It's marxist dogma that all business people want and expect to get an eventual monopoly.
And it's capitalist dogma that (a) monopolies will somehow be prevented by the free market without government interference, and (b) profit-making organisations welcome healthy competition even if it leads to them making less profit.
The (alleged) marxist position seems a lot more realistic to me.
The goal for speed enforcement is (or should be) for drivers to slow traffic down to the speed limit and drive safely. When the alerts show up, that is exactly what drivers do near the checkpoint. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, at least in that zone.
No, all that happens is that loads of drivers slam on their brakes just before the cop/speed camera and potentially cause more accidents. They also go faster between speed traps.
Back in the 90's, a large Japanese corporation (Nintendo or Sony, if memory serves) conducted a rather thorough research into this question. The surprising conclusion was that yes, they found evidence of consciousness beyond the brain (psi abilities etc) and it's probably real. But the other conclusion was, they saw no possible way to turn this into a product or profits, so it was quietly dropped.
If you can't think of a way of turning actual psi abilities into profit, you're really not trying very hard.
I had the razr and didnt like it. Like most clam shell phones, they are too thin, making the art of balancing the earpiece between your shoulder and ear, while trying to use two hands for other tasks, damned near impossible. It was not comfortable. The only plus was butt dialing was almost eliminated.
If only someone could invent a hands free headset!
Might not be terribly common, but these things will happen.
And if you're a one-armed driver, and you drive into a lake wearing a seatbelt and you hit an underwater tree with a forked branch that pins your arm to your seatbelt release, it will prevent your escape and you will drown, so we should ban seatbelts.
The only signs of aging that matter are the decline in physical and mental abilities. If P&G have got a device that can restore muscle mass, sexual stamina, memory and.... I've forgotten what else, then I'm in.
If it is merely a bit of robot-applied slap then forget it.
It's hilarious how angry people here seem to be that this isn't some sort of immortality treatment.
its worse than bit rot. bit rot implies you had once a perfect copy; and in that case, you could have copied it to HD and others for backup.
vinyl and analog cassette NEVER let you get a perfect copy. each and every time you play it, it gets worse and different (both). can't avoid it unless you optically scan the LP; and no way to avoid degrading tapes (they stretch, have drop-outs, no redundancy, bleed-thru, HF loss, etc).
I have no idea what you are talking about. I grew up with that stuff, glad its gone, I do audio for a hobby and digital is the only way to go.
analog is for hipsters OR for those who have exceptional analog systems, and that's really rare, today.
I imagine 90% of vinyl record sales are to people with beards. And no record player.
I actively use a faked "smartphone zombie" mode to avoid conversations on the bus. I'm not interested in spending my commute getting to know some homeless dude with no edit button. I find being intent on my phone and telling him "sorry, I'm texting my girlfriend." tends to shut that down early.
And if it doesn't I feel free to just tell him to fuck off out of my face.
I'm a software engineer. Have been for over twenty years. I just turned 40. I've never had a smart phone. I have a cheap shitty flip phone and I use it *gasp* to make phone calls. That's it. I don't need to be connected to twitter and facebook 24x7 (or at all, actually). Shit can wait until I'm at a fucking desk or a laptop or ipad or something later on. Jesus christ.
Yes, this sounds exactly how a 40 year old professional would post, and nothing like a teenager in any way at all.
Canadian here... We have three cars, all of which serve different purposes. Truck for hauling large loads (we have a few acres and like to do gardening), Hybrid PHEV for daily commute to/from work, convertible for the summer).
Is that last bit a joke? Like the Swiss Navy, or something?
$1k is a significant wanker barrier, and you released a model that darn near identical to the one released last year.
FTFY.
Hot tip: if three fat zeroes takes the edge off your erection, you're thinking with your wanker and not your brain. ROI functions are linear. Only wankernomics includes step functions that don't survive a currency exchange.
If psychological factors were irrelevant, you'd never see anything for sale at $499.99 or whatever.
They want them on the 3-year leasing treadmill.
There's another, more sinister reason for that: not wanting people to actually 'own' things of any real value.
The only thing really worth 'owning' is land/property. Everything else is expenses. A lot of very rich people lease things like cars, yachts and short-leasehold apartments.
