He also wants an easy way for every piece of client-side code a web page uses to be easily replaceable with your own local version from your own local disk.
That sounds to me like a massive security hole just waiting to be exploited. People navigate to their brokerage page or their online banking page thinking they are running the brokerage/bank software, not knowing some malware made illicit and modified copies of the Java on their hard drive which is run instead. Scary stuff.
some storage space (enough for say, 20-50 books, these files aren't huge)
Many people don't know this, but when you purchase a book for your Kindle you can download it to your device as often as you want, free of charge. Because of this, you technically don't need more than 2 book's worth of storage (the one you are reading and the one you would like to re-download) unless you find yourself in places where there is no wireless signal (they use the Sprint network). Regardless, the books take very little storage so it doesn't much matter. The cost is in the display, the battery, and the wireless access. The amount of storage is mostly just a marketing gimmick.
You know very well that when I said "paying dearly" I was refering to the high price of Apple hardware. In fact you responded "I think the days of the "it's Apple, therefore it's twice as expensive as a PC" myth are truly over", which demonsrates that you knew exactly what I was talking about. And now we both agree that Apple hardware is indeed much more expensive than PC hardware (the ratio seems to be about 1.5 to 1), so that "myth" is still fact.
I was neither wrong nor purposefully misleading. I am only guilty of using average numbers to make the point that this is a lot of money we are talking about that a relatively few of us will have to pay for it. I concede your point that the people at the exact $109K cutoff do not pay the same share as someone making more due both to the progressive nature of the tax code and due to the fact that tax rates are a percentage of income so the more you make the more you pay. Of course if we also factor in "common knowledge" that "the rich don't pay their fair share" in this country, it is entirely likely that my simplified computation is sadly not far from the truth (assuming you don't consider someone making $109K rich).
Of course you are correct if you further subdivide the top 10% into the top 5% (who pay 60% of all taxes) and the second 5% (who pay 11% of all taxes). That breaks down to the top 5% paying, on average, $68,500 and the second 5% paying, on average, $12,000... which is still a pretty big chunk of change for someone making $110K.
Let me address your simplistic $800e+9/138e+6 computation. Did you know we have a "progressive" tax system in this country? What that means is the more you make, the higher the percentage you pay in taxes. So, rehashing my numbers, the people who make over $109K paid 71% of all taxes, even though they comprise only 10% of the taxpayers. It's really not that hard. I am surprised you can't understand this. Oh, and I have some more bad news for you. If you paid taxes on $140K in income last year as you claim, then you are in the top 5%, so your share (the amount you will pay, not what you will get) of this stimulus is more like $68,500 (there are only 5% * 138M, or 7M taxpayers in that band, and that subset of taxpayers paid 60% of all taxes).
It's lots of fun to criticize those nasty Republicans for blocking this bill. We can all call them names and blame them entirely for the mess and feel really good about ourselves in the process. But I approach this from a different perspective. As one of the ever-shrinking group of people who pay the freight for these wonderful government programs I thought I would share a few numbers with this forum. When we talk about $800B, how much is that really? Well, take a gander at the following statistics:
- there are 138 million taxpayers in the US
- the top 10% of earners pay 71% of the taxes
- the income cutoff for the top 10% is $109K
So, doing some simple math I compute that those top 10% (roughly 14 million taxpayers) are responsible for $800,000,000,000 times 0.71, or about $40,000 each. Think about that. Someone who makes $109,000 per year is going to have to come up with another $40,000 in taxes. Also remember that many people file jointly, so that $109,000 is really more like a married couple, both of whom work, each making $54,000. Now how many slashdot posters are we talking about here? I would wager there are quite a large number of posters on this board in that top 10%. How many of you have $40,000 laying around that you are willing to give to the government to build schools in another state, or to give broadband to people in the boonies, or the myriad other "critical programs" that need your hard-earned money?
I think one of the worst things that republicans have done to this country is to make people feel educated on a subject after ingesting a few sound bites.
