"Has Company A ever offered any sort of incentives to Company B to NOT sell or buy products by Company C....If this is the case, the company has committed a crime. If this isn't a crime, then what the fuck is?"
Smacking an innocent stranger upside the head with a crowbar.
I'm not sure that Intel is disputing that they took unfair trade actions. They are disputing whether any damages resulted.
Intel is saying that AMD shot themselves in the foot by not having enough production capacity, and even if Intel leveraged their weight against AMD, there were no damages as a result of it.
If the court finds in favor of AMD, it'll add up to a small fine and some bad press... unless AMD can prove damages and make Intel pay.
AMD (and any other plaintiffs, should the cases be consolidated) has a hell of a battle in front of them.
"As more of us get into congress that are comfortable with the issues and have independently formed opinions, you will see a change to a more reasoned debate. "
Sorry, but this isn't going to happen. You can't get elected unless you make the right people happy, and you can't make those people happy unless you play by their rules.
The way the political system is currently run in the US, you don't really have a chance unless you're running on a Repub or Dem ticket. They're not going to support you unless they know you'll do as they like.
As with previous generations, you'll see the muck rising to the top. Unless there are major reforms to campaign finance and media ownership laws, this will not change.
This already happens in the magazine publishing industry. Ad agencies can get the 12x or 11x contract rate, and fill the space with ads from different clients each month.
Ad brokerage is a great way for print media to guarantee revenue, while allowing smaller advertisers to get in print.
Howver, I don't think this is about cheaper, or easier. This is just Google diversifying how it delivers its services. They can offer a more complete portfolio of advertising solutions to their clients, similar to how many ad agencies manage ad strategies for their clients.
Don't be surprised to see Google getting into the television advertising brokerage market within the next few years.
"If a "discovery" is heavily debated and spends a lot of time coming out of the mouths of the far left and/or the far right, I can usually ignore it and move on with my life. Politically pushed and motivated science is the worst kind. In an ironic twist, science should be scientifically motivated."
The problem is that any scientific discovery that will affect policy is bound to be heavily debated, whether or not it is accurate. And unfortunately, many solid scientific discoveries are lost in the the politically motivated follow-ups.
If you choose to ignore anything that is heavily debated, you are choosing to ignore the most important items. The responsible thing to do is to research further, and try to winnow the chaff.
"However, suddenly we analyse weather for what... 100 years? 200 years?
By studying ice cores and marine sediments, we've gotten a much larger picture of historical temperatures and precipitation than 100-200 years.
As our impact on the environment accelerates (which it undoubtably is), it becomes critical that we address problems sooner, rather than later. There is also the dangerous possibility that a small change due to human activity could lead to sweeping climatic changes worldwide.
IF we want to take our sweet time to find the answers, we need to stop polluting NOW so that we don't cross the point of no return.
Finally, I want to point out that the Earth is very resilient, as both George Carlin and you point out. However, our actions may affect Earth's hospitality to us -- so it is in OUR best interests to determine how we are affecting it.
"O3 is heavier than air, so it falls down in the lower atmosphere."
Huh? Since when is gravitational acceleration not equal for objects of different masses? That is, if gravity is even a factor for gaseous ozone. If anything, it would diffuse slower due to larger mass.
"The stratospheric clouds during the polar winter just happen to have a higher concentration of CFCs"
The stratosphere has less CFCs than the troposphere. The ice crystals of the stratospheric clouds happen to potentiate the activity of the CFCs in two ways:
(1) They sequester nitric oxides, which can inhibit ozone depletion by sequestering the chlorine free radicals;
(2) They speed up slow gas-phase reactions on the surface of the crystals; namely, the reactions by which ozone is broken down.
So, the ozone layer is stabilizing... meaning that it is shrinking by less each year. It's still shrinking, however, so the hole will continue to grow for a bit.
Also, there is a 26-month cycle for equatorial winds that affects the size of the Antarctic hole, so there's a quasi-biennial cycle to the ozone layer hole.
So, the only question is, how do you want to spin it?
The hole is still getting bigger. We need to step up pollution controls. Or
Nothing to see here, the hole is stabilizing at it's current size and we expect it to go back to normal within 50 years, so our current ozone-depleting-compound-pollution policies are fine.