They might buy fine art or Ferraris, but that's only because they're investments with a high rate of return.
If Apple has failed to predict this kind of behavior, it needs to hire better economists.
Their "luxury" strategy worked for several years: they got bigger and richer. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Well, it finally broke.
The company valuation was always based on a model of "we have x% growth in sales this year, therefore we will continue to have x% growth into infinity, and so Apple basically has infinite value". But probably expressed less bluntly by quantitative analysts, and with some incomprehensible but cool-looking calculus in the middle to befuddle the hacks reporting it.
A company from the Netherlands makes a phone in China and sells it in the US for $500.
Which countries deserve to collect which taxes?
I think the point is that if you have company A in the the Netherlands which makes a phone in China and sells it in the US for $500, and company B in the Netherlands which makes a phone in China and sells it in the US for $500, then they should both pay the same amount of tax overall (other things being equal).
There is no good logical or economic reason for company A to pay (proportionately) less tax just because they're much bigger and richer and can hire more tax lawyers.
Slashdot Mirror
I have not used Google's spreadsheet program, so I don't know how it compares
In terms of features and speed, it compares favourably with using a sheet of paper, a crayon and an abacus.
Against an actual spreadsheet program, not so well.
Better than Communist China. The tax rate in the EU. US freedom is great like that.
Is that a libertarian haiku?
It's marxist dogma that all business people want and expect to get an eventual monopoly.
And it's capitalist dogma that (a) monopolies will somehow be prevented by the free market without government interference, and (b) profit-making organisations welcome healthy competition even if it leads to them making less profit.
The (alleged) marxist position seems a lot more realistic to me.
The goal for speed enforcement is (or should be) for drivers to slow traffic down to the speed limit and drive safely. When the alerts show up, that is exactly what drivers do near the checkpoint. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, at least in that zone.
No, all that happens is that loads of drivers slam on their brakes just before the cop/speed camera and potentially cause more accidents. They also go faster between speed traps.
Back in the 90's, a large Japanese corporation (Nintendo or Sony, if memory serves) conducted a rather thorough research into this question. The surprising conclusion was that yes, they found evidence of consciousness beyond the brain (psi abilities etc) and it's probably real. But the other conclusion was, they saw no possible way to turn this into a product or profits, so it was quietly dropped.
If you can't think of a way of turning actual psi abilities into profit, you're really not trying very hard.
I had the razr and didnt like it. Like most clam shell phones, they are too thin, making the art of balancing the earpiece between your shoulder and ear, while trying to use two hands for other tasks, damned near impossible. It was not comfortable. The only plus was butt dialing was almost eliminated.
If only someone could invent a hands free headset!
Just a crazy dream, I know.
I bought a 20 MB Winchester hard drive for, and didn't know what to do with all that space.
For the youngsters here, that was before you could download basically unlimited amounts of porn, free, off the internet.
Might not be terribly common, but these things will happen.
And if you're a one-armed driver, and you drive into a lake wearing a seatbelt and you hit an underwater tree with a forked branch that pins your arm to your seatbelt release, it will prevent your escape and you will drown, so we should ban seatbelts.
The only signs of aging that matter are the decline in physical and mental abilities. If P&G have got a device that can restore muscle mass, sexual stamina, memory and .... I've forgotten what else, then I'm in.
If it is merely a bit of robot-applied slap then forget it.
It's hilarious how angry people here seem to be that this isn't some sort of immortality treatment.
"Walkman" style
You have identified the main reason for the continuing existence of cassettes: hipsters need something to play in their ironically retro Sony Walkman.
its worse than bit rot. bit rot implies you had once a perfect copy; and in that case, you could have copied it to HD and others for backup.
vinyl and analog cassette NEVER let you get a perfect copy. each and every time you play it, it gets worse and different (both). can't avoid it unless you optically scan the LP; and no way to avoid degrading tapes (they stretch, have drop-outs, no redundancy, bleed-thru, HF loss, etc).
I have no idea what you are talking about. I grew up with that stuff, glad its gone, I do audio for a hobby and digital is the only way to go.
analog is for hipsters OR for those who have exceptional analog systems, and that's really rare, today.