The real problem is those "tax cuts for the rich"! We need to "make the rich pay their fair share"! What we need is "Change you can believe in". Admit it, soundbites are the currency of all politicians, not just Republicans. When you blame one party for things both parties do you cheapen your point. You are right though, it is a serious problem in America that political discourse, and hence the population's consumption of same, is dominated by these catchy and superficial soundbites.
Well, the Apple computer you buy is the biggest dongle ever manufactured, but I didn't "pay dearly" for it by any means. It is totally comparable in cost to equivalent generic PC hardware
Now it is not a 1:1 comparison. The Acer has a 16" screen 1920x1080, the Apple has a much inferior 15.4" 1440x900. The Acer has 4GB of DDR2, the Apple has 2GB of DDR3. The Acer has 320GB HD, the Apple has 250GB. And the Apple weighs 5.5lbs whereas the Acer weighs 7.7lbs (some of that due to the larger screen).
And you did say that Macbook Pros are expensive, so let's look instead at the bread-and-butter market segment. Try these two machines:
In this case I couldn't find a machine on newegg with the pathetic specs of the low end Macbook, so I settled for this Toshiba. The Toshiba has 4GB of DD2, the Mac has 1GB of DDR2. The Toshiba has much better integrated graphics, and a 320GB HD versus the puny 120GB of the Apple. The Toshiba weighs 20% less than the Apple, and comes with a DVD writer, whereas the Apple only has a CD-writer/DVD Rom combo. The Apple has GigE and a firewire port whereas the Toshiba has only 100Mb and no firewire. In short, the budget Mac is pathetically overpowered by the 11% less expensive Toshiba, showing once again that you pay much more for Apple hardware than you do for PC hardware. By the time you upgrade this Mac to a DVD writer, 4GB of memory and a 320GB HD you will have spent another $250-$300, bringing the equivalent Mac price to about $1249.
I guess technically you are correct though, since the ratio is 19/13, not 2/1, but then I never said you paid double for your Apple, I only stated that you paid dearly, and in my book paying 1.5 times as much for a lower spec'd machine is indeed paying dearly. But you go ahead and keep pretending Apple hardware is not much more expensive than PC hardware if it makes you happy.
I have Mac OS X and Ubuntu desktops - neither install disk requires a serial number and I like it that way, simple inconvenience or not.
That's because, at least in Apple's case, they know with 99.9% certainty that you are installing on Apple hardware, for which you paid dearly (and with which you bought an OSX license - aka the Apple tax).
I mean, come on, I have to install office programs, compilers, editors, (non-DRM) media players, (real) CD/DVD burning programs, terminals, secure communication programs, (real) file transfer programs, etc., and that's just the top categories. Let alone all the crap you have to install, just because you're using Windows
I always get a kick out of this argument. Has it occurred to you that when Microsoft bundles those applications they get sued to pieces and end up paying billions in fines to the European antitrust extortionists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H regulators? If you approve of those verdicts and fines, then you cannot simultaneously criticize Microsoft for forcing you to install all those things. Approving of these fines means simply that we accept (or rather demand) the inconveniences they inflict.
You remind me of a favorite saying that I formerly used as my signature:
br>
Politician's Logic: Something must be done! This is something, therefore it must be done.
but you can't install ANY application without paying $5-15... Oh and did I mention that if you want to add your own programs you have to pay a couple thousand dollars?(
Uh-oh. I guess I'd better uninstall that application I wrote and installed on my Verizon Samsung Saga phone last weekend. And all those 3rd party apps I DL'd and installed too. Thanks for warning me!
When you lose it, drop it, or otherwise break it, you're screwed.
If you mean by this you have to drop another $350 to replace the Kindle, you are right, but if you mean you are out all your content, you are wrong. You can replace your Kindle and then associate the new device with all the content you had bought for the old one (and re-download it all for free).
I have owned a Kindle for almost a year and frankly, for me, there is no going back. I much prefer reading on the Kindle. In fact I have jury duty tomorrow, and my Kindle will help me pass the time. I don't know what I will be in the mood to read when I get there, or how much time I will have to read. I can decide then. As a minimum I'll have the day's WSJ to read.
In moving to cut its current workforce by between 15% and 18% today, Sun is trying to stay ahead of a falling knife.
