Those wonderful 39 billion don't generate cash when put into more towers, customer service or anything that other wise improves the service they are providing.
Yes, it could. If AT&T had provided better coverage and customer service, they would have retained more customers and Verizon would have sold fewer iPhones, etc.
That said, it's clear that AT&T management (and beancounters) did some calculations and determined what level of bad service & coverage would be tolerated and how many customers would be retained for each amount of money spent. They chose to put up with the bad press about iPhone coverage in NYC and S.F. because the rest of the country was still buying iPhones in enough quantities to make AT&T quite a bit of money. They could have spent more on infrastructure to get better press and increase sales but apparently they figured out that those increased sales would not compensate for the expenditure.
So the real statement would be "Those $39 billion don't generate enough additional cash when put into more towers, customer service or anything that otherwise improves the service they are providing."
Every time I fly I hear the flight attendants tell us to power down the device completely, they usually specify that airplane mode is not ok. I've always assumed this was because they have no way if knowing of anyone actually put the thing into airplane mode or not.
I fly frequently on various airlines and have never heard "Airplane mode is not OK" or even any reference to "Airplane mode" at all. What airline do you fly?
As everyone has said so far, this is a serious fail on the part of Honeywell for not accounting for WiFi in their engineering & testing process. But you can be darned sure this incident will be quoted for the next couple of decades by defenders of "you must keep your devices off when on board" policies. So thanks, Honeywell, for being the instrument of keeping us in the dark ages aboard aircraft.
Republicans represent the interests of very very wealthy people.
so do democrats..
Evidence please. In what way do you somehow justify claiming the Democrats are equally guilty of representing the uber rich as the GOP? Counter example: Obama's original healthcare plan was to help the not very rich at all. Only in compromising with the GOP did the plan get transmogrified into a tax money transfer to the healthcare industry. But somehow you're going to blame the Democrats for this?
Neither of those gentleman [Huckabee & Romney] actually hold a public office. Keep that in mind.
They DID hold rather high political offices and are both vying to hold even higher office in the future. So I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
>>even their acts which appear pro-people, will end up being pro-corp in the long run.
That's a very clever way of explaining away anything you don't like.
Not that the Republicans aren't crazy on this issue - because they are - but nonsense statements like the above allow you to continue your two minutes' hate even when they're entirely agreeing with you. It's the kind of nonsense position only a partisan hack could take.
So, for example, the Republicans ended the national speed limit. This appears to be a pro-people stance, right? But secretly it's, what? Benefiting the oil corporations? That was their secret agenda all along. Heh. You funny.
You make a good point that ending the 55 MPH national speed limit was probably not overtly "pro oil corporations" (though I suspect 1 or 2 GOP voters for the repeal got nudged in that direction by Exxon & company.) But what such action does demonstrate is a desire to remove government restrictions without regard for consequences. That is, allowing people to drive at energy-inefficient speeds will in fact make the U.S. more dependent on oil and therefore foreign oil and therefore perpetuate our trade imbalance, etc. It will also increase pollutants and decrease the public's desire for high speed rail. There are always consequences to removing gov't regulations, something that the right-wing will almost never acknowledge.
I would have referred to a previous comment of mine but the difficulties of the/. systems interferes. anyway (although I do not dispute your observations):
Republicans = corporations + mainstream religion
Democrats = a bunch of disorganized do-gooders that each have their own concept of what is "just" and try to shove it down your throat
Libertarians = every person is king/queen of their castle/bailiwick (it's OK if corporations are considered a "person" in this context)
personally I think more people are interested in politics (their local sports team is "their" team) vs. appropriate governance.
Agree with almost everything but would need some evidence of the Democrats "trying to shove it down your throat". And before you respond with "Al Gore" and "Michael Moore", it would have been very easy for you to not view their films. There, your throat is easily spared. Perhaps you are confusing "throat shoving" with "overwhelming evidence". Reality is persistent sometimes, but that is not the Democrats' fault so stop blaming them for it.
