"Macs with slots, Color Quickdraw, Quicktime: thank Gasee and other technical management, not Sculley."
Yup. And who do you think moved Gassee from Apple France? That's right--Sculley.
"Newton: never came close to making back its development costs."
Agreed. Technical marvel too ahead of it's time.
"What Sculley inherited at Apple was a commanding technical lead, which he managed to piss away over the following five years."
Rubbish. Take a look at history. What Sculley inherited was a company with problems. Apple was being supported by the dwindling legacy of the Apple II. The Lisa and the Apple III had faired poorly. Macs were selling less than Apple had expected. Apple's bottom line was already being hurt by IBM. Jobs refused to open up the Mac, insisting that a 1Mb/sec "external serial bus" was more than fast enough. If Apple didn't invent it, he wasn't interested.
I'll grant Sculley wasn't the technical whiz, agreed. But he was smart enough to hire people who were (ie Gassee). After Jobs left, that's when you got the Macintosh II using a bus standard not invented at Apple (NuBus). That's when you got the Mac Plus where--GASP--you could actually upgrade the memory.
If anything, where he blundered was in not organizing around one vision. Instead, you had many different people doing some great things. This dilluted efforts (how many "next generation operating system" projects was Apple running?) and made it impossible to compete with a far more focused Microsoft.
Here's a real blaspheme--If anything, Steve Jobs is picking over the bones of Apple. Spotlight? Apple's V-Twin from the mid-90s. FireWire? Again, developed by Apple in the mid-90s. Much of the cool stuff in Mac OS X had been developed at Apple (and was being dropped in Mac OS X)--QuickDraw 3D? OpenGL. QuickDraw GX? Quartz. I remember seeing some of the demos for Mac OS X in '98 and thinking, "I saw this two years ago."
I agree. In fact, I was reading in the New York Post how they've discovered that the NSA is eavesdropping on all Americans who could potentially be Zombies or Zombie sympathizers. NSA Satellites listen to phone conversations and anyone who says "Brains" on the phone will be investigated by the FBI.
"[...] sounds like it might have inspired USB [...]"
Actually, it was ADB that was the encouragement for USB. USB 1.0, if I remember correctly, ran 1.5Mbps, slightly faster than ADB's 1.0Mbps. Intel didn't really push it, though.
"No, if you want to blame Apple's problems on anyone, it should be Spindler and Sculley."
Actually, I always growl when I hear the "It's Sculley's fault" argument.
Sculley was CEO for 8 years, from 1985 to 1993. Consider what Apple came out with during that time:
Macs with Slots
Color QuickDraw (32-bit color)
QuickTime
Newton
HyperCard
Transition to PowerPC (At least starting it)
PowerBooks
ADB
(Aside about the PowerBook: I've seen comments about how Apple has to drop the moniker "PowerBook" because there will no longer be a PowerPC chip. The original PowerBooks had a Motorola 68K chip inside. The "Power" in PowerBook referred to Apple's marketing slogan, "The Power To Be Your Best.")
While people state that Apple "declined" during Sculley's tenure at Apple, Apple saw it's largest Macintosh market-share while Sculley was in charge.
"And one of the cars deemed least likely to rollover actually has one of the highest rollover fatality rates: the Corvette."
Read what you wrote.
We have a sampling of accidents where there was only one person in the car.
There are 1000 Corvette accidents in our sample. 1 rolled-over. That person died. Rollover fatality rate: 100%. There are 1000 SUV accidents in our sample. 250 rolled-over. 125 people died. Rollover fatality rate: 50%.
You have take the number of roll-overs into account when consider the fatality rate. If your vehicle is more likely to roll-over, it should be better protected against roll-over accidents. That isn't the case--in fact, cars are more protected in roll-over accidents than SUVs even though they are less likely to roll over.
"Rent an SUV for that once a year camping holiday to Fraser Island."
A few years ago, I had some money burning a hole in my pocket and was debating renting a Humvee (the consumer/military version, not the "Macho Minivan" you see today) while my Jeep was in the shop. I was looking forward to taking it off-road and checking out how it compared with the Jeep. I was informed that I was not allowed to take it off-road and I would be responsible for any damage that occurred to the vehicle while taking it off-road. The agreement essentially required that it be driven on roads. I asked the guy, "Why the hell would I want to rent such a behemoth to drive on the road?!" He didn't really have an answer...
I agree, though. My roomate tried to use that excuse once. I said, "For the three times a year when you need the passenger space, call Enterprise. You'll save more money by renting a Ford Excursion for 6 days a year and driving your normal fuel efficient car the other 359 than you will buying and driving a Ford Excursion 365 days a year."
When gasoline was over $3.00 a gallon, she said she was glad I talked her out of it...
"You can tow a boat of any reasonable size, or a Uhaul trailer, or an ATV trailer with a 4 cylinder Honda Civic, I see it on a daily basis(not during the winter ofcourse) on the interstate of all places."
Yes. I see it, too. I'm even occasionally behind those people when they try to go uphill. Let's just say that it isn't pretty.