What does it mean for a company to "survive" if it lays off most of its employees? I don't see what the point is.
I've often thought about this notion of a company's lifespan. Where is it written that companies should live forever? They are made up of people with finite lifespans. Companies clearly go through similar "life" phases: enthusiasm of youth, conservatism of middle age, fatigue of old age. It would be interesting to know what the average lifespan of a company is in each country. We calculate this all the time for people.
What you do is get a TMobile pay-as-you go and buy the $100/1000 minute card. That works out to about $8/month for the first year. But, once you've paid for a 1 year card you become a gold member and then any time you add minutes your phone is extended for another year. This minimum card is $10 (100 minutes), which is what I add each year ($0.80/month). I'm still working through the 1000 minutes I bought over 2 years ago. I suppose eventually I will eat up those minutes and have to put something more than $10 in... but until that happens I've got a cell phone for under $1/month
$850/month is expensive for mortage/utilities/prop taxes/maintenance!? You must have a few roomates. What about income tax (state and federal)? Is that in the $850 also? And I suspect you are in the minority if you live in the US and don't have a car.
Oh, and I carry a pay-as-you-go phone that costs me $0.80 (yes, 80 cents) per month as long as I don't use more than about 50 minutes per month.
ComScore found that iPhone purchases grew fastest among people with annual household incomes between $25,000 and $50,000.
What!?! How can this group afford the monthly charges? I just checked the AT&T site http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iphone-info.jsp and saw that the minimum monthly charge is $70/month, plus the $200 outlay for the phone itself. There is simply no way I could afford this while paying for taxes, mortgage, utilities, food, gas, clothing, college tuitions and home and car maintenance, but then I try to live within my means. Next up, government bailout for iPhone owners...
I agree with one enhancement... it should connect wirelessly to those devices. I would love to sit down at my desk with my smartphone in my pocket (with gobs of storage inside it) and have it automatically associate (over bluetooth?) with the screen, keyboard, wired or wifi interface, speakers, etc. Basically every workstation/PC would simply be IO devices... the computation power and data would travel with me in my pocket. I guess for the time being it could physically dock, but that's so 90s -- wireless is the way to go.
Slashdot Mirror
I saw this a few years ago and it made me true to my moniker: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r19080808-Ars-technica-on-Sun-strategy-over-the-years. Looks like we have an edit to make to this spot-on, funny-but-sad pie chart.
That sounds to me like a massive security hole just waiting to be exploited. People navigate to their brokerage page or their online banking page thinking they are running the brokerage/bank software, not knowing some malware made illicit and modified copies of the Java on their hard drive which is run instead. Scary stuff.
Cows can't read anyhow.
Many people don't know this, but when you purchase a book for your Kindle you can download it to your device as often as you want, free of charge. Because of this, you technically don't need more than 2 book's worth of storage (the one you are reading and the one you would like to re-download) unless you find yourself in places where there is no wireless signal (they use the Sprint network). Regardless, the books take very little storage so it doesn't much matter. The cost is in the display, the battery, and the wireless access. The amount of storage is mostly just a marketing gimmick.
You know very well that when I said "paying dearly" I was refering to the high price of Apple hardware. In fact you responded "I think the days of the "it's Apple, therefore it's twice as expensive as a PC" myth are truly over", which demonsrates that you knew exactly what I was talking about. And now we both agree that Apple hardware is indeed much more expensive than PC hardware (the ratio seems to be about 1.5 to 1), so that "myth" is still fact.
I was neither wrong nor purposefully misleading. I am only guilty of using average numbers to make the point that this is a lot of money we are talking about that a relatively few of us will have to pay for it. I concede your point that the people at the exact $109K cutoff do not pay the same share as someone making more due both to the progressive nature of the tax code and due to the fact that tax rates are a percentage of income so the more you make the more you pay. Of course if we also factor in "common knowledge" that "the rich don't pay their fair share" in this country, it is entirely likely that my simplified computation is sadly not far from the truth (assuming you don't consider someone making $109K rich).
Excellent. I will take your comment "Extra cash, well worth it" as a vindication of my point that people pay dearly for Apple hardware.