I'm not sure I that most Americans appreciate just how right wing, conservative, pretty, ill-educated, reactionary, selfish, jingoistic, partisan, anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-reason US politics appears from the external point of view.
From your external point of view, or from the point of view that's been sold to you by your own media and politicians? I'm sure it's pleasing to imagine that you hold some privileged frame of reference, but maybe it's possible that the people telling you these things are telling you the things you want to hear, and the things they want you to believe.
Unless you are looking at us from his point of view, you have no means by which to criticize his point of view. And as a matter of fact, most of what he says is true, something you'd realize if you looked at the U.S. system objectively. Our politicians ARE all right-wing. That's the only way that abortion of a "health care" plan could possibly have been passed last year. You know, the one that funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to the insurance companies? And the fact that all politicians in both parties will only ever talk about cutting taxes, never about the need with our huge deficits to, oh I dunno, INCREASE income to pay for things? Or how it's impossible to get elected in this country if you are an atheist or agnostic? And how those in both parties are all too eager to cut spending on education. Or how our "liberal" president is perpetuating the abomination that is Guantanamo? Or how no politician will get rid of the "Under God" clause in the Pledge of Allegiance (or even get rid of the Pledge at all)?
A true "liberal" would fix at one or more of the above, and we haven't had anything resembling a liberal in the White House since Carter. And he has somehow been demonized as "the worst president ever" when the evidence (if anyone bothered learning it) clearly says otherwise. So don't even try to claim we Americans aren't anti-intellectual or any of the other things claimed above. We're guilty of all of it.
Yes and it needs to stop. They don't even know what they're saying. Effectively the pledge of allegiance is an oath to blindly serve and follow your government; if they tell you to slaughter innocents it's okay, because you've sworn to that anyway and besides, american lives are way more important than foreign scum.
"...if they tell you to imprison potentially innocent foreigners for indefinite periods with no trial, it's okay..."
FTFY.
I don't think Apple's argument that Windows is generic really flies very well. When the word "Windows" or "Microsoft Windows" are said, it creates a very clear image of what is being discussed - specifically, Microsoft's own operating system. However, when you say the word "App Store", I think that conjures up images of just about any sort of app stores that we have nowadays - Palm's, Blackberry's, Windows Phone's Android's, etc.
That's just because Windows has been drilled into the public's vernacular for 20 years. Time should have no bearing on whether or not a term can be trademarked and the legitimacy of a trademark. If time is your primary criterion for evaluating a trademark's legitimacy, then all new trademarks should be denied and Windows would never have become the ubiquitous term you are using for your argument.
But it is the perfect combination of decent science fiction and an entertaining plot with likable and relatable characters.
I believe you are referring to Babylon 5, not Stargate. B5 had deep, conflicted characters and pretty decent acting. Stargate....not so much. SG always impressed me as B5-lite.
Nokia's former CEO, a lawyer,... got to fly around the world in his suit spending money, while his product guys are achieving nothing for years, and he didn't even notice!
Worse, Apple had been rumored to be designing a mobile phone as early as late 2002. For the industry (Nokia et al) to not have made any plans to circumvent this (shut them out with some exclusive contracts, start development of a touch screen phone themselves, etc.) was another example of "falling asleep at the switch."
Why not? Multi-core was marketed successfully for PCs, what makes smartphones any different?
Several things:
1) Most users do not find themselves waiting for their phone to accomplish a task whereas most PC users can easily remember waiting for their PC to perform a task.
2) Almost every phone owner has found themselves running out of battery. Thus battery life is frontmost in the minds of users and Apple can easily come out with a "Double core? Double battery usage. No benefit." campaign to combat this trend.
Ummm, right wingers aren't any more over it than left, and I have never heard any "right-winger" claim that it was obama's fault. In fact, beck has even gone out of his way to expressly state that he doesn't blame obama for it.
I've seen a dozen (not an exaggeration) claims that it's "that liberal Obama's fault". Admittedly I've been reading a lot about the new "irradiate or grope" choice passengers are being forced to make, but I really have seen a lot of "blame Obama" posts on CNN and other sites that allow feedback from the public.