I have no problem with people who have things to tow buying an SUV. I have no problem with people who go off-roading or live in places where they need an SUV. Buy one and enjoy it. More power to you.
Where I have a problem is the people who buy an SUV as a "Macho Minivan." The "Oh, we have a kid, so we need a vehicle that can seat eight" attitude.
I was incensed a few years ago by this attitude. A person I know was lamenting the impending loss of his Audi TT. His wife was pregnant and they were not going to try to deal with a child seat in the back of a little sports car. The wife wanted him to trade in the TT for an SUV because they were safer. I called her over and explained why SUVs were not safer and how she'd be better off with a four-door sedan. The best defense, after explaining the roll-over issue was this: "As you drive around over the next few months, look at the accidents that you see, either live or on TV. Look at the ones with SUVs. Compare the number of SUVs you see sitting on their side or upside down with the number of passenger-cars you see in the same state." She thought about that for a moment and said, "You've got a point." I continued, "Also, consider the fact that SUVs are more prone to roll-over but less protected against roll-overs than passenger cars." That surprised her. I also remarked that SUVs are wonderful if you hit something smaller than you--like a passenger car--but how much protection do they offer if you hit something bigger than you. She brought up buying a "big SUV" and I said, "How about a bridge abutment? Or a big tree? Or a building? Who do you think will win that battle?"
Actually, from what I've seen, this year they are doing just that. They've schedule Fox Overtime or some such nonsense where the ex-jocks yammer about the day's games at 7:00PM Eastern. So if a game goes longer than 30 minutes over (which is tricky to do unless it goes into overtime), the ex-jocks get less time.
As for cutting out the football game, sorry. I'd rather see the end of the game in most cases. I was visiting my parents in Vermont several years ago (before they got DirecTV). CBS had stopped covering the NFL, but the local CBS-affiliate, WCAX, had gotten permission to run the NFL games because there was no Fox affiliate in the area. They still had to run the CBS programming at the scheduled time. It rather sucked when there was 1:50 left and the Pats were driving downfield to win the game. Tom Brady throws a pass and--tick tick tick tick "Welcome to 60 minutes."
Besides, anybody else remember "The Heidi Game"? They can't afford to going buying new switchboards every week...:^)
Remember that Steve and the non-RDFed world have differing opinions on what constitutes a "major release." For example, the video-enabled Airport would be considered a "major release." Heck, a new iLife and iWork would be considered a "major release."
"During times of crisis typically civil liberties have been slightly restricted (more so in the Civil War and World War I, less so in World War II). As time has gone by, the tripod of American politics has safely re-established protections."
Part of the issue I have with this is the "war on terrorism" is different from other wars. In this I agree with Mr. Bush. In the other wars, our enemy and objectives were clearly defined.
World War II is the best example. We were fighting Germany and Japan. The war would be over when representatives of those countries surrendered, were captured, or killed. Everybody knew it. Korea? Much the same--we were fighting North Korea and would continue fighting until North Korea surrendered, was destroyed, or appropriate peace terms were arranged. Gulf War? Same idea--the war would be over when Saddam Hussein's armies were removed from Kuwait.
Clear, precise, defined goals.
The "War on Terrorism" is like the "War on Drugs." There are no clearly defined enemies, goals, or anything like that.
Mr. Bush switches that "war" sign back and forth. Did anybody notice that members of the Bush White House are obstructing an investigation into the disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA agent who was researching whether or not a "rogue nation" (Iraq) was attempting to purchase nuclear material. During a "war," shouldn't outing a CIA agent be cause for treason? Well, no, it's not really that serious. It's not like we're at war or anything. Yet, when it comes to outing secret spying, the people who leaked this information are giving aid to the enemy! Watch, if the leakers are given up, Bush'll want them charged with treason.
So what we have is that the president can spy whoever he feels is a "terrorist threat" with no oversight. There is no judge to look over the evidence--even after the spying--to determine whether there is/was a good reason to assume this person was a threat. There is no way to determine when the "War on Terrorism" will be over, so the government can continue to do this as long as they claim the war is still on--again, there is no other authority to determine whether or not the war is over. The judicial and legislative branches of the government are being purposefully left out of the equation.
I'm pretty sure this has been decided already. No one owns space. People can own things within space, but you can't say "This orbit is mine. Go find another one." However, to use the Antarctica analogy, people can own things within the space. There are various research stations owned by governments on Antarctica. They don't own the land, but they do own the station.
"Who collects taxes for orbital manufacturing?"
I am not an accountant, but I'm not sure that there are taxes on manufacturing. I think you can make whatever you want tax-free. However, when you try to sell it, you have pay sales and/or import taxes and such to the area in which you sell it. So, no, I don't have to pay any taxes on crystals I build in orbit anymore than I would have to pay taxes on go-carts I build on the ground.
Also, I think there are official rules which talk about how high a country's airspace goes. Thus, a satellite flying over some country does not enter it's airspace. So, no, just because my orbital factory goes over your country does not mean you get to collect taxes.
