Usually in a class action lawsuit those harmed get a coupon or replacement product that's pretty much worthless. The lawyers get millions of dollars in fees in the name of "protecting consumers." So, how much did the attorneys get in this case?
My brother-in-law flys navy seahawks and has to land them on ships and carriers with huge radar arrays. The ship's crew is suppose to turn off the radar before they land since it interfers with brain function. As my brother-in-law puts it, "...your hair starts to stand on your arm and you being to get really angry for no reason. Then you call the radar tower and yell at them to turn off the radar array."
Here is a pretty interesting link to the WHO (World Health Organization) on electrical and magnetic fields and what they do to your body.
Deliverable is an adjective and not a noun according to the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary. Business types frequently put an -able, -ly, or -s at the end of the misused words. Maybe English grammar should be taught to all business students?
I don't see why the city of New Orleans can't set up a city authority to run the wireless network as a business entity. Or, deed the wireless network over to a non-profit entity to run. It seems there should be a creative solution to get around bad legislation.
I have been though one DQ drive through sucessfully with my bike at the beach. The second and last time I attempted it was a Wendy's and they refused to serve me. I had to go inside. The manager was a real hot head. I was kind of surprised as I didn't even speak to him. I just go off my bike and came inside. He cooled down once I got my order. I never really did understand why he was so ticked off. Other people waiting in line thought it was kind of interesting and started asking me questions about it. Interestingly a motor cycle behind me was served at the window. But, I do live in a large southern city where people hardly know what a bicycle is and those that do think of it as a toy and not a mode of transportation.
Nice find! Here are the goals of the 2006 NASA strategic Plan. I think it is very interesting only one has anything to do with our own planetary system. The overall theme appears to be space dominance and aerospace technology.
Strategic Goal 1: Fly the Shuttle as safely as possible until its retirement not later than 2010
Strategic Goal 2: Complete the International Space Station in a manner consistent with NASA's International Partner commitments and needs of human exploration.
Strategic Goal 3: Develop a balanced overall program of science, exploration, and aeronautics consistent with the redirection of the human spaceflight program to focus on exploration.
Sub-goal 3B: Understand the Sun and its effects on Earth and the solar system.
Sub-goal 3C: Advance scientfic knowledge of the origin and history of the solar system, the potential for life elsewhere, and the hazards and resources present as humans explore space.
Sub-goal 3D: Discover the origin, structure, evolution, and destiny of the universe, and search for Earth-like planets.
Sub-goal 3E: Advance knowledge in the fundamental disciiplines of aeronautics, and develop technologies for safer aircraft and higher capacity airspace systems.
Sub-goal 3F: Understand the effects of the space environment and human performance, and test new technologies and countermeasures for long-duration human space exploration.
Strategic Goal 4: Bring a new Crew Exploration Vehicle into service as soon as possible after Shuttle retirement.
Strategic Goal 5: Encourage the pursuit of appropriate partnerships with the emerging commercial space sector.
Strategic Goal 6: Establish a lunar return program having the maximum possible utility for later missions to Mars and other destinations.
The biggest concern I see about 3rd parties holding a complete picture of your finances is identity theft. I recently finished an encryption project for a fairly large company that had millions (as in m) of unencrypted credit card and financial data available to anyone in the IT department for the taking with an iPod or a USB drive.
The more information someone can gleen about you the greater chance they can go out and get a car loan, house loan, access your bank accounts, or get various other forms of credit in your name. People should be concerned because there is no magic bullet to protecting yourself. Credit monitoring might catch activity but when you have to carry around a police report to keep from getting arrested you may not feel like that credit monitoring was the best solution. Identity theft victims spend years trying to rebuild their credit reports after an identity theft. Imagine not being able to open a bank account, get a job, apply for a credit card, get a load for car, a mortgage, a student loan or having the APR on your current cards go from 9% to 30% when you credit score gets trashed and there are police records with your name on it for writing bad checks and stealing cars on loan.
Data theft is much easier than robbing at gun point. Your only protection is your data. The more data out there in 3rd party hands, the greater the risk. It's a simple as that.
Google doesn't want to give guidance because it forces them to become short term focused to satisfy expectations they set for Wall Street. This is the bane of existence for many publicly traded companies. They give guidance and if they don't hit their numbers, they are punished by the analysts. It makes the analyst's job easier in that they can then put more pressure on the company (Google) and site them for the failure.