Of course you are correct if you further subdivide the top 10% into the top 5% (who pay 60% of all taxes) and the second 5% (who pay 11% of all taxes). That breaks down to the top 5% paying, on average, $68,500 and the second 5% paying, on average, $12,000 ... which is still a pretty big chunk of change for someone making $110K.
Let me address your simplistic $800e+9/138e+6 computation. Did you know we have a "progressive" tax system in this country? What that means is the more you make, the higher the percentage you pay in taxes. So, rehashing my numbers, the people who make over $109K paid 71% of all taxes, even though they comprise only 10% of the taxpayers. It's really not that hard. I am surprised you can't understand this. Oh, and I have some more bad news for you. If you paid taxes on $140K in income last year as you claim, then you are in the top 5%, so your share (the amount you will pay, not what you will get) of this stimulus is more like $68,500 (there are only 5% * 138M, or 7M taxpayers in that band, and that subset of taxpayers paid 60% of all taxes).
It's lots of fun to criticize those nasty Republicans for blocking this bill. We can all call them names and blame them entirely for the mess and feel really good about ourselves in the process. But I approach this from a different perspective. As one of the ever-shrinking group of people who pay the freight for these wonderful government programs I thought I would share a few numbers with this forum. When we talk about $800B, how much is that really? Well, take a gander at the following statistics:
- there are 138 million taxpayers in the US
- the top 10% of earners pay 71% of the taxes
- the income cutoff for the top 10% is $109K
So, doing some simple math I compute that those top 10% (roughly 14 million taxpayers) are responsible for $800,000,000,000 times 0.71, or about $40,000 each. Think about that. Someone who makes $109,000 per year is going to have to come up with another $40,000 in taxes. Also remember that many people file jointly, so that $109,000 is really more like a married couple, both of whom work, each making $54,000. Now how many slashdot posters are we talking about here? I would wager there are quite a large number of posters on this board in that top 10%. How many of you have $40,000 laying around that you are willing to give to the government to build schools in another state, or to give broadband to people in the boonies, or the myriad other "critical programs" that need your hard-earned money?
The numbers in this post are for the 2006 tax year and were obtained from http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6
The real problem is those "tax cuts for the rich"! We need to "make the rich pay their fair share"! What we need is "Change you can believe in". Admit it, soundbites are the currency of all politicians, not just Republicans. When you blame one party for things both parties do you cheapen your point. You are right though, it is a serious problem in America that political discourse, and hence the population's consumption of same, is dominated by these catchy and superficial soundbites.
Apple Mac Book Pro $1949 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834100043&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-34-100-043-_-Product)
Acer Aspire AS6920 $1299 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115474)
Now it is not a 1:1 comparison. The Acer has a 16" screen 1920x1080, the Apple has a much inferior 15.4" 1440x900. The Acer has 4GB of DDR2, the Apple has 2GB of DDR3. The Acer has 320GB HD, the Apple has 250GB. And the Apple weighs 5.5lbs whereas the Acer weighs 7.7lbs (some of that due to the larger screen).
And you did say that Macbook Pros are expensive, so let's look instead at the bread-and-butter market segment. Try these two machines:
Apple Max Book $949 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834100047)
Toshiba U405-S2915 $849 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114624)
In this case I couldn't find a machine on newegg with the pathetic specs of the low end Macbook, so I settled for this Toshiba. The Toshiba has 4GB of DD2, the Mac has 1GB of DDR2. The Toshiba has much better integrated graphics, and a 320GB HD versus the puny 120GB of the Apple. The Toshiba weighs 20% less than the Apple, and comes with a DVD writer, whereas the Apple only has a CD-writer/DVD Rom combo. The Apple has GigE and a firewire port whereas the Toshiba has only 100Mb and no firewire. In short, the budget Mac is pathetically overpowered by the 11% less expensive Toshiba, showing once again that you pay much more for Apple hardware than you do for PC hardware. By the time you upgrade this Mac to a DVD writer, 4GB of memory and a 320GB HD you will have spent another $250-$300, bringing the equivalent Mac price to about $1249.