There are only taxes when I go to sell the thing. And those would be collected based upon where I try to sell it. Just like they are now.
Now, obviously, if I'm an American and I build something in orbit, would the US Government charge me an import tax? I don't know. But the worst-case scenario would be that I would pay taxes just like if I was an American company and I had my computers built in Taiwan and shipped here to be sold. Does Apple pay taxes on iBooks built overseas and shipped to the US? Any accountants out there?
"Who pays for the infrastructure to shuttle things back and forth from orbit?"
Anybody who wants to, I suppose. Would a government do it? Perhaps, if the people feel this is worthwhile (or, for the cynics, if enough companies want to do this to pay off the government). Otherwise, it would be up to private industry.
Use the crystal example. I want to make crystals in orbit. I suppose I will need a factory. I will need some way to get the raw materials up there. I will need some way to get the crystals down here. I might be able to build an automated rocket or some sort of ground controlled system to do this. I may try to get a government to subsidize this because I'm doing really cool R&D. Or I may be able to do it cheap enough that I don't need a government subsidy. Since it costs a lot of money to lift something up there, I might try to build a combination raw materials deliverer and crystal pick-upper. I'd probably need to sit down and figure out how many crystals I need to make for this to be worthwhile--obviously, spending $50,000 to go up and pick up one crystal isn't worthwhile, but picking up 50,000 crystals would be. Of course, how much raw material can I haul up and how many crystals do I get out of the raw material, etc., etc. would come into play, too. I'm sure some computer program could figure out how often to go into orbit to make it cost-effective.
"The ambitious and egalitarian notions that space is for all of mankind is exactly right; [...] Entering space was supposed to promote the idea that we're all on the same little rock together and that we have to face the much bigger galaxy on a united front, as citizens of the same planet. But it just hasn't happened. Despite the benefits, I don't think we're ready for the consequences yet."
Hey, I like Star Trek as much as the next guy. But it's a TV show. It's not real.
Again, I don't see what the issue is. Are you saying that if I built an orbital crystal factory, I should be concerned about someone shooting it down? About me starting a war on the ground over it?
Heck, the US and the former Soviet Union spent years building satellites to spy on sensitive military installations. Yet nobody shot a spy satellite down. And no wars were started over spy satellites going over other people's countries.
Or is this just FUD? "Ooh! Don't do that! Something bad might happen! I don't know what, but it might. Better stay up here in the trees where it's safe..."
Actually, as I understand it--and I may be wrong--that's how subscription services work.
With a subscription service, you pay Napster (for example) $15/mo. However, whenever you listen to a song, Napster pays the RIAA a certain amount. This is one more reason you have to dock your "Napster-to-go" compatible player. That info is pulled off the player and the info is sent off to Napster and the RIAA.
(I've always thought it would be a fun hack to figure out how this information gets transmitted, get a subscription to Napster, and report that I played 1,000,000 songs every month. I can see the headlines, "Napster reports growth in subscription, profits way down...")
I have to admit, one of those "fresh thoughts are inspired upon sealing the letter" things, that you're right. Advertisers and producers can be creative.
I was thinking of a movie like Mad Max. They could change a line or two, such as "The last of the Ford V-8 Interceptors...would've been a shame to blow it up."
Still, the main reason I don't like it is the slippery slope. While I have no problem with real products being shown, soon that will not be enough for advertisers. They'll want references in the script, important plot points, etc. Like I said, at some point it becomes an infomercial.
As an aside, though, it creates some entertainment in the biz. How much would Ford pay to not only have the hero drive a Ford but to have the bad guys driving Chevys in the big chase scene where the bad guys' cars go out of control and crash into things? How about if Trojan pays money so that a girl gets pregnant when her boyfriend's Lifestyles condom breaks?
Would it be actionable if Company A pays to show Company B's products in a bad light?
Besides the cheesier scripts, how is a television show which takes place in a post-atomic wasteland of the 22nd century supposed to work in product placement? Science-fiction and fantasy shows can already be expensive to produce. Add in the fact that they can't generate revenue with product placement very easily and I would imagine that many studios would shy away from them.
I sort of agree--I had no problem with all the Macintoshes on 24 in the first few seasons (or the Dells in the later seasons). I don't mind the can of coke sitting on the desk of American Idol. But where does this end? Pretty soon, it starts showing up in the dialog and then the plot (anybody see that episode of The Office where everybody was gushing over the video iPod?). Pretty soon, you're watching an infomercial.
While I agree with your sentiment, I can't say I agree with your take on private industries.
One of the arguments for the Shuttle and Space Station is that somewhat circular argument where we need a Space Shuttle to build the space station and we need a space station so the shuttle has somewhere to go. If you accept that there is a reason for men to be in space, I would argue, we don't need a spacecraft for two week missions and a spacecraft for six-month missions and it's better to keep the space station and ditch the shuttle.
The problem is that a big chunk of NASA's budget goes to supplying the space station and this is something that NASA needs to work on.