The problem is that once a company becomes short-term focused they are beholding to hitting numbers and making bad business decisions simply to hit those numbers. This short-term focus trickles down from the CEO to all decision managers in the company who are given stock options. The company can no longer take long-term gambles because Wall Street will punish them for missing or not increasing their short-term outlooks. The decision makers will feel a real financial loss for not hitting those numbers and therefore reinforce short-term decision making.
Conversly, long-term focus is the advantage of a privately held corporation. A private corporate can make long-term decisions that cost millions of dollars in hopes that it will pay 3, 5, 20 or even 20 years down the line. A short-term company can not make such decisions and therefore must focus on short-term growth or growth through acquisition (i.e. buying the competition to increase short-term revenue). A private company can not raise cheap capital to make these long term investments like a public company. Google wants the best of both worlds, they want to use cheap capital (i.e. stock sales) and use the money to make long-term investments.
I would at least like to be paid a fair market value. That means I don't want to have folks shipped in from foreign countries competing against me for the same jobs in my country where I have paid the taxes and I am a citizen. I think that is a very basic requisit. I have no problem with outsourcing because a company takes a risk by going to a foreign market and buying services. But, they mitigate that risk by bringing the cheap foreign human labor to my country. I can compete against outsourcing by working faster and smarter. I can't compete very well against some dude who lives in a apartment with 5 other dudes and is willing to work for 60% of my salary. Besides, the brain drain doesn't help the foreign counties. We suck the working people out of their markets. Their market economies suffer so US companies can mitigate risk and get cheap labor.
I recently fired my standard VoIP provider because Skype was a better deal for me. I was paying $25/month for an unlimited VoIP plan. In some months I used 2000 minutes, other months I used 100 minutes. With Skype, I pay as I go. As I run out of minutes I pre-pay and just get credits. With the VoIP provider I am stuck with a flat rate per month. I could go down to a cheaper plan but then risk getting hit with a high per minute rate. My base charge for Skype is less than $3/month USD for the phone number and voice mail.
The two arguments I have read about people no liking skype are:
(1) I have to have a computer running all the time.
(2) I am tied to my computer.
(3) I can't use a regular phone.
First, I would bet a lot of early adopters have a machine connected to a broadband connection 24/7. Second, you are not tied to your computer if you purchase a USB adapter that allows Skype to work with your regular phone line. I use the ActionTec adapter and plug it right into my phone network so it powers ALL the jacks in the house. Finally, with the adapter you can use a regular phone.
As a side note, the adapter is powered from your USB connection and therefore doesn't require yet another power supply. It's tiny compared to a VoIP router and you can throw it in a laptop bag if you are traveling (along with a small cordless phone if you like).
I am a big proponent of the "pay-as-you-go" plan. I pay for minutes (about $0.02) used when I "Skype-Out" and if I don't use the phone I don't pay. It's as simple as that. The only monthly recurring fee I pay is $3/month for the phone number.
If that were true we wouldn't have MS Windows on 90%+ of the desktops. Windows XP/2003 is vastly improved over the original Windows product line but other products such as OS/2 were technologically superior at the time but didn't make it. A few products and companies with great technology and poor execution come to mind.
BeOS
Cray
Silicon Graphics
Next
DEC Alpha Chip (DEC)
Bell Labs (in more recent years)
Xerox PARC
Borland (Delphi, C++ Builder, OWL)
Just because SUN has great technology doesn't mean they will be successful with it. Unfortunately, the market place not purely driven by technology. And, a market place moves slowly and builds up momentum. Linux fought and clawed its way into the UNIX data centers. People forget the "Linux is only good enough to run a print server" comments we heard just a few years ago.
Oracle is the next open source target IMHO. High prices, arrogant licensing, huge savings going Open source. Just like UNIX. Once comments like "mySQL is only good enough for a reporting application" are gone and the perception changes Oracle will be just like SUN. A company with great technology and no market.
If the FCC is going to deregulate DSL as a info service then the phone companies should be required to offer naked DSL. Currently, BellSouth requires all DSL customers to have a full service phone line. Other bells have the naked DSL option.
Slashdot Mirror
Spoken like a true lawyer.
Usually in a class action lawsuit those harmed get a coupon or replacement product that's pretty much worthless. The lawyers get millions of dollars in fees in the name of "protecting consumers." So, how much did the attorneys get in this case?
