers (that is below profits, penetration, users, sales, turnover, employment, etc) you will see I am correct. What was I correct about? Well, ask me in a year and I'll tell you.
2. I predicted that Dell would continue to grow at the expense of its competitors
The home/business PC market is getting mature, so if any company grows it is largely at the expense of its competitors. Dell were growing market share, one doesn't have to be a genius to see that a lagged deterministic trend will continue, it is more insightful to look at the rate of change that growth is having, but he didn't do that.
3. I wrote that Linux would continue to give Microsoft fits (that's true) and that Microsoft would be forced to compete on quality.
Pick a low quality (costly) product. It comes under pressure from a free high quality product. The low quality (costly) product comes under pressure. A 3rd grade kid could draw that line of reasoning.
4. I said that Sun would decline further, generally because of the success of Linux.
(Fastidious comment, which of these Suns did you mean?) I can give a little credit to this since unlike the other 'predictions' it was not already written mud, though perhaps it was written in mud ready to be fossilised. Though looking back to financial numbers, Sun Microsystems doesn't seem to have done too bad.
5. Here is one I got wrong. I predicted that China would standardize on Linux running on MIPS hardware.
OK, so he stopped predicting the sun would rise tomorrow and got on with some original thinking. And failed, though it was a nice idea.
6. I was wrong, too, in my prediction that Microsoft would force Intel to adopt AMD's 64-bit Opteron instructions.
Hard to see this happening at the time, but again an interesting idea.
7. I correctly predicted the Mac G5 computer line
This had been announced by Apple already.
8. correctly predicted that V.92 modem development would stall, but that nobody would care
Or perhaps saw nobody cared about V.92 (DSL+ is where the action has been for the past 3 years), so predicted it would stall. Nice insight.
9. I predicted that Microsoft's Palladium security plan, now called Trustworthy Computing, would be distrusted and stall.
It was already distructed. Well done on the stalling part, it was just wishful thinking for me:).
10. I wrote that Hollywood would come up with new digital rights management schemes that would be promptly broken
An encrypted system where many have the same key is a system that has a key for anyone. Always been like that, always will
OK, so I could go on, but his 'predictions' are a combination of the obvious (with a little critical thought) and the failures (when he gets beyond stating the obvious he usually gets it wrong). I do not trust this person's predictions.
Pop off to the toilets, get yourself excited, make sure no one else is with hearing distance (i.e. all cubes are empty and floorspace is blank) and let one off.
No one will know, if you return to the office pink cheeked and cheery they'll just think you got that stubborn post-christmas constupated faeces out.
The big winner is Apple for dominating MP3 portable player sales and the dramatic success of its iTunes service.
The dramatic success is Apple using its iTunes service to promote its iPod. iTunes has made a miniscule amount, purely a leader for the iPod. The iPod was here before iTunes, iTunes was envisaged as a way to make iPods more successful. iTunes was as much as a breakthrough on the music distribution scene as MP3 players were on the musical device scene were, but iPod deserves the praise, if iTunes weren't here another would have filled the gap, iPod and other MP3 players created the inertia and it is them that should get the praise.
Cut them some slack! Clippy probably ate their dictionary, or maybe VBA decompiled their syntax.
Seriously, I am not a fan of MS as a company (mainly due to the Windows product/philosophy/attitude surrounding it), but Office (Word, Excel, Access) are good productivity apps.
In word processing (cum report presentation) I see little functional difference in MS Word and OO's wordporcessor, good on you OO for doing so well. MS's Access database is a powerful relational database which is very well documented and well supported, there is not an OO alternative and things like mySQL are better compared to products like Oracle (i.e., 'real' databases, not a non-expert development environment, though Access can also act heavy when front/back are split). As an intensive spreadsheet user (OK, spreadsheets only manipulate data, I use Mathematica for real math) I assure you OO's spreadsheet isn't there yet (no multi-dimensional pivot tables and poor integration wih 3rd party services, but the 3rd party thing being a bit of a chicken and an egg). VBA isn't the nicest language but it does get a task done fast and migration to another language is a massive headache (I considered it once, but decided to leave it to the next lemming).