Are we doing the best we can in re: O3 layer? No.
Do we need to do better? I dunno, and apparently, neither does anyone else.
Whatever the varied motivations of the individuals who participated in the BTP (of which there were few), it should be noted that the boycott of East India Tea company was largely successful even before the BTP.
The Sons of Liberty, the perpetrators of the BTP, were acting in an incendiary fashion, intending to incite a response.
I'm not disagreeing that the nature of the resistances to the Townshend Acts, the Stamp Act, and the Tea Act were varied. I do believe, however, that the motivations of the Sons of Liberty, particularly its leaders, were pretty uniform regarding the BTP.
"These wankers should stop paying attention to the 'industry' and just look at themselves and ask - 'How can I make the most money possible?'"
Unfortunately, this will not always drive innovation. If you have consumers who desire innovation, who will take a stance and NOT purchase games that don't innovate, then it might happen.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of people out there who either (1) don't place a high premium on innovation or (2) are young, and don't realize that the 'new' game they're playing is redundant.
Faced with the choice of purchasing a sequel to get at least *some* new gameplay, or not purchasing any games at all, most video game players will go ahead and purchase the sequel.
Game developers understand this, and take full advantage; furthermore, production costs for a sequel can be much lower than an original game. Finally, non-innovative games are attractive because they engender less risk.
When a developer asks, "How can I make the most money?" the answer is, a lot of the time, "By putting out a tweaked version of a previously successful game."
I'm going to apologize in advance for this slightly off-topic metapost, but here goes:
Look, I understand that you don't want to waste your time reading something you already have formulated an opinion about, and that you might have some knowledge about.
But just because there has been one article published about a certain topic, does not mean that there is not valuable information and/or insight in another article covering the same topic.
You don't want to spend the time to review a related story? Fine, then don't.
But don't waste your time posting "It's a dupe" posts or "Editor sucks" posts just because you read something similar yesterday -- then you're just compounding your own problems.
Plus, you're wasting my time by posting duplicate posts to a duplicate article.
Have nothing valuable to say about an article, dupe or not? Then don't say anything. Just move on.
Knowledge of a subject is not a boolean variable. I, for one, welcome the opportunity to learn more about topics that interest me.
The point of the article (not the studies) is that IBM sponsored some research that found the opposite of MS's studies.
The article is insinuating what you have stated, which is why the last paragraph of the article is so important:
"The lesson to be learned from these Linux and Windows TCO comparisons is that companies need to conduct a little research of their own before making any IT platform decisions. Actual costs are bound to be very specific to each company's needs."
"Robert Frances Group interviewed IT executives involved with operating-system selection and purchase decisions at more than 20 midsize to large companies that have 250 or more employees." (emphasis mine)
"Pund-IT's conclusions are based on lengthy research with three companies: Alliance UniChem, Boscov's Department Stores, and Zahid Tractor & Heavy Machinery." (emphasis also mine)
This is great news and will hopefully spur further research.
However, the methodology of the first study bothers me. Interviewing IT execs does not seem a very valid way of studying costs, I'd rather see auditable cost studies based upon hard documents.
The second study only samples three companies; while the case studies were "lengthy," I'd still be wary that their specific situations may have lent Linux a hand in TCO calculations. For that matter, this research group ONLY studied companies that chose to convert to Linux.
The last paragraph of the article sums it up the best:
"The lesson to be learned from these Linux and Windows TCO comparisons is that companies need to conduct a little research of their own before making any IT platform decisions. Actual costs are bound to be very specific to each company's needs. "
Actually, the Boston Tea Party was held to incite the British into open action against the rebel minority in the colonies. In effect, the rebels wanted to increase the divide between Britain and the colonies so that the colonials who preferred amity and compromise would come to their side.
The pretext of the BTP was to protest the imposition of import taxes, it had nothing to do with opening up the market to American tea traders.
The question posed is: Why did complex creatures not evolve regeneration?
The question I would ask instead, is: Why did regenerating creatures not evolve as much complexity?
If a subset of a species develops regeneration, those members of the species will contribute their genetic material to the gene pool longer than those without. This inhibits evolution, by decreasing the diversity of the gene pool.
In addition, the selective advantage of other useful mutations would be lessened, thereby inhibiting evolution.