My brother-in-law flys navy seahawks and has to land them on ships and carriers with huge radar arrays. The ship's crew is suppose to turn off the radar before they land since it interfers with brain function. As my brother-in-law puts it, "...your hair starts to stand on your arm and you being to get really angry for no reason. Then you call the radar tower and yell at them to turn off the radar array."
e x1.html
Here is a pretty interesting link to the WHO (World Health Organization) on electrical and magnetic fields and what they do to your body.
http://www.who.int/peh-emf/about/WhatisEMF/en/ind
"The deliverables are due this Friday."
6 1717%2C00.asp
Deliverable is an adjective and not a noun according to the Merriam-Webster Online dictionary. Business types frequently put an -able, -ly, or -s at the end of the misused words. Maybe English grammar should be taught to all business students?
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/deliverable
Check this out for some more fun.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0%2C1697%2C13
I don't see why the city of New Orleans can't set up a city authority to run the wireless network as a business entity. Or, deed the wireless network over to a non-profit entity to run. It seems there should be a creative solution to get around bad legislation.
I have been though one DQ drive through sucessfully with my bike at the beach. The second and last time I attempted it was a Wendy's and they refused to serve me. I had to go inside. The manager was a real hot head. I was kind of surprised as I didn't even speak to him. I just go off my bike and came inside. He cooled down once I got my order. I never really did understand why he was so ticked off. Other people waiting in line thought it was kind of interesting and started asking me questions about it. Interestingly a motor cycle behind me was served at the window. But, I do live in a large southern city where people hardly know what a bicycle is and those that do think of it as a toy and not a mode of transportation.
Nice find! Here are the goals of the 2006 NASA strategic Plan. I think it is very interesting only one has anything to do with our own planetary system. The overall theme appears to be space dominance and aerospace technology.
Strategic Goal 1: Fly the Shuttle as safely as possible until its retirement not later than 2010
Strategic Goal 2: Complete the International Space Station in a manner consistent with NASA's International Partner commitments and needs of human exploration.
Strategic Goal 3: Develop a balanced overall program of science, exploration, and aeronautics consistent with the redirection of the human spaceflight program to focus on exploration.
Sub-goal 3B: Understand the Sun and its effects on Earth and the solar system.
Sub-goal 3C: Advance scientfic knowledge of the origin and history of the solar system, the potential for life elsewhere, and the hazards and resources present as humans explore space.
Sub-goal 3D: Discover the origin, structure, evolution, and destiny of the universe, and search for Earth-like planets.
Sub-goal 3E: Advance knowledge in the fundamental disciiplines of aeronautics, and develop technologies for safer aircraft and higher capacity airspace systems.
Sub-goal 3F: Understand the effects of the space environment and human performance, and test new technologies and countermeasures for long-duration human space exploration.
Strategic Goal 4: Bring a new Crew Exploration Vehicle into service as soon as possible after Shuttle retirement.
Strategic Goal 5: Encourage the pursuit of appropriate partnerships with the emerging commercial space sector.
Strategic Goal 6: Establish a lunar return program having the maximum possible utility for later missions to Mars and other destinations.
http://naccenter.arc.nasa.gov/NASAMission.html
The biggest concern I see about 3rd parties holding a complete picture of your finances is identity theft. I recently finished an encryption project for a fairly large company that had millions (as in m) of unencrypted credit card and financial data available to anyone in the IT department for the taking with an iPod or a USB drive.
The more information someone can gleen about you the greater chance they can go out and get a car loan, house loan, access your bank accounts, or get various other forms of credit in your name. People should be concerned because there is no magic bullet to protecting yourself. Credit monitoring might catch activity but when you have to carry around a police report to keep from getting arrested you may not feel like that credit monitoring was the best solution. Identity theft victims spend years trying to rebuild their credit reports after an identity theft. Imagine not being able to open a bank account, get a job, apply for a credit card, get a load for car, a mortgage, a student loan or having the APR on your current cards go from 9% to 30% when you credit score gets trashed and there are police records with your name on it for writing bad checks and stealing cars on loan.
Data theft is much easier than robbing at gun point. Your only protection is your data. The more data out there in 3rd party hands, the greater the risk. It's a simple as that.
Google doesn't want to give guidance because it forces them to become short term focused to satisfy expectations they set for Wall Street. This is the bane of existence for many publicly traded companies. They give guidance and if they don't hit their numbers, they are punished by the analysts. It makes the analyst's job easier in that they can then put more pressure on the company (Google) and site them for the failure.