2.5 litres is not a large quantity though. Sure some 'health experts' (non-registered doctors) advocate drinking 5 litres a day (i agree this is misinformation unless there are special circumstances, like running a marathon in the Sahara everyday). 2.5 litres is around the 8 glasses avocated by your local doctor, your local hospital, your local government, your federal government, the UN.
Sure "quick web searches" is that you wind up googling up a lot of misinformation like a couple of crack-pot articles written by a couple of crack-pot doctors is also misinformation.
Food contains salts which need increased water. Sugary products (including fruit and juices) need increased water so as not to put a strain on the kidneys. We perspite _a lot_ (including on our breath), exercise and living in dry or hot conditions take out more liquid, and we pass water in other, seemingly more solid, ways.
It is interesting, however, that you criticise a post for jingoistic misinformation when your critique is far more jingoistic and far more misinformed.
Medical problems resulting from dehydration (acute (in a short of space of time) or chronic (weeks, months or years)) are extremely well documented, 2.5 litres of water a day prevents this for most people (and where are the side-effects from drinking water?). Not getting this puts kidneys, cellular metabolism etc at far far higher risk.
And spread nuclear debris over the whole world. Draw surrounding countries into the conflict. Billions of civilians destoryed at their government's whim?
I'm all in favour of total nuclear disarmament. I think France, Russia, China, USA, UK, Israel, Pakistan and India should rid themselves of nukes. BTW I am not American if that's what you inferred?
The fact he seemed to have got so upset is ridiculous!
Feeding the trolls only encourages them. Perhaps something like a 'super offensive' troll rating should be introduced so when modded to the extent a post was a 'super troll' the IP address would be logged somewhere publically available, that way even ACs wouldn't get around it.
Just a thought.
Although OT, I do not post AC, but have disabled my karma-bonus.
These countries (China, India, et al) have larger problems than the lack of a space program
As an aside, China is doing something about its larger problems, the space program is very minor compared to social and economic development going on, but is a valuable and low-cost hedge against space-related development/exploration in the future (its not like when space becomes the 'next big thing' a space program can be constructed overnight).
My main point(!) is whether this creates risk. India has a foul history of conflict with its neighbour Pakistan, and fought a war with China in the 50s (though this, thankfully, seems to be a thing of the past). Were India creating a purely non-military programme then great, if it were to announce the creation of a new super-fast ICBM everyone would jump on the backs. I hope this is not a charade for a super-fast ICBM and that the Indian government doesn't see the need to accelerate the new nuclear arms race.
On balance I accept this for its technical and commercial benefits, but the nuclear risk sticks deep in the back of my mind.
No it is their problem, if you classify someone according to their country of birth or citizenship then that is up to you, I do not.
You would side with Billy-Bob-Redneck... Who's being a racist now?
Certainly not I. Billy-Bob-Redneck is sentient and can make their own decisions, I do not agree with them, I would prefer an individual to make the best of any opportunity they have to create happiness for themselves and those around them and not spread fear or hate. I assess a person as an individual.
So are you saying that we can't find intelligent thoughtful hardworking people in our midst? We have to go and get them from abroad?
We can find some, certainly not everyone in our midst is. But if someone is intelligent thoughtful hardworking why should I exclude them? It is not as if jobs are statically finite, any elementary reading in economics demonstrates that. At the same time we should try to help those that are not achieving their potential do it, be it happiness, technical accomplishment, compassion, etc
I hope my thoughts are clear. I am happy to continue this discussion if you come out from the Coward charade (I certainly have turned my karma-bonus off).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure their are those in England still waiting for their jobs to return after being shipped to the US fifty years ago.
Jobs in England were not shipped to the US 50 years ago, where did you dream that up?!?!?! UK unemployment is low by historical standard, the UK has a welfare state and a free health service. The thing that hurt the UK the most in the last 50 years was protectionism and unionism in industry (protecting heavy industry, coal mining, widespread closed-shop government ownership) and a lack of investment in R+D and management skill. However since the 80s (when these 'old' industries were effectively crushed by Thatcher) the UK has managed to become a world leader (punching well above its weight) in Biotech, Oil and Finance, all 'new' industris.