The idea behind a TSA isn't bad, its the execution and the continiously expanding sphere of influence that is.
The problem with your statement is the assumption that the execution could ever have been good. Seriously. If you think the TSA could ever have functioned efficiently and logically, you're in La La Land. And because it really never could have, the idea behind the TSA can also be faulted for lacking pragmatism.
The grown-ups have already decided that more government intervention is better than less government intervention.
Translation: "Because I agree with the government intervention, I will call those who enacted it 'grown ups' to make my point seem stronger and any who disagree with me look like children, in spite of my having provided no basis for the 'adult vs. child' reference nor any evidence that the government intervention was the better choice."
Although I am against the full-body scanner and more "intimate" pat-downs, your argument does nothing to strengthen our case. Suppose that on Sep. 8th, 2001 a new directive would have gone out telling all the pilots to lock the cockpit door at all times (during the flight, obviously). Would any terrorist be caught by such a measure? Would we see any benefit from it directly?
Just because one additional security measure is sensible does not mean all additional security measures are sensible. Fallacy of logic.
I wonder how well this would've gone over in October 2001. We haven't had a genuine terror attack in a long time, so people start getting indignant about security again. Do we really need to have another international calamity for us to start respecting laws that were put in place to keep us safe?
Do you know anything at all about 9/11? The hijackers did not carry their weapons (boxcutters) through airport security. Someone (whose identity has never been determined) smuggled the boxcutters onto the planes for them. So these scans and patdowns would not have helped AT ALL. Learn some history before you start taking my freedoms away from me.
i love linux, but never in a million years do i want to compile a kernel.
Well, it's like changing a tire, writing your own interrupt handlers, or hand-optimizing memory usage.
It's something everybody should do at least once in their life so they understand the process. And, once you've done it, you will never want to do it again.
It's not at all clear to me why everyone should compile a kernel at least once. Yes, I can do it if necessary but I see no reason why, especially with all the Linux evangelists trying to get it on every desktop, they feel the average Joe should ever know what compiling is let alone have to do it to an entire OS. You use a fork everyday but is really beneficial to know how to forge one? You write or print on paper regularly but should you have to know how to fell a tree and turn it into wood pulp? It seems ridiculous to expect everyone to know everything. Differentiation of information and skillsets is how a society works. Let OS geeks compile operating systems while the rest of us learn how to make them do things kernel developers never thought of.
Hopefully they will also integrate an Enterprise option similar to the iPhone so you can create or package, distribute and automatically update your own set of applications. Currently you still have to rely on third party systems or Apple Remote Desktop for this.
As much as you and I and thousands of others would like such a tool, you know the likelihood of it coming from Apple are nearly nil. Apple has neglected Enterprise for years and I see little reason to think they'll change their pattern of behavior any time soon. There is money in Enterprise to be sure, but Apple is making so much more profit from home users that Enterprise simply isn't profitable enough for them to care at this time.
With luck, the 3rd party solutions providers such as JAMF's Composer/Casper will be augmented with the functionality you cite.
Apple is providing a service. Follow their very restrictive rules and you can use the service. Choose not to use the service, or chose not to follow their rules, and you have either provide your own service or use a different one that most users won't know about let alone use.
"This is America!" is a meaningless phrase. You didn't do shit when they busted the unions. You didn't do shit when the easier jobs were shipped over there. You didn't do shit while the Congress continued to cut taxes for corporations so they could sell us out. You just sat there, with that smug look on your face, saying "Yeah boy! This is America! We believe in the Market, not in that damn Government interference. Why pay more for TV set? That's stupid, when we can all just put it on a credit card for half the price."
I'm going to go comment on the video purposely to get included in this. I want to see dear officer try to come after me. I will attempt to educate the Canadian with regard to this thing we Americans call the First Amendment.
Slashdot Mirror
So does that mean that JP Morgan has 25 Billion in cash?
Yes.
I bet they are borrowing the money from the government
No. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/01/14/us_earns_jpmorgan_chase
Those wonderful 39 billion don't generate cash when put into more towers, customer service or anything that other wise improves the service they are providing.