To me, what NASA is doing is essentially punting here--and I'm not convinced it's a bad idea. The space shuttle is a great, awesome, wonderful vehicle. But it's kind of an expensive way to send people back-and-forth to the space station. Some senator used the SUV analogy which I think is apropos here--you don't need an SUV to pick up the groceries.
Alot of the research and development of getting people back and forth to orbit has already been done. It's not a bad idea for NASA to get out of that business. After 40-some-odd years, I think the USA has proven that we can get people back and forth to orbit. There's still lots of things for people to do in orbit--which is what the space station is for. So if NASA can save money getting supplies and people up there by contracting it out to a third-party, I'm all for it.
If some researcher needs to be in orbit for some research, they pay NASA x dollars for room and board on the station (appropriately subsidized by the American taxpayer--x may be zero). They then pay somebody else y dollars to get them up there and back.
If anything, this gives NASA more money to devote to research and development of the next generation of space technology. I'm not as convinced as you that private industry would be the one to do this. At best, I could see private industry developing better rockets, etc. to get us up to orbit. But I'd count on NASA to come up with ways for me to actually live on the Moon, Mars, in orbit, etc.
More precisely, there are more "terrorfull" targets.
I'm not sure that if my e-mail stopped working or I couldn't connect to the Internet, I'd be terrorized. Annoyed, yes. On the other hand, railroad cars blowing up in my neighborhood would make me terrorized.
"Horsepucky. The German people had a terrible time under their 'democratic' government. That's WHY they brought Hitler to power."
The German people had a terrible time under their democratic government mostly due to rampant inflation brought on by repaying their war debts. They brought Hitler to power basically because they were sick of it.
"Below you point out that Hussein was elected... Which is it?"
Sorry. I was being a tad facetious. Iraq "elections" were not private and if you didn't vote for Hussein there was a good chance that you would have trouble later on. So pretty much everyone voted for Hussein so that they didn't have to worry about being shot.
"We have a very large rebuilding plan in Iraq, designed to do EXACTLY what you suggest. It hasn't gone as well as hoped, mainly due to security issues. [...] The US can't afford to come out of this looking 'imperialistic', so sadly enough we're absorbing the cost ourselves (well some is being borne by our allies, but not much). US companies won't end up owning much in Iraq, though there well may be some "sweetheart deals". I don't see a problem with that - better us than Germany, France or China."
Here's where we disagree.
Consider the Marshall Plan, again. We essentially gave money to German companies to rebuild. Take an example like BMW. With America's help, BMW became a leading auto manufacturer in the world and improved Germany's economy.
If we did what we're doing in Iraq with Germany, we would have payed GM to build an auto-plant in Germany and ask them to hire German workers. Sure, Germans would have gotten a salary out of it, but it wouldn't have made Germany into an economic powerhouse. The money that was made selling GM cars would have left the country.
The entertaining part of your quote are phrases like "Sadly enough." Your theory is that because the US liberated Iraq, Iraqis should allow us to set up their government so that it's beneficial to the US and US corporations? It's good for the US to be imperialistic, as long as we don't look too imperialistic?
Gee, and I'm sure you can't understand why the rebuilding hasn't gone "as well as hoped."
"I hope you realize that much of the criticism of postwar Iraq mirrors criticism of postwar Germany after World War II...and look how that turned out."
You know, I'm really sick of the World War II comparison. I'm not a historian and even I know it's bullshit.
First, in the Japan case, we kept the Emperor around. The Emperor of Japan, at the time, was the absolute power to the Japanese. If the emperor said, "Cooperate with the Americans", the people cooperated. If the emperor said, "We're now a democracy. Go vote," people went and voted. If the emperor said "Hop on one foot for the day," people hopped on one foot. You did what the emperor said.
Second, in the Germany case, you had a country that already had a democratic history. The people of Germany essentially elected Hitler as dictator. When the War was over, they had experience and trust in a democratic system. The people of Iraq have no such history. Also, the rebuilding of Germany was sort of the first steps of the Cold War--we had to show the people of the world that America, Freedom, Mom, Apple Pie, etc. were better than those godless commies. Again, the idea was to win the hearts of minds of the people of Germany. There was no such plan in place in Iraq.
Then there's the whole "rebuilding" thing. Who do you think rebuilt Germany? The answer, of course, is Germans via money provided by the US's Marshall Plan. In the end, you had German companies who owned their own assets. Who is rebuilding Iraq? Halliburton. And what do you have in the end? US Ownership of Iraq's assets.
"If Iraq doesn't have a democratic form of government in five years, THEN we'll talk about failed US policy..."
Ah, yes. A "democratic form of government."
Remember, Iraq had a democratic form of government before this. They had elections. Hussein won them--usually by large margins.
Slashdot Mirror
"Macs with slots, Color Quickdraw, Quicktime: thank Gasee and other technical management, not Sculley."
Yup. And who do you think moved Gassee from Apple France? That's right--Sculley.
"Newton: never came close to making back its development costs."
Agreed. Technical marvel too ahead of it's time.