The problem is that once a company becomes short-term focused they are beholding to hitting numbers and making bad business decisions simply to hit those numbers. This short-term focus trickles down from the CEO to all decision managers in the company who are given stock options. The company can no longer take long-term gambles because Wall Street will punish them for missing or not increasing their short-term outlooks. The decision makers will feel a real financial loss for not hitting those numbers and therefore reinforce short-term decision making.
Conversly, long-term focus is the advantage of a privately held corporation. A private corporate can make long-term decisions that cost millions of dollars in hopes that it will pay 3, 5, 20 or even 20 years down the line. A short-term company can not make such decisions and therefore must focus on short-term growth or growth through acquisition (i.e. buying the competition to increase short-term revenue). A private company can not raise cheap capital to make these long term investments like a public company. Google wants the best of both worlds, they want to use cheap capital (i.e. stock sales) and use the money to make long-term investments.
I would at least like to be paid a fair market value. That means I don't want to have folks shipped in from foreign countries competing against me for the same jobs in my country where I have paid the taxes and I am a citizen. I think that is a very basic requisit. I have no problem with outsourcing because a company takes a risk by going to a foreign market and buying services. But, they mitigate that risk by bringing the cheap foreign human labor to my country. I can compete against outsourcing by working faster and smarter. I can't compete very well against some dude who lives in a apartment with 5 other dudes and is willing to work for 60% of my salary. Besides, the brain drain doesn't help the foreign counties. We suck the working people out of their markets. Their market economies suffer so US companies can mitigate risk and get cheap labor.
I recently fired my standard VoIP provider because Skype was a better deal for me. I was paying $25/month for an unlimited VoIP plan. In some months I used 2000 minutes, other months I used 100 minutes. With Skype, I pay as I go. As I run out of minutes I pre-pay and just get credits. With the VoIP provider I am stuck with a flat rate per month. I could go down to a cheaper plan but then risk getting hit with a high per minute rate. My base charge for Skype is less than $3/month USD for the phone number and voice mail.
The two arguments I have read about people no liking skype are:
(1) I have to have a computer running all the time.
(2) I am tied to my computer.
(3) I can't use a regular phone.
First, I would bet a lot of early adopters have a machine connected to a broadband connection 24/7. Second, you are not tied to your computer if you purchase a USB adapter that allows Skype to work with your regular phone line. I use the ActionTec adapter and plug it right into my phone network so it powers ALL the jacks in the house. Finally, with the adapter you can use a regular phone.
http://www.actiontec.com/support/voip/faqs.html
As a side note, the adapter is powered from your USB connection and therefore doesn't require yet another power supply. It's tiny compared to a VoIP router and you can throw it in a laptop bag if you are traveling (along with a small cordless phone if you like).
I am a big proponent of the "pay-as-you-go" plan. I pay for minutes (about $0.02) used when I "Skype-Out" and if I don't use the phone I don't pay. It's as simple as that. The only monthly recurring fee I pay is $3/month for the phone number.
If that were true we wouldn't have MS Windows on 90%+ of the desktops. Windows XP/2003 is vastly improved over the original Windows product line but other products such as OS/2 were technologically superior at the time but didn't make it. A few products and companies with great technology and poor execution come to mind.
BeOS
Cray
Silicon Graphics
Next DEC Alpha Chip (DEC)
Bell Labs (in more recent years)
Xerox PARC
Borland (Delphi, C++ Builder, OWL)
Just because SUN has great technology doesn't mean they will be successful with it. Unfortunately, the market place not purely driven by technology. And, a market place moves slowly and builds up momentum. Linux fought and clawed its way into the UNIX data centers. People forget the "Linux is only good enough to run a print server" comments we heard just a few years ago. Oracle is the next open source target IMHO. High prices, arrogant licensing, huge savings going Open source. Just like UNIX. Once comments like "mySQL is only good enough for a reporting application" are gone and the perception changes Oracle will be just like SUN. A company with great technology and no market.
AFAIK I am right http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/61105 http://news.com.com/SBC+plans+to+get+naked/2100-10 34_3-5698066.html
If the FCC is going to deregulate DSL as a info service then the phone companies should be required to offer naked DSL. Currently, BellSouth requires all DSL customers to have a full service phone line. Other bells have the naked DSL option.