Yes, it could. If AT&T had provided better coverage and customer service, they would have retained more customers and Verizon would have sold fewer iPhones, etc.
That said, it's clear that AT&T management (and beancounters) did some calculations and determined what level of bad service & coverage would be tolerated and how many customers would be retained for each amount of money spent. They chose to put up with the bad press about iPhone coverage in NYC and S.F. because the rest of the country was still buying iPhones in enough quantities to make AT&T quite a bit of money. They could have spent more on infrastructure to get better press and increase sales but apparently they figured out that those increased sales would not compensate for the expenditure.
So the real statement would be "Those $39 billion don't generate enough additional cash when put into more towers, customer service or anything that otherwise improves the service they are providing."
Perhaps Sony knows there are more iPhones per capita in CA than any other state and could be using the confusion to sway the court.
Every time I fly I hear the flight attendants tell us to power down the device completely, they usually specify that airplane mode is not ok. I've always assumed this was because they have no way if knowing of anyone actually put the thing into airplane mode or not.
I fly frequently on various airlines and have never heard "Airplane mode is not OK" or even any reference to "Airplane mode" at all. What airline do you fly?
As everyone has said so far, this is a serious fail on the part of Honeywell for not accounting for WiFi in their engineering & testing process. But you can be darned sure this incident will be quoted for the next couple of decades by defenders of "you must keep your devices off when on board" policies. So thanks, Honeywell, for being the instrument of keeping us in the dark ages aboard aircraft.
Republicans represent the interests of very very wealthy people.
so do democrats..
Evidence please. In what way do you somehow justify claiming the Democrats are equally guilty of representing the uber rich as the GOP?
Counter example: Obama's original healthcare plan was to help the not very rich at all. Only in compromising with the GOP did the plan get transmogrified into a tax money transfer to the healthcare industry. But somehow you're going to blame the Democrats for this?
Neither of those gentleman [Huckabee & Romney] actually hold a public office. Keep that in mind.
They DID hold rather high political offices and are both vying to hold even higher office in the future. So I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
>>even their acts which appear pro-people, will end up being pro-corp in the long run.
That's a very clever way of explaining away anything you don't like.
Not that the Republicans aren't crazy on this issue - because they are - but nonsense statements like the above allow you to continue your two minutes' hate even when they're entirely agreeing with you. It's the kind of nonsense position only a partisan hack could take.
So, for example, the Republicans ended the national speed limit. This appears to be a pro-people stance, right? But secretly it's, what? Benefiting the oil corporations? That was their secret agenda all along. Heh. You funny.
You make a good point that ending the 55 MPH national speed limit was probably not overtly "pro oil corporations" (though I suspect 1 or 2 GOP voters for the repeal got nudged in that direction by Exxon & company.) But what such action does demonstrate is a desire to remove government restrictions without regard for consequences. That is, allowing people to drive at energy-inefficient speeds will in fact make the U.S. more dependent on oil and therefore foreign oil and therefore perpetuate our trade imbalance, etc. It will also increase pollutants and decrease the public's desire for high speed rail. There are always consequences to removing gov't regulations, something that the right-wing will almost never acknowledge.
I would have referred to a previous comment of mine but the difficulties of the /. systems interferes. anyway (although I do not dispute your observations):
Republicans = corporations + mainstream religion Democrats = a bunch of disorganized do-gooders that each have their own concept of what is "just" and try to shove it down your throat Libertarians = every person is king/queen of their castle/bailiwick (it's OK if corporations are considered a "person" in this context)
personally I think more people are interested in politics (their local sports team is "their" team) vs. appropriate governance.
Agree with almost everything but would need some evidence of the Democrats "trying to shove it down your throat". And before you respond with "Al Gore" and "Michael Moore", it would have been very easy for you to not view their films. There, your throat is easily spared. Perhaps you are confusing "throat shoving" with "overwhelming evidence". Reality is persistent sometimes, but that is not the Democrats' fault so stop blaming them for it.