"What Sculley inherited at Apple was a commanding technical lead, which he managed to piss away over the following five years."
Rubbish. Take a look at history. What Sculley inherited was a company with problems. Apple was being supported by the dwindling legacy of the Apple II. The Lisa and the Apple III had faired poorly. Macs were selling less than Apple had expected. Apple's bottom line was already being hurt by IBM. Jobs refused to open up the Mac, insisting that a 1Mb/sec "external serial bus" was more than fast enough. If Apple didn't invent it, he wasn't interested.
I'll grant Sculley wasn't the technical whiz, agreed. But he was smart enough to hire people who were (ie Gassee). After Jobs left, that's when you got the Macintosh II using a bus standard not invented at Apple (NuBus). That's when you got the Mac Plus where--GASP--you could actually upgrade the memory.
If anything, where he blundered was in not organizing around one vision. Instead, you had many different people doing some great things. This dilluted efforts (how many "next generation operating system" projects was Apple running?) and made it impossible to compete with a far more focused Microsoft.
Here's a real blaspheme--If anything, Steve Jobs is picking over the bones of Apple. Spotlight? Apple's V-Twin from the mid-90s. FireWire? Again, developed by Apple in the mid-90s. Much of the cool stuff in Mac OS X had been developed at Apple (and was being dropped in Mac OS X)--QuickDraw 3D? OpenGL. QuickDraw GX? Quartz. I remember seeing some of the demos for Mac OS X in '98 and thinking, "I saw this two years ago."
"[...] vigilance will secure our liberty."
I agree. In fact, I was reading in the New York Post how they've discovered that the NSA is eavesdropping on all Americans who could potentially be Zombies or Zombie sympathizers. NSA Satellites listen to phone conversations and anyone who says "Brains" on the phone will be investigated by the FBI.
"[...] sounds like it might have inspired USB [...]"
Actually, it was ADB that was the encouragement for USB. USB 1.0, if I remember correctly, ran 1.5Mbps, slightly faster than ADB's 1.0Mbps. Intel didn't really push it, though.
Actually, I always growl when I hear the "It's Sculley's fault" argument.
Sculley was CEO for 8 years, from 1985 to 1993. Consider what Apple came out with during that time:
(Aside about the PowerBook: I've seen comments about how Apple has to drop the moniker "PowerBook" because there will no longer be a PowerPC chip. The original PowerBooks had a Motorola 68K chip inside. The "Power" in PowerBook referred to Apple's marketing slogan, "The Power To Be Your Best.")
While people state that Apple "declined" during Sculley's tenure at Apple, Apple saw it's largest Macintosh market-share while Sculley was in charge.
"And one of the cars deemed least likely to rollover actually has one of the highest rollover fatality rates: the Corvette."
Read what you wrote.
We have a sampling of accidents where there was only one person in the car.
There are 1000 Corvette accidents in our sample. 1 rolled-over. That person died. Rollover fatality rate: 100%.
There are 1000 SUV accidents in our sample. 250 rolled-over. 125 people died. Rollover fatality rate: 50%.
You have take the number of roll-overs into account when consider the fatality rate. If your vehicle is more likely to roll-over, it should be better protected against roll-over accidents. That isn't the case--in fact, cars are more protected in roll-over accidents than SUVs even though they are less likely to roll over.
"Rent an SUV for that once a year camping holiday to Fraser Island."
A few years ago, I had some money burning a hole in my pocket and was debating renting a Humvee (the consumer/military version, not the "Macho Minivan" you see today) while my Jeep was in the shop. I was looking forward to taking it off-road and checking out how it compared with the Jeep. I was informed that I was not allowed to take it off-road and I would be responsible for any damage that occurred to the vehicle while taking it off-road. The agreement essentially required that it be driven on roads. I asked the guy, "Why the hell would I want to rent such a behemoth to drive on the road?!" He didn't really have an answer...
I agree, though. My roomate tried to use that excuse once. I said, "For the three times a year when you need the passenger space, call Enterprise. You'll save more money by renting a Ford Excursion for 6 days a year and driving your normal fuel efficient car the other 359 than you will buying and driving a Ford Excursion 365 days a year."
When gasoline was over $3.00 a gallon, she said she was glad I talked her out of it...
"You can tow a boat of any reasonable size, or a Uhaul trailer, or an ATV trailer with a 4 cylinder Honda Civic, I see it on a daily basis(not during the winter ofcourse) on the interstate of all places."
Yes. I see it, too. I'm even occasionally behind those people when they try to go uphill. Let's just say that it isn't pretty.
I have no problem with people who have things to tow buying an SUV. I have no problem with people who go off-roading or live in places where they need an SUV. Buy one and enjoy it. More power to you.
Where I have a problem is the people who buy an SUV as a "Macho Minivan." The "Oh, we have a kid, so we need a vehicle that can seat eight" attitude.