Compare this to the US at present, over the next 50 years would you like to protect the programming, steel and textile industry so people would do the same jobs then as now, or would you like to free the production of these goods/service so other countries can produce these things (essential for the US), while US citizens go on to use its education/skill head-start to create greater, better technology/industry/services?
There is no 'cycle' in this process it is a constant transition. (BTW a 5/10 year cycle usually refers to the business cycle, the time from boom to bust to boom. There is growing evidence of a 50-150 year cycle in terms of global boom, which in the case of a 50 year cycle we are just passing the bottom turning point.)
Is it binary?
Hmm... there was OS2 Warp, and now WinXP Slipstream.
Dell only moved some of the business support offshore, they never moved consumer support. Doesn't mean they won't sometime, but not right now. Infact for most of offshore things Dell move the support to Ireland.
We like the moon!
It used to be something like "you can't eat your cake and still have it" but those crazy Victorians mixed up the word order. Those crazy Victorians are also to blame for Flutterby becoming Butterfly etc.
Firstly, he may not have been refering to their stock price at all.
I don't think he was, however what was he refering to? Stock prices contain info about the overall opinion redarding a stock, so whatever it was it was not contained in the stock price.
Even if he is, you should probably compare it to the general development of technology stocks, see comparison between HP/Compaq and Nasdaq composite index
The NASDAQ is a heavily pro-cyclical market, but HP/Compaq are one of the most defensive technology companies there are and fit into the S+P 500 better than NASDAQ, which they perform better against. One could bring up performance and benchmark numbers ad infinitum. Also note HP/Compaq pay a better dividend than most tech companies, but Yahoo doesn't provide total return (rather than price return) graphing functions. In terms of absolute return HP/Compaq did OK and certainly didn't slide into oblivion, no matter how t is benchmarked.
Then don't read the article.
Given these comments were made for the year 2003 they are wrong. If you include 2002 you are including what had already past, I believe Cringley was talking about what was coming, rather than what had been. Why not add a few more years of the past?
But, and maybe this was in a different Bond, I thought it went something like:
Bond: I would have picked a 1959 Chianti.
Waiter: I'm afraid our cellar is rather understocked at the moment.
Bond: This is a 1959 Chianti.
If you buy from a good wine shop they should know. Not only do small bubbles enhance the tastes, they result in a creamy (rather than fizzy) texture which is most welcomed by the back of my throat as well as the taste buds, the stomach and the mind.
If you want fizzy wine to be 'a bit different' to get drunk on choose any cheap plonk (Cava fits the bill well and is also tasty), if you want a decent champagne you can get this for ~USD35 at a specialist wine shop or specialist (staffed by those who are passionate about wince, rather than in-between semesters or on remand) wine section of a shopping mall. Non-champagne sparkling wines are also improving in quality (And sometimes are excellent), but don't expect anything too cheap, if it is cheap it'll get you drunk but won't be the amazing experience good champagne can be.
Don't follow the big names either. For example Bollinger only starts getting good well past USD70/bottle, a lower priced bottle can be just as good at much less cost.
Purely regarding financial methodology, rather than Sun in specifiecs:
Profit and loss accounts refer to the past, not the future. If a company did restructuring and trimmed poor divisions it may make a short term loss but would benefit in the long term.
The price of a stock refers purely and simply to its supply and demand, i.e. where people are happy to buy the stock and where people are happy to sell.
So the price if a function of many agents' opinions of the future price and earnings of the said company. This is inclusive of technical trading, but I won't complicate going there.
The stock price does matter as it is the quantification of qualitive opinions regarding the company. If you don't think a company is priced well, put a massive short position on the company and report back sometime in the future. I look forward to seeing you on it.
Yeah, karma comes, karma goes.
I remember PC mags wrote 'Micro$oft' 10 years ago (mainstream DOS/Windows based mags like PCW or PC Magazine) when they were being less than complimentary about 'M$'. It is not a Linux thing, or a UNIX thing, it is a MSFT.O thing.
I think that is the point. The author always makes vague statements (well, the bold ones are usually false) so listening to them is self-defeating, because they can always say they are right (or bolster the credibility of their bold statements by claiming success on the vague ones).
For example: 1. A year ago, I wrote that HP/Compaq would continue its long slide to oblivion, and if you look underneath the corporate numbers, you'll see I was correct.