I guess technically you are correct though, since the ratio is 19/13, not 2/1, but then I never said you paid double for your Apple, I only stated that you paid dearly, and in my book paying 1.5 times as much for a lower spec'd machine is indeed paying dearly. But you go ahead and keep pretending Apple hardware is not much more expensive than PC hardware if it makes you happy.
That's because, at least in Apple's case, they know with 99.9% certainty that you are installing on Apple hardware, for which you paid dearly (and with which you bought an OSX license - aka the Apple tax).
I always get a kick out of this argument. Has it occurred to you that when Microsoft bundles those applications they get sued to pieces and end up paying billions in fines to the European antitrust extortionists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H regulators? If you approve of those verdicts and fines, then you cannot simultaneously criticize Microsoft for forcing you to install all those things. Approving of these fines means simply that we accept (or rather demand) the inconveniences they inflict.
You remind me of a favorite saying that I formerly used as my signature:
br> Politician's Logic: Something must be done! This is something, therefore it must be done.
Uh-oh. I guess I'd better uninstall that application I wrote and installed on my Verizon Samsung Saga phone last weekend. And all those 3rd party apps I DL'd and installed too. Thanks for warning me!
At least that what I read somewhere (can't remember where though ;-)
In terms of dealing with a failing memory, my solution is to write a lot of stuff down. I carry a pocket PC with all my notes in it -- very helpful.
If you mean by this you have to drop another $350 to replace the Kindle, you are right, but if you mean you are out all your content, you are wrong. You can replace your Kindle and then associate the new device with all the content you had bought for the old one (and re-download it all for free).
I have owned a Kindle for almost a year and frankly, for me, there is no going back. I much prefer reading on the Kindle. In fact I have jury duty tomorrow, and my Kindle will help me pass the time. I don't know what I will be in the mood to read when I get there, or how much time I will have to read. I can decide then. As a minimum I'll have the day's WSJ to read.
What does it mean for a company to "survive" if it lays off most of its employees? I don't see what the point is.
I've often thought about this notion of a company's lifespan. Where is it written that companies should live forever? They are made up of people with finite lifespans. Companies clearly go through similar "life" phases: enthusiasm of youth, conservatism of middle age, fatigue of old age. It would be interesting to know what the average lifespan of a company is in each country. We calculate this all the time for people.
Precisely, which is why giving them Windows XP is no better or worse than giving them Linux. It will all be different later anyhow.
... until they can get the pieces of Yahoo that they want for a good price. There is certainly no rush in this climate.
What you do is get a TMobile pay-as-you go and buy the $100/1000 minute card. That works out to about $8/month for the first year. But, once you've paid for a 1 year card you become a gold member and then any time you add minutes your phone is extended for another year. This minimum card is $10 (100 minutes), which is what I add each year ($0.80/month). I'm still working through the 1000 minutes I bought over 2 years ago. I suppose eventually I will eat up those minutes and have to put something more than $10 in ... but until that happens I've got a cell phone for under $1/month
$850/month is expensive for mortage/utilities/prop taxes/maintenance!? You must have a few roomates. What about income tax (state and federal)? Is that in the $850 also? And I suspect you are in the minority if you live in the US and don't have a car.
Oh, and I carry a pay-as-you-go phone that costs me $0.80 (yes, 80 cents) per month as long as I don't use more than about 50 minutes per month.
What!?! How can this group afford the monthly charges? I just checked the AT&T site http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/specials/iphone-info.jsp and saw that the minimum monthly charge is $70/month, plus the $200 outlay for the phone itself. There is simply no way I could afford this while paying for taxes, mortgage, utilities, food, gas, clothing, college tuitions and home and car maintenance, but then I try to live within my means. Next up, government bailout for iPhone owners ...
I agree with one enhancement ... it should connect wirelessly to those devices. I would love to sit down at my desk with my smartphone in my pocket (with gobs of storage inside it) and have it automatically associate (over bluetooth?) with the screen, keyboard, wired or wifi interface, speakers, etc. Basically every workstation/PC would simply be IO devices ... the computation power and data would travel with me in my pocket. I guess for the time being it could physically dock, but that's so 90s -- wireless is the way to go.