I'm not sure I that most Americans appreciate just how right wing, conservative, pretty, ill-educated, reactionary, selfish, jingoistic, partisan, anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-reason US politics appears from the external point of view.
From your external point of view, or from the point of view that's been sold to you by your own media and politicians? I'm sure it's pleasing to imagine that you hold some privileged frame of reference, but maybe it's possible that the people telling you these things are telling you the things you want to hear, and the things they want you to believe.
Unless you are looking at us from his point of view, you have no means by which to criticize his point of view. And as a matter of fact, most of what he says is true, something you'd realize if you looked at the U.S. system objectively. Our politicians ARE all right-wing. That's the only way that abortion of a "health care" plan could possibly have been passed last year. You know, the one that funnels billions of taxpayer dollars to the insurance companies? And the fact that all politicians in both parties will only ever talk about cutting taxes, never about the need with our huge deficits to, oh I dunno, INCREASE income to pay for things? Or how it's impossible to get elected in this country if you are an atheist or agnostic? And how those in both parties are all too eager to cut spending on education. Or how our "liberal" president is perpetuating the abomination that is Guantanamo? Or how no politician will get rid of the "Under God" clause in the Pledge of Allegiance (or even get rid of the Pledge at all)?
A true "liberal" would fix at one or more of the above, and we haven't had anything resembling a liberal in the White House since Carter. And he has somehow been demonized as "the worst president ever" when the evidence (if anyone bothered learning it) clearly says otherwise. So don't even try to claim we Americans aren't anti-intellectual or any of the other things claimed above. We're guilty of all of it.
Yes and it needs to stop. They don't even know what they're saying. Effectively the pledge of allegiance is an oath to blindly serve and follow your government; if they tell you to slaughter innocents it's okay, because you've sworn to that anyway and besides, american lives are way more important than foreign scum.
"...if they tell you to imprison potentially innocent foreigners for indefinite periods with no trial, it's okay..."
FTFY.
I don't think Apple's argument that Windows is generic really flies very well. When the word "Windows" or "Microsoft Windows" are said, it creates a very clear image of what is being discussed - specifically, Microsoft's own operating system. However, when you say the word "App Store", I think that conjures up images of just about any sort of app stores that we have nowadays - Palm's, Blackberry's, Windows Phone's Android's, etc.
That's just because Windows has been drilled into the public's vernacular for 20 years. Time should have no bearing on whether or not a term can be trademarked and the legitimacy of a trademark. If time is your primary criterion for evaluating a trademark's legitimacy, then all new trademarks should be denied and Windows would never have become the ubiquitous term you are using for your argument.
No, Stargate is not great science fiction.
But it is the perfect combination of decent science fiction and an entertaining plot with likable and relatable characters.
I believe you are referring to Babylon 5, not Stargate. B5 had deep, conflicted characters and pretty decent acting. Stargate....not so much. SG always impressed me as B5-lite.
Nokia's former CEO, a lawyer, ... got to fly around the world in his suit spending money, while his product guys are achieving nothing for years, and he didn't even notice!
Worse, Apple had been rumored to be designing a mobile phone as early as late 2002. For the industry (Nokia et al) to not have made any plans to circumvent this (shut them out with some exclusive contracts, start development of a touch screen phone themselves, etc.) was another example of "falling asleep at the switch."
Why not? Multi-core was marketed successfully for PCs, what makes smartphones any different?
Several things:
1) Most users do not find themselves waiting for their phone to accomplish a task whereas most PC users can easily remember waiting for their PC to perform a task.
2) Almost every phone owner has found themselves running out of battery. Thus battery life is frontmost in the minds of users and Apple can easily come out with a "Double core? Double battery usage. No benefit." campaign to combat this trend.
If Apple does this, what took 1 finger in the past would now require 5. That's an indisputable step backwards in usability. Hope it doesn't happen.
Ummm, right wingers aren't any more over it than left, and I have never heard any "right-winger" claim that it was obama's fault. In fact, beck has even gone out of his way to expressly state that he doesn't blame obama for it.