I was incensed a few years ago by this attitude. A person I know was lamenting the impending loss of his Audi TT. His wife was pregnant and they were not going to try to deal with a child seat in the back of a little sports car. The wife wanted him to trade in the TT for an SUV because they were safer. I called her over and explained why SUVs were not safer and how she'd be better off with a four-door sedan. The best defense, after explaining the roll-over issue was this: "As you drive around over the next few months, look at the accidents that you see, either live or on TV. Look at the ones with SUVs. Compare the number of SUVs you see sitting on their side or upside down with the number of passenger-cars you see in the same state." She thought about that for a moment and said, "You've got a point." I continued, "Also, consider the fact that SUVs are more prone to roll-over but less protected against roll-overs than passenger cars." That surprised her. I also remarked that SUVs are wonderful if you hit something smaller than you--like a passenger car--but how much protection do they offer if you hit something bigger than you. She brought up buying a "big SUV" and I said, "How about a bridge abutment? Or a big tree? Or a building? Who do you think will win that battle?"
They traded the TT for an A6 sedan.
Actually, from what I've seen, this year they are doing just that. They've schedule Fox Overtime or some such nonsense where the ex-jocks yammer about the day's games at 7:00PM Eastern. So if a game goes longer than 30 minutes over (which is tricky to do unless it goes into overtime), the ex-jocks get less time.
:^)
As for cutting out the football game, sorry. I'd rather see the end of the game in most cases. I was visiting my parents in Vermont several years ago (before they got DirecTV). CBS had stopped covering the NFL, but the local CBS-affiliate, WCAX, had gotten permission to run the NFL games because there was no Fox affiliate in the area. They still had to run the CBS programming at the scheduled time. It rather sucked when there was 1:50 left and the Pats were driving downfield to win the game. Tom Brady throws a pass and--tick tick tick tick "Welcome to 60 minutes."
Besides, anybody else remember "The Heidi Game"? They can't afford to going buying new switchboards every week...
Population of Sweden: 9,001,774
Population of United States: 295,734,134
Some ideas don't scale.
I missed the story link, but--hey--whatever.
Remember that Steve and the non-RDFed world have differing opinions on what constitutes a "major release." For example, the video-enabled Airport would be considered a "major release." Heck, a new iLife and iWork would be considered a "major release."
And, as I understand it, Core Solo will ship first...
I'm sorry. It had to be said...
...and the first thing to go? That damn plastic Jesus!
"During times of crisis typically civil liberties have been slightly restricted (more so in the Civil War and World War I, less so in World War II). As time has gone by, the tripod of American politics has safely re-established protections."
Part of the issue I have with this is the "war on terrorism" is different from other wars. In this I agree with Mr. Bush. In the other wars, our enemy and objectives were clearly defined.
World War II is the best example. We were fighting Germany and Japan. The war would be over when representatives of those countries surrendered, were captured, or killed. Everybody knew it. Korea? Much the same--we were fighting North Korea and would continue fighting until North Korea surrendered, was destroyed, or appropriate peace terms were arranged. Gulf War? Same idea--the war would be over when Saddam Hussein's armies were removed from Kuwait.
Clear, precise, defined goals.
The "War on Terrorism" is like the "War on Drugs." There are no clearly defined enemies, goals, or anything like that.
Mr. Bush switches that "war" sign back and forth. Did anybody notice that members of the Bush White House are obstructing an investigation into the disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA agent who was researching whether or not a "rogue nation" (Iraq) was attempting to purchase nuclear material. During a "war," shouldn't outing a CIA agent be cause for treason? Well, no, it's not really that serious. It's not like we're at war or anything. Yet, when it comes to outing secret spying, the people who leaked this information are giving aid to the enemy! Watch, if the leakers are given up, Bush'll want them charged with treason.
So what we have is that the president can spy whoever he feels is a "terrorist threat" with no oversight. There is no judge to look over the evidence--even after the spying--to determine whether there is/was a good reason to assume this person was a threat. There is no way to determine when the "War on Terrorism" will be over, so the government can continue to do this as long as they claim the war is still on--again, there is no other authority to determine whether or not the war is over. The judicial and legislative branches of the government are being purposefully left out of the equation.
"[...] his own page, which was linked to from the article, states that he will be working at Microsoft Research."
Well, then, Mr. Buxton, let me be the first person to welcome you to Apple.
(Sorry. Couldn't resist.)
"[...] the Pats are banged up, and no one gives them any chances to repeat."
I find your lack of faith disturbing...
Ridiculous.
"No, it's the problem of who owns space."
I'm pretty sure this has been decided already. No one owns space. People can own things within space, but you can't say "This orbit is mine. Go find another one." However, to use the Antarctica analogy, people can own things within the space. There are various research stations owned by governments on Antarctica. They don't own the land, but they do own the station.
"Who collects taxes for orbital manufacturing?"
I am not an accountant, but I'm not sure that there are taxes on manufacturing. I think you can make whatever you want tax-free. However, when you try to sell it, you have pay sales and/or import taxes and such to the area in which you sell it. So, no, I don't have to pay any taxes on crystals I build in orbit anymore than I would have to pay taxes on go-carts I build on the ground.