I imagine 90% of vinyl record sales are to people with beards. And no record player.
I actively use a faked "smartphone zombie" mode to avoid conversations on the bus. I'm not interested in spending my commute getting to know some homeless dude with no edit button. I find being intent on my phone and telling him "sorry, I'm texting my girlfriend." tends to shut that down early.
And if it doesn't I feel free to just tell him to fuck off out of my face.
Truly, a hero for our times.
Yeah, no kidding. What a dumb fucking question.
I'm a software engineer. Have been for over twenty years. I just turned 40. I've never had a smart phone. I have a cheap shitty flip phone and I use it *gasp* to make phone calls. That's it. I don't need to be connected to twitter and facebook 24x7 (or at all, actually). Shit can wait until I'm at a fucking desk or a laptop or ipad or something later on. Jesus christ.
Yes, this sounds exactly how a 40 year old professional would post, and nothing like a teenager in any way at all.
And the ICE vehicle will go the way of the Hansom cab and horse drawn cart. Big deal.
And about half the population of Los Angeles County, in a place about the size of Montana.
As we're talking about Europe, the accepted standard of measurement is " an area the size of Wales".
Van hire is not a concept unique to Scandinavia. It exists in most of the developed world.
Yes, I couldn't quite see what that proved about 'trust'. It's not like they gave him the keys and just said "bring it back if you feel like it".
Canadian here... We have three cars, all of which serve different purposes. Truck for hauling large loads (we have a few acres and like to do gardening), Hybrid PHEV for daily commute to/from work, convertible for the summer).
Is that last bit a joke? Like the Swiss Navy, or something?
FTFY.
Hot tip: if three fat zeroes takes the edge off your erection, you're thinking with your wanker and not your brain. ROI functions are linear. Only wankernomics includes step functions that don't survive a currency exchange.
If psychological factors were irrelevant, you'd never see anything for sale at $499.99 or whatever.
They want them on the 3-year leasing treadmill. There's another, more sinister reason for that: not wanting people to actually 'own' things of any real value.
The only thing really worth 'owning' is land/property. Everything else is expenses. A lot of very rich people lease things like cars, yachts and short-leasehold apartments.
They might buy fine art or Ferraris, but that's only because they're investments with a high rate of return.
Their "luxury" strategy worked for several years: they got bigger and richer. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Well, it finally broke.
The company valuation was always based on a model of "we have x% growth in sales this year, therefore we will continue to have x% growth into infinity, and so Apple basically has infinite value". But probably expressed less bluntly by quantitative analysts, and with some incomprehensible but cool-looking calculus in the middle to befuddle the hacks reporting it.
It is hard to find something people actually "need."
I mean, I knew a person who died, and the world didn't end.
The best response to keep this in perspective is to mention Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Except people on slashdot seem to place having a 3.5mm headphone socket on their fondleslab above 'self-actualization' as the ultimate goal in life.
hey have a 3.5mm (god I hate calling it that... it is 1/8"...)
It isn't. The diameter of the plug is 3.5 mm. 1/8" would be 3.175 mm, 10% smaller than 3.5 mm.
10% is less than 1/8 so it rounds out to being about the same-ish. Probably.
God, I love techy sites.
What if it would be much cheaper for Google/Facebook/etc to have private fire team, private security and do road repairs themselves than paying taxes?
They could also pay for the judges and military, at which point they have become unelected governments.
A company from the Netherlands makes a phone in China and sells it in the US for $500.
Which countries deserve to collect which taxes?
I think the point is that if you have company A in the the Netherlands which makes a phone in China and sells it in the US for $500, and company B in the Netherlands which makes a phone in China and sells it in the US for $500, then they should both pay the same amount of tax overall (other things being equal).
There is no good logical or economic reason for company A to pay (proportionately) less tax just because they're much bigger and richer and can hire more tax lawyers.
It's not fraud/evasion/avoidance when it's legal.
Here in the UK, 'avoidance' is legal (minimising your tax bill) and 'evasion' is illegal (not paying tax you should).
The criticism of companies like Google or Apple is that their actions are immoral, rather than illegal.