To go back and answer the original question, I think that the chance of a complex species to develop regeneration is far too low. There are too many genetic variables required to change, I would guess, and some of them probably do not confer selective advantage in and of themselves.
We'll have to wait until the they give their presentation next week, to find out how much of the test mouse's DNA was changed.
Flamebait? How is pointing out that one of the articles linked to in the summary is simply speculation about the fact that MS is one of at least three companies interested in leasing a billboard space in Times Square?
News would be: Microsoft leases billboard space in Times Square.
Or: Microsoft leases retail space in Manhattan for shop.
Or even: Microsoft enters negotiations for retail space.
The bits about Chinese business are news. I'm not sure why they are in that particular article, but they are newsworthy.
I know what my problem was -- I forgot a central tenent of posting on Slashdot: If you think your post might get modded down, you should write that in your post; it will instead get modded up.
Sure it does, you've given consent by choosing to live there, under their rules... it's the consent of the governed.
If you really want action, you'll need to do more than send a letter and vote. You'll need to organize support. You'll need to make sure that they are aware that it will cost them politically to do what you oppose. One vote is meaningless, you've got to get a group, or better, a coalition of groups.
Slashdot Mirror
Smacking an innocent stranger upside the head with a crowbar.
That's a crime.
I'm not sure that Intel is disputing that they took unfair trade actions. They are disputing whether any damages resulted.
Intel is saying that AMD shot themselves in the foot by not having enough production capacity, and even if Intel leveraged their weight against AMD, there were no damages as a result of it.
If the court finds in favor of AMD, it'll add up to a small fine and some bad press... unless AMD can prove damages and make Intel pay.
AMD (and any other plaintiffs, should the cases be consolidated) has a hell of a battle in front of them.
"As more of us get into congress that are comfortable with the issues and have independently formed opinions, you will see a change to a more reasoned debate. "
Sorry, but this isn't going to happen. You can't get elected unless you make the right people happy, and you can't make those people happy unless you play by their rules.
The way the political system is currently run in the US, you don't really have a chance unless you're running on a Repub or Dem ticket. They're not going to support you unless they know you'll do as they like.
As with previous generations, you'll see the muck rising to the top. Unless there are major reforms to campaign finance and media ownership laws, this will not change.
There's an alternate definition of theory that applies to the Theory of Intelligent Design.
An acceptable definition of "theory" (although the last one listed in my Random House dictionary) is: Guess or conjecture.
If it weren't such a pain to type out, from now on, I'd refer to it as the "Guess or Conjecture of Intelligent Design".
This already happens in the magazine publishing industry. Ad agencies can get the 12x or 11x contract rate, and fill the space with ads from different clients each month.
Ad brokerage is a great way for print media to guarantee revenue, while allowing smaller advertisers to get in print.
Howver, I don't think this is about cheaper, or easier. This is just Google diversifying how it delivers its services. They can offer a more complete portfolio of advertising solutions to their clients, similar to how many ad agencies manage ad strategies for their clients.
Don't be surprised to see Google getting into the television advertising brokerage market within the next few years.
The problem is that any scientific discovery that will affect policy is bound to be heavily debated, whether or not it is accurate. And unfortunately, many solid scientific discoveries are lost in the the politically motivated follow-ups.
If you choose to ignore anything that is heavily debated, you are choosing to ignore the most important items. The responsible thing to do is to research further, and try to winnow the chaff.
"However, suddenly we analyse weather for what... 100 years? 200 years?
By studying ice cores and marine sediments, we've gotten a much larger picture of historical temperatures and precipitation than 100-200 years.
As our impact on the environment accelerates (which it undoubtably is), it becomes critical that we address problems sooner, rather than later. There is also the dangerous possibility that a small change due to human activity could lead to sweeping climatic changes worldwide.
IF we want to take our sweet time to find the answers, we need to stop polluting NOW so that we don't cross the point of no return.
Finally, I want to point out that the Earth is very resilient, as both George Carlin and you point out. However, our actions may affect Earth's hospitality to us -- so it is in OUR best interests to determine how we are affecting it.
Huh? Since when is gravitational acceleration not equal for objects of different masses? That is, if gravity is even a factor for gaseous ozone. If anything, it would diffuse slower due to larger mass.