:).
SO the corporate numbers are OK then, their stock is up over the year (reference) so I'd say so corporate numbers sure are decent, then what basis is there for saying they are performing badly? Perhaps if I refer to an unspecified quantity I can make up a story about it too. Like, er, Dell will start slide into oblivion, which if you look below the corporate numbers (that is below profits, penetration, users, sales, turnover, employment, etc) you will see I am correct. What was I correct about? Well, ask me in a year and I'll tell you.
2. I predicted that Dell would continue to grow at the expense of its competitors
The home/business PC market is getting mature, so if any company grows it is largely at the expense of its competitors. Dell were growing market share, one doesn't have to be a genius to see that a lagged deterministic trend will continue, it is more insightful to look at the rate of change that growth is having, but he didn't do that.
3. I wrote that Linux would continue to give Microsoft fits (that's true) and that Microsoft would be forced to compete on quality. Pick a low quality (costly) product. It comes under pressure from a free high quality product. The low quality (costly) product comes under pressure. A 3rd grade kid could draw that line of reasoning.
4. I said that Sun would decline further, generally because of the success of Linux.
(Fastidious comment, which of these Suns did you mean?) I can give a little credit to this since unlike the other 'predictions' it was not already written mud, though perhaps it was written in mud ready to be fossilised. Though looking back to financial numbers, Sun Microsystems doesn't seem to have done too bad.
5. Here is one I got wrong. I predicted that China would standardize on Linux running on MIPS hardware.
OK, so he stopped predicting the sun would rise tomorrow and got on with some original thinking. And failed, though it was a nice idea.
6. I was wrong, too, in my prediction that Microsoft would force Intel to adopt AMD's 64-bit Opteron instructions.
Hard to see this happening at the time, but again an interesting idea.
7. I correctly predicted the Mac G5 computer line
This had been announced by Apple already.
8. correctly predicted that V.92 modem development would stall, but that nobody would care Or perhaps saw nobody cared about V.92 (DSL+ is where the action has been for the past 3 years), so predicted it would stall. Nice insight.
9. I predicted that Microsoft's Palladium security plan, now called Trustworthy Computing, would be distrusted and stall.
It was already distructed. Well done on the stalling part, it was just wishful thinking for me
10. I wrote that Hollywood would come up with new digital rights management schemes that would be promptly broken
An encrypted system where many have the same key is a system that has a key for anyone. Always been like that, always will
OK, so I could go on, but his 'predictions' are a combination of the obvious (with a little critical thought) and the failures (when he gets beyond stating the obvious he usually gets it wrong). I do not trust this person's predictions.
Pop off to the toilets, get yourself excited, make sure no one else is with hearing distance (i.e. all cubes are empty and floorspace is blank) and let one off.
No one will know, if you return to the office pink cheeked and cheery they'll just think you got that stubborn post-christmas constupated faeces out.
--
What do I care, it's karma-burn Friday!
From the article:
The big winner is Apple for dominating MP3 portable player sales and the dramatic success of its iTunes service.
The dramatic success is Apple using its iTunes service to promote its iPod. iTunes has made a miniscule amount, purely a leader for the iPod. The iPod was here before iTunes, iTunes was envisaged as a way to make iPods more successful. iTunes was as much as a breakthrough on the music distribution scene as MP3 players were on the musical device scene were, but iPod deserves the praise, if iTunes weren't here another would have filled the gap, iPod and other MP3 players created the inertia and it is them that should get the praise.
Cut them some slack! Clippy probably ate their dictionary, or maybe VBA decompiled their syntax.
Seriously, I am not a fan of MS as a company (mainly due to the Windows product/philosophy/attitude surrounding it), but Office (Word, Excel, Access) are good productivity apps.
In word processing (cum report presentation) I see little functional difference in MS Word and OO's wordporcessor, good on you OO for doing so well. MS's Access database is a powerful relational database which is very well documented and well supported, there is not an OO alternative and things like mySQL are better compared to products like Oracle (i.e., 'real' databases, not a non-expert development environment, though Access can also act heavy when front/back are split). As an intensive spreadsheet user (OK, spreadsheets only manipulate data, I use Mathematica for real math) I assure you OO's spreadsheet isn't there yet (no multi-dimensional pivot tables and poor integration wih 3rd party services, but the 3rd party thing being a bit of a chicken and an egg). VBA isn't the nicest language but it does get a task done fast and migration to another language is a massive headache (I considered it once, but decided to leave it to the next lemming).