Also, I think there are official rules which talk about how high a country's airspace goes. Thus, a satellite flying over some country does not enter it's airspace. So, no, just because my orbital factory goes over your country does not mean you get to collect taxes.
There are only taxes when I go to sell the thing. And those would be collected based upon where I try to sell it. Just like they are now.
Now, obviously, if I'm an American and I build something in orbit, would the US Government charge me an import tax? I don't know. But the worst-case scenario would be that I would pay taxes just like if I was an American company and I had my computers built in Taiwan and shipped here to be sold. Does Apple pay taxes on iBooks built overseas and shipped to the US? Any accountants out there?
"Who pays for the infrastructure to shuttle things back and forth from orbit?"
Anybody who wants to, I suppose. Would a government do it? Perhaps, if the people feel this is worthwhile (or, for the cynics, if enough companies want to do this to pay off the government). Otherwise, it would be up to private industry.
Use the crystal example. I want to make crystals in orbit. I suppose I will need a factory. I will need some way to get the raw materials up there. I will need some way to get the crystals down here. I might be able to build an automated rocket or some sort of ground controlled system to do this. I may try to get a government to subsidize this because I'm doing really cool R&D. Or I may be able to do it cheap enough that I don't need a government subsidy. Since it costs a lot of money to lift something up there, I might try to build a combination raw materials deliverer and crystal pick-upper. I'd probably need to sit down and figure out how many crystals I need to make for this to be worthwhile--obviously, spending $50,000 to go up and pick up one crystal isn't worthwhile, but picking up 50,000 crystals would be. Of course, how much raw material can I haul up and how many crystals do I get out of the raw material, etc., etc. would come into play, too. I'm sure some computer program could figure out how often to go into orbit to make it cost-effective.
"The ambitious and egalitarian notions that space is for all of mankind is exactly right; [...] Entering space was supposed to promote the idea that we're all on the same little rock together and that we have to face the much bigger galaxy on a united front, as citizens of the same planet. But it just hasn't happened. Despite the benefits, I don't think we're ready for the consequences yet."
Hey, I like Star Trek as much as the next guy. But it's a TV show. It's not real.
Again, I don't see what the issue is. Are you saying that if I built an orbital crystal factory, I should be concerned about someone shooting it down? About me starting a war on the ground over it?
Heck, the US and the former Soviet Union spent years building satellites to spy on sensitive military installations. Yet nobody shot a spy satellite down. And no wars were started over spy satellites going over other people's countries.
Or is this just FUD? "Ooh! Don't do that! Something bad might happen! I don't know what, but it might. Better stay up here in the trees where it's safe..."
Actually, as I understand it--and I may be wrong--that's how subscription services work.
With a subscription service, you pay Napster (for example) $15/mo. However, whenever you listen to a song, Napster pays the RIAA a certain amount. This is one more reason you have to dock your "Napster-to-go" compatible player. That info is pulled off the player and the info is sent off to Napster and the RIAA.
(I've always thought it would be a fun hack to figure out how this information gets transmitted, get a subscription to Napster, and report that I played 1,000,000 songs every month. I can see the headlines, "Napster reports growth in subscription, profits way down...")
I have to admit, one of those "fresh thoughts are inspired upon sealing the letter" things, that you're right. Advertisers and producers can be creative.
I was thinking of a movie like Mad Max. They could change a line or two, such as "The last of the Ford V-8 Interceptors...would've been a shame to blow it up."
Still, the main reason I don't like it is the slippery slope. While I have no problem with real products being shown, soon that will not be enough for advertisers. They'll want references in the script, important plot points, etc. Like I said, at some point it becomes an infomercial.
As an aside, though, it creates some entertainment in the biz. How much would Ford pay to not only have the hero drive a Ford but to have the bad guys driving Chevys in the big chase scene where the bad guys' cars go out of control and crash into things? How about if Trojan pays money so that a girl gets pregnant when her boyfriend's Lifestyles condom breaks?
Would it be actionable if Company A pays to show Company B's products in a bad light?
Besides the cheesier scripts, how is a television show which takes place in a post-atomic wasteland of the 22nd century supposed to work in product placement? Science-fiction and fantasy shows can already be expensive to produce. Add in the fact that they can't generate revenue with product placement very easily and I would imagine that many studios would shy away from them.
I sort of agree--I had no problem with all the Macintoshes on 24 in the first few seasons (or the Dells in the later seasons). I don't mind the can of coke sitting on the desk of American Idol. But where does this end? Pretty soon, it starts showing up in the dialog and then the plot (anybody see that episode of The Office where everybody was gushing over the video iPod?). Pretty soon, you're watching an infomercial.
...or will we end up with the "Water Water Everywhere But Not A Drop To Drink?" :^)
While I agree with your sentiment, I can't say I agree with your take on private industries.
One of the arguments for the Shuttle and Space Station is that somewhat circular argument where we need a Space Shuttle to build the space station and we need a space station so the shuttle has somewhere to go. If you accept that there is a reason for men to be in space, I would argue, we don't need a spacecraft for two week missions and a spacecraft for six-month missions and it's better to keep the space station and ditch the shuttle.