I've seen a dozen (not an exaggeration) claims that it's "that liberal Obama's fault". Admittedly I've been reading a lot about the new "irradiate or grope" choice passengers are being forced to make, but I really have seen a lot of "blame Obama" posts on CNN and other sites that allow feedback from the public.
The idea behind a TSA isn't bad, its the execution and the continiously expanding sphere of influence that is.
The problem with your statement is the assumption that the execution could ever have been good. Seriously. If you think the TSA could ever have functioned efficiently and logically, you're in La La Land. And because it really never could have, the idea behind the TSA can also be faulted for lacking pragmatism.
The grown-ups have already decided that more government intervention is better than less government intervention.
Translation: "Because I agree with the government intervention, I will call those who enacted it 'grown ups' to make my point seem stronger and any who disagree with me look like children, in spite of my having provided no basis for the 'adult vs. child' reference nor any evidence that the government intervention was the better choice."
Although I am against the full-body scanner and more "intimate" pat-downs, your argument does nothing to strengthen our case. Suppose that on Sep. 8th, 2001 a new directive would have gone out telling all the pilots to lock the cockpit door at all times (during the flight, obviously). Would any terrorist be caught by such a measure? Would we see any benefit from it directly?
Just because one additional security measure is sensible does not mean all additional security measures are sensible. Fallacy of logic.
I wonder how well this would've gone over in October 2001. We haven't had a genuine terror attack in a long time, so people start getting indignant about security again. Do we really need to have another international calamity for us to start respecting laws that were put in place to keep us safe?
Do you know anything at all about 9/11? The hijackers did not carry their weapons (boxcutters) through airport security. Someone (whose identity has never been determined) smuggled the boxcutters onto the planes for them. So these scans and patdowns would not have helped AT ALL. Learn some history before you start taking my freedoms away from me.
Well, it's like changing a tire, writing your own interrupt handlers, or hand-optimizing memory usage.
It's something everybody should do at least once in their life so they understand the process. And, once you've done it, you will never want to do it again.
It's not at all clear to me why everyone should compile a kernel at least once. Yes, I can do it if necessary but I see no reason why, especially with all the Linux evangelists trying to get it on every desktop, they feel the average Joe should ever know what compiling is let alone have to do it to an entire OS. You use a fork everyday but is really beneficial to know how to forge one? You write or print on paper regularly but should you have to know how to fell a tree and turn it into wood pulp? It seems ridiculous to expect everyone to know everything. Differentiation of information and skillsets is how a society works. Let OS geeks compile operating systems while the rest of us learn how to make them do things kernel developers never thought of.
Hopefully they will also integrate an Enterprise option similar to the iPhone so you can create or package, distribute and automatically update your own set of applications. Currently you still have to rely on third party systems or Apple Remote Desktop for this.
As much as you and I and thousands of others would like such a tool, you know the likelihood of it coming from Apple are nearly nil. Apple has neglected Enterprise for years and I see little reason to think they'll change their pattern of behavior any time soon. There is money in Enterprise to be sure, but Apple is making so much more profit from home users that Enterprise simply isn't profitable enough for them to care at this time.
With luck, the 3rd party solutions providers such as JAMF's Composer/Casper will be augmented with the functionality you cite.
Apple is providing a service. Follow their very restrictive rules and you can use the service. Choose not to use the service, or chose not to follow their rules, and you have either provide your own service or use a different one that most users won't know about let alone use .
Fixed that for you.
This is america bitch.
"This is America!" is a meaningless phrase. You didn't do shit when they busted the unions. You didn't do shit when the easier jobs were shipped over there. You didn't do shit while the Congress continued to cut taxes for corporations so they could sell us out. You just sat there, with that smug look on your face, saying "Yeah boy! This is America! We believe in the Market, not in that damn Government interference. Why pay more for TV set? That's stupid, when we can all just put it on a credit card for half the price."
Best. Post. Ever.
I'm going to go comment on the video purposely to get included in this. I want to see dear officer try to come after me. I will attempt to educate the Canadian with regard to this thing we Americans call the First Amendment.