"The stratospheric clouds during the polar winter just happen to have a higher concentration of CFCs"
The stratosphere has less CFCs than the troposphere. The ice crystals of the stratospheric clouds happen to potentiate the activity of the CFCs in two ways:
(1) They sequester nitric oxides, which can inhibit ozone depletion by sequestering the chlorine free radicals;
(2) They speed up slow gas-phase reactions on the surface of the crystals; namely, the reactions by which ozone is broken down.
So, the ozone layer is stabilizing... meaning that it is shrinking by less each year. It's still shrinking, however, so the hole will continue to grow for a bit.
Also, there is a 26-month cycle for equatorial winds that affects the size of the Antarctic hole, so there's a quasi-biennial cycle to the ozone layer hole.
So, the only question is, how do you want to spin it?
The hole is still getting bigger. We need to step up pollution controls. Or
Nothing to see here, the hole is stabilizing at it's current size and we expect it to go back to normal within 50 years, so our current ozone-depleting-compound-pollution policies are fine.
Are we doing the best we can in re: O3 layer? No.
Do we need to do better? I dunno, and apparently, neither does anyone else.
Thanks for catching it ;) I was hoping to get a 50% insightful, 50% funny, but I guess it wasn't obvious enough.
Whatever the varied motivations of the individuals who participated in the BTP (of which there were few), it should be noted that the boycott of East India Tea company was largely successful even before the BTP.
The Sons of Liberty, the perpetrators of the BTP, were acting in an incendiary fashion, intending to incite a response.
I'm not disagreeing that the nature of the resistances to the Townshend Acts, the Stamp Act, and the Tea Act were varied. I do believe, however, that the motivations of the Sons of Liberty, particularly its leaders, were pretty uniform regarding the BTP.
"These wankers should stop paying attention to the 'industry' and just look at themselves and ask - 'How can I make the most money possible?'"
Unfortunately, this will not always drive innovation. If you have consumers who desire innovation, who will take a stance and NOT purchase games that don't innovate, then it might happen.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of people out there who either
(1) don't place a high premium on innovation or
(2) are young, and don't realize that the 'new' game they're playing is redundant.
Faced with the choice of purchasing a sequel to get at least *some* new gameplay, or not purchasing any games at all, most video game players will go ahead and purchase the sequel.
Game developers understand this, and take full advantage; furthermore, production costs for a sequel can be much lower than an original game. Finally, non-innovative games are attractive because they engender less risk.
When a developer asks, "How can I make the most money?" the answer is, a lot of the time, "By putting out a tweaked version of a previously successful game."
And people who weren't involved in the thread yesterday may weigh in with $0.02 I hadn't heard before
I'm going to apologize in advance for this slightly off-topic metapost, but here goes:
Look, I understand that you don't want to waste your time reading something you already have formulated an opinion about, and that you might have some knowledge about.
But just because there has been one article published about a certain topic, does not mean that there is not valuable information and/or insight in another article covering the same topic.
You don't want to spend the time to review a related story? Fine, then don't.
But don't waste your time posting "It's a dupe" posts or "Editor sucks" posts just because you read something similar yesterday -- then you're just compounding your own problems.
Plus, you're wasting my time by posting duplicate posts to a duplicate article.
Have nothing valuable to say about an article, dupe or not? Then don't say anything. Just move on.
Knowledge of a subject is not a boolean variable. I, for one, welcome the opportunity to learn more about topics that interest me.
"I see more CEO's screaming ROI, than I do TCO."
If a CEO ever screams ROI, and says they don't care about TCO of infrastructure, then they have a _very_ flawed understanding of accounting.
ROI is just a measurement of profitability.
If the cost of a project goes down while income derived from that project remains the same, then profitability (and therefore, ROI) goes up.
If no income is derived from a project (such as infrastructure), then ROI doesn't really apply -- there is no return on fixed costs.
However, reducing fixed costs will result in a better ROI for the company[1], which is what that CEO is really after.
ROI as a measurement of a company's profitability = income / (equity + long-term debt).
The point of the article (not the studies) is that IBM sponsored some research that found the opposite of MS's studies.
The article is insinuating what you have stated, which is why the last paragraph of the article is so important:
"The lesson to be learned from these Linux and Windows TCO comparisons is that companies need to conduct a little research of their own before making any IT platform decisions. Actual costs are bound to be very specific to each company's needs."