The problem is that a big chunk of NASA's budget goes to supplying the space station and this is something that NASA needs to work on.
To me, what NASA is doing is essentially punting here--and I'm not convinced it's a bad idea. The space shuttle is a great, awesome, wonderful vehicle. But it's kind of an expensive way to send people back-and-forth to the space station. Some senator used the SUV analogy which I think is apropos here--you don't need an SUV to pick up the groceries.
Alot of the research and development of getting people back and forth to orbit has already been done. It's not a bad idea for NASA to get out of that business. After 40-some-odd years, I think the USA has proven that we can get people back and forth to orbit. There's still lots of things for people to do in orbit--which is what the space station is for. So if NASA can save money getting supplies and people up there by contracting it out to a third-party, I'm all for it.
If some researcher needs to be in orbit for some research, they pay NASA x dollars for room and board on the station (appropriately subsidized by the American taxpayer--x may be zero). They then pay somebody else y dollars to get them up there and back.
If anything, this gives NASA more money to devote to research and development of the next generation of space technology. I'm not as convinced as you that private industry would be the one to do this. At best, I could see private industry developing better rockets, etc. to get us up to orbit. But I'd count on NASA to come up with ways for me to actually live on the Moon, Mars, in orbit, etc.
More precisely, there are more "terrorfull" targets.
I'm not sure that if my e-mail stopped working or I couldn't connect to the Internet, I'd be terrorized. Annoyed, yes. On the other hand, railroad cars blowing up in my neighborhood would make me terrorized.
Because if you don't eat your vegetables, the terrorists win.
"Horsepucky. The German people had a terrible time under their 'democratic' government. That's WHY they brought Hitler to power."
The German people had a terrible time under their democratic government mostly due to rampant inflation brought on by repaying their war debts. They brought Hitler to power basically because they were sick of it.
"Below you point out that Hussein was elected... Which is it?"
Sorry. I was being a tad facetious. Iraq "elections" were not private and if you didn't vote for Hussein there was a good chance that you would have trouble later on. So pretty much everyone voted for Hussein so that they didn't have to worry about being shot.
"We have a very large rebuilding plan in Iraq, designed to do EXACTLY what you suggest. It hasn't gone as well as hoped, mainly due to security issues. [...] The US can't afford to come out of this looking 'imperialistic', so sadly enough we're absorbing the cost ourselves (well some is being borne by our allies, but not much). US companies won't end up owning much in Iraq, though there well may be some "sweetheart deals". I don't see a problem with that - better us than Germany, France or China."
Here's where we disagree.
Consider the Marshall Plan, again. We essentially gave money to German companies to rebuild. Take an example like BMW. With America's help, BMW became a leading auto manufacturer in the world and improved Germany's economy.
If we did what we're doing in Iraq with Germany, we would have payed GM to build an auto-plant in Germany and ask them to hire German workers. Sure, Germans would have gotten a salary out of it, but it wouldn't have made Germany into an economic powerhouse. The money that was made selling GM cars would have left the country.
The entertaining part of your quote are phrases like "Sadly enough." Your theory is that because the US liberated Iraq, Iraqis should allow us to set up their government so that it's beneficial to the US and US corporations? It's good for the US to be imperialistic, as long as we don't look too imperialistic?
Gee, and I'm sure you can't understand why the rebuilding hasn't gone "as well as hoped."
"I hope you realize that much of the criticism of postwar Iraq mirrors criticism of postwar Germany after World War II...and look how that turned out."
You know, I'm really sick of the World War II comparison. I'm not a historian and even I know it's bullshit.
First, in the Japan case, we kept the Emperor around. The Emperor of Japan, at the time, was the absolute power to the Japanese. If the emperor said, "Cooperate with the Americans", the people cooperated. If the emperor said, "We're now a democracy. Go vote," people went and voted. If the emperor said "Hop on one foot for the day," people hopped on one foot. You did what the emperor said.
Second, in the Germany case, you had a country that already had a democratic history. The people of Germany essentially elected Hitler as dictator. When the War was over, they had experience and trust in a democratic system. The people of Iraq have no such history. Also, the rebuilding of Germany was sort of the first steps of the Cold War--we had to show the people of the world that America, Freedom, Mom, Apple Pie, etc. were better than those godless commies. Again, the idea was to win the hearts of minds of the people of Germany. There was no such plan in place in Iraq.
Then there's the whole "rebuilding" thing. Who do you think rebuilt Germany? The answer, of course, is Germans via money provided by the US's Marshall Plan. In the end, you had German companies who owned their own assets. Who is rebuilding Iraq? Halliburton. And what do you have in the end? US Ownership of Iraq's assets.
"If Iraq doesn't have a democratic form of government in five years, THEN we'll talk about failed US policy..."
Ah, yes. A "democratic form of government."
Remember, Iraq had a democratic form of government before this. They had elections. Hussein won them--usually by large margins.