As everyone knows, people should only use their computers to update them so that they are completely unvulnerable against any kind of attack. They should definitely not be used for work! Never! Work is boring. Besides, Linux doesn't support it, so it can't be important, either, can it?
You may think whatever you like abot these different formats. The thing is that a format dies when the *last publisher/distributor* stops using that format, not when the *first pundit* suggest that it will die.
I'm glad you could appreciate why all the earlier pundits who suggested that media format x would die out were wrong. Too bad you can't see the similarity between that and your own argument.
Time will prove me right. In twenty years I'll write a book about this. It will be published in paper. Your kids will suggest that it would have been easier to read on the text scroller in ther sun glasses. Everyone else will by the paper copy of the book.
There are outher sources of energy than oil, however. GWB may not be able to pronounce any of them, but they are still there. (Of course, Norway has loads and loads of hydro power as well...)
PDAs (as they get to larger sizes) will do away with cozy books as well.
Yes, just as radio killed newspapers, movies killed the radio, TV killed movies and the video killed TV.
If "do away with" means "decrease market share" you are probably right. If it means do away with, you are wrong. (Unless your time perspective is 100+ years, in which case there are a number of generations having to die off.)
The point is valid; you don't argue complex economic systems from a beginners course.
On the contrary, the point is that even a beginner's course can expose an argument as completely flawed. The opposite is not true, of course.
This all started with some poor clueless slashdotter arguing that supply and demand were bogus because we had seen a tripling of oil prices but not a tripling in demand. Surely even you can spot the fallacy in that argument?
I don't agree. Even if the top two would be not guilty, executives at Enron *did* break the law. This trial is about who is responsible for that, not if it in fact happened. That is not disputed, not even by Skilling and Lay.
One may of course argue about the definition of "executives", but "employees at Enron broke the law" is 100% verified as tru.
First, investor confidence in the entire system would have collapsed. People would've started pulling their money out because, after Enron, a huge loophole in the system was found and all of a sudden no company with profit would have been considered safe.
Yes, just like every stock market in the rest of the world immediately collapsed because only the US had the great fortitude to implement such a brilliant law.
Oh, wait! That didn't happen! If anything, the opposite happened.
Second, every company in the US now knew of these "unique" accounting practices that could instanteously increase their profit margin. I'm not saying that all corporations would do this, but a sizable percentage would, especially if they perceived that there were low risk (remember, it took over 5 years to bring the Enron Executives to court).
So, could you tell us a little about these practices? Also, could you tell us a little bit about why the Enron executives are in a trial right now?
The truth of the matter is that what Enron did wasn't legal before SOX. SOX may, or may not, help discover cases like that sooner, but do note two things:
1. SOX won't stop another company from "pulling an Enron" just like a law on speed limits won't prevent someone who wants to drive 200 mph from doing that.
2. There are costs associated with the enforcement of all laws, and SOX adds more costs than any other law I can think of. If we added one million traffic cops, speeding would be completely eliminated because everyone speeding would be caught. Since speeding is a major cause of accidents, and accidents cost money to society, society would be better off. Surely you can spot the fallacy of that argument?
The argument isn't "everything SOX does and stand for is completely evil". The argument is that costs are bigger than benefits. Such an argument can only be settled by actually looking at costs.
What GP tried to tell you was that "linear" *isn't* in the book. Supply and demand curves can look widely different depending on the good, but assuming that either curve is linear is almost always incorrect.
Also, even if both the supply and the demand curves are in fact linear, that doesn't mean that the tripling of the price should imply that supply or demand has changed by a factor of three. That obviously depends on the slope of the curves.
Yes, we are working on redesigning the site and the company we are using for this are your typical "new media" buzzword spreaders, so they obviously use Macs.
Come to think of it, they are probably the ones responsible for the bulk of the Mac visits. I have *never* seen a Mac in a financial company, a bank or a utility and those are our main customers.
(I should be explicit and say that I am talking about front and back office users here, not people at their respective marketing departments who may or may not use Macs but are almost guaranteed not to use our site.)
3% each is much closer to the truth for desktop systems.