Please read the entire article.
"Robert Frances Group interviewed IT executives involved with operating-system selection and purchase decisions at more than 20 midsize to large companies that have 250 or more employees." (emphasis mine)
"Pund-IT's conclusions are based on lengthy research with three companies: Alliance UniChem, Boscov's Department Stores, and Zahid Tractor & Heavy Machinery." (emphasis also mine)
This is great news and will hopefully spur further research.
However, the methodology of the first study bothers me. Interviewing IT execs does not seem a very valid way of studying costs, I'd rather see auditable cost studies based upon hard documents.
The second study only samples three companies; while the case studies were "lengthy," I'd still be wary that their specific situations may have lent Linux a hand in TCO calculations. For that matter, this research group ONLY studied companies that chose to convert to Linux.
The last paragraph of the article sums it up the best:
"The lesson to be learned from these Linux and Windows TCO comparisons is that companies need to conduct a little research of their own before making any IT platform decisions. Actual costs are bound to be very specific to each company's needs. "
Actually, the Boston Tea Party was held to incite the British into open action against the rebel minority in the colonies. In effect, the rebels wanted to increase the divide between Britain and the colonies so that the colonials who preferred amity and compromise would come to their side.
The pretext of the BTP was to protest the imposition of import taxes, it had nothing to do with opening up the market to American tea traders.
The question posed is: Why did complex creatures not evolve regeneration?
The question I would ask instead, is: Why did regenerating creatures not evolve as much complexity?
If a subset of a species develops regeneration, those members of the species will contribute their genetic material to the gene pool longer than those without. This inhibits evolution, by decreasing the diversity of the gene pool.
In addition, the selective advantage of other useful mutations would be lessened, thereby inhibiting evolution.
To go back and answer the original question, I think that the chance of a complex species to develop regeneration is far too low. There are too many genetic variables required to change, I would guess, and some of them probably do not confer selective advantage in and of themselves.
We'll have to wait until the they give their presentation next week, to find out how much of the test mouse's DNA was changed.
I think if you read the article, you'll see where these points shouldn't be construed the way you have.
A lot of the parts I left out are ones that refute your analysis.
News would be: Microsoft leases billboard space in Times Square.
Or: Microsoft leases retail space in Manhattan for shop.
Or even: Microsoft enters negotiations for retail space.
The bits about Chinese business are news. I'm not sure why they are in that particular article, but they are newsworthy.
I know what my problem was -- I forgot a central tenent of posting on Slashdot: If you think your post might get modded down, you should write that in your post; it will instead get modded up.
Wow, it's pretty impressive when the suspected plans of a marketing department are news in and of themselves.
Is MS working on brand image? Of course, any big player in any retail industry is.
The real interesting tidbits from the article are:
The President of China is going to the compound of Bill Gates to meet with him.
A huge Chinese real estate company might purchase WTC7 to attract Chinese businesses.
Seems to me like the article about MS was just an excuse to drop a juicy tidbit or two about China-related business.
"Security: ...The reporting mechanism should be fully under the owner's control. "
"Privacy: ...designed and implemented with privacy in mind "
"Interoperability: ...should not introduce any new interoperability obstacles that are not for the purpose of security. "
"Controllability: Each owner should have effective choice and control... their participation must be opt-in. "
Why should MS rewrite all of their business practices based on what their competitors suggest?
I'm not saying that TGP is a bad idea... I'm saying that it is a bad idea for MS.
"Anheuser-Busch: $250K cash + 875K cans of water"
The $250k is nice, but surely they could donate something other than 875k cans of their beer.
Oh wait, you mean REAL water.
Thanks for the informative and insightful post.
But, "[Apple.com and Amazon.com] have a real opportunity to stem the relief effort tide now rather than later.
If they don't stop the relief efforts now, no one will!
"Representation does not equal permission."
Sure it does, you've given consent by choosing to live there, under their rules... it's the consent of the governed.
If you really want action, you'll need to do more than send a letter and vote. You'll need to organize support. You'll need to make sure that they are aware that it will cost them politically to do what you oppose. One vote is meaningless, you've got to get a group, or better, a coalition of groups.