2.5 litres is not a large quantity though. Sure some 'health experts' (non-registered doctors) advocate drinking 5 litres a day (i agree this is misinformation unless there are special circumstances, like running a marathon in the Sahara everyday). 2.5 litres is around the 8 glasses avocated by your local doctor, your local hospital, your local government, your federal government, the UN.
Sure "quick web searches" is that you wind up googling up a lot of misinformation like a couple of crack-pot articles written by a couple of crack-pot doctors is also misinformation.
Food contains salts which need increased water. Sugary products (including fruit and juices) need increased water so as not to put a strain on the kidneys. We perspite _a lot_ (including on our breath), exercise and living in dry or hot conditions take out more liquid, and we pass water in other, seemingly more solid, ways.
It is interesting, however, that you criticise a post for jingoistic misinformation when your critique is far more jingoistic and far more misinformed.
Medical problems resulting from dehydration (acute (in a short of space of time) or chronic (weeks, months or years)) are extremely well documented, 2.5 litres of water a day prevents this for most people (and where are the side-effects from drinking water?). Not getting this puts kidneys, cellular metabolism etc at far far higher risk.
And spread nuclear debris over the whole world. Draw surrounding countries into the conflict. Billions of civilians destoryed at their government's whim?
Shame on you.
I'm all in favour of total nuclear disarmament. I think France, Russia, China, USA, UK, Israel, Pakistan and India should rid themselves of nukes. BTW I am not American if that's what you inferred?
Now tell me what you meant by 'so what?'.
The fact he seemed to have got so upset is ridiculous!
Feeding the trolls only encourages them. Perhaps something like a 'super offensive' troll rating should be introduced so when modded to the extent a post was a 'super troll' the IP address would be logged somewhere publically available, that way even ACs wouldn't get around it.
Just a thought.
Although OT, I do not post AC, but have disabled my karma-bonus.
These countries (China, India, et al) have larger problems than the lack of a space program
As an aside, China is doing something about its larger problems, the space program is very minor compared to social and economic development going on, but is a valuable and low-cost hedge against space-related development/exploration in the future (its not like when space becomes the 'next big thing' a space program can be constructed overnight).
My main point(!) is whether this creates risk. India has a foul history of conflict with its neighbour Pakistan, and fought a war with China in the 50s (though this, thankfully, seems to be a thing of the past). Were India creating a purely non-military programme then great, if it were to announce the creation of a new super-fast ICBM everyone would jump on the backs. I hope this is not a charade for a super-fast ICBM and that the Indian government doesn't see the need to accelerate the new nuclear arms race.
On balance I accept this for its technical and commercial benefits, but the nuclear risk sticks deep in the back of my mind.
That line is their country's problem
No it is their problem, if you classify someone according to their country of birth or citizenship then that is up to you, I do not.
You would side with Billy-Bob-Redneck... Who's being a racist now?
Certainly not I. Billy-Bob-Redneck is sentient and can make their own decisions, I do not agree with them, I would prefer an individual to make the best of any opportunity they have to create happiness for themselves and those around them and not spread fear or hate. I assess a person as an individual.
So are you saying that we can't find intelligent thoughtful hardworking people in our midst? We have to go and get them from abroad?
We can find some, certainly not everyone in our midst is. But if someone is intelligent thoughtful hardworking why should I exclude them? It is not as if jobs are statically finite, any elementary reading in economics demonstrates that. At the same time we should try to help those that are not achieving their potential do it, be it happiness, technical accomplishment, compassion, etc
I hope my thoughts are clear. I am happy to continue this discussion if you come out from the Coward charade (I certainly have turned my karma-bonus off).
Looking at their 'scientific' analysis and method, perhaps "most critically acclaimed albums of 2003" would be a better.
Critical acclamation may be a proxy for what the critics think is best, but beauty, including musical beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.