Possibly for home users, but I really doubt it for business users. These are the stats from our site, a pan Nordic commodities site. We serve a little over 3M pages/month, so it's a small but not tiny site, I would say. Browsers:
IE: 89.8%
Unknown: 4.4%
Firefox: 3.1%
Mozilla: 1.4%
Opera: 0.7%
Safari: 0.1%
Netscape: 0.1%
Wget, Konqueror, LibWWW, Others: 0% each
The big question mark here is "unknown". I think it's automated programs that retrieve stuff programatically. We have prices and other figures that are frequently updated, so that would make some sense.
Looking at OS:
Windows: 93.4%
Unknown: 5%
Linux: 1.2%
Macintosh: 0.2%
Symbian OS, BSD, Sun Solaris, CPM, "Unknown Unix system", OS/2: 0% each
Same question for "unknown", but this gives a Mac/Linux share well below 3% each.
I do realize that the figures for slashdot.org are *completely* different.
The point is to confuse customers and to unnecessarily inflate the price of the more "advanced" version... as if leaving out features actually saves Microsoft money in producing it.
No, actually, the point is that you don't know the first thing about pricing, and, to quote a famous thinker "since when did ignorance become a point of view?"
The classic example of pricing schemse such as this is in pocket calculators where an entire line of calculators use the same chip and the only difference is the number of buttons (i.e. functions) actually implemented by wiring.
But I assume you know that the Japanses companies were morons as well...
It's sort of funny to see so many people here simultaneously pour hate on MS (and Google and other successfull companies as well) for making so much money and for supposedly bad business practices that makes them less money than they shoud get...
Probably not. The firewall only added value if it ever corectly stopped a program from gaining access.
The GP doesn't indicate if that was the case or not, but I know that when I used ZoneAlarm, I never even once denied an application access.
I am willing to bet good money that in 90% of typical homes, the users accept everything. Or they deny one thing once which they should have accepted, which breaks some functionality. They then "learn the lesson" and accept everything from then on, including whatever malware they may have.
Come to think of it, I have never heard of a success story where someone got infected, but micromanaging the firewall prevented the infection from creating havoc. I'm sure they exist, but I doubt they are common.
And there's no way to stop users giving out their passwords. There's just no way. Unless you couple the password with something like biometrics, which is signicantly harder, not to mention more painful, to give away.
A previous poster mentioned SecurID from RSA or similar solutions: a small device, typically attached to your keychain, that displays a six figure number that changes every minute. In order to login, you use username and a password consisting of your password and the six figures from the ScurID concatenated.
In such a setting, giving away your password is meaningless and never happens. This system works surprisingly well. I've used it a three different places, and find it far better than anything else I've seen.
I always lock my PC when I leave (and I have it set to lock itself after 5 minutes)
I do too, but I find that this is very uncommon and not even a standard policy, which is just weird to me. I think this is by far the biggest security concern in a regular office today.
I have only seen it strongly enforced at one place ever (and I've been a cosnultant, so I have seen several dozen companies), and the way it was enforced there was that whenever someone from IT spotted a non-locked PC, they changed the background picture to pr0n!
That way, it was obvious to everyone that there had been a major screwup, and the person who had forgotten to lock the computer was embarrased as hell. I spent almost a year at that company and only saw two unlocked PCs during that whole time.
What's with the 40 h/week? If there is one thing that is needed around the clock, surely it's security. Or are the bad guys also only working 40 hour weeks? And if so, is it really probable that that would be the *same* 40 hours?
Also, the $1M figure seems quite low. Anyone would care to guess what security for GWB costs? I'd guess about 100 times as much.
Although it is claimed that every game of Freecell can be won, try going File > Select Game and entering -1 as your game. Beat that if you can!
It isn't claimed. In fact, one of the original game #s, 11,982, isn't solvable either.
That said, the help file still says "It is believed (although not proven) that every game is winnable", but that is both untrue and technically different from statting that it is claimed.
I mostly agree on the Amazon user reviews, but I still find them highly informative and valuable. The trick is to disregard the four and five star reviews and read the lower rated ones.
If a book gets loads of one and two star reviews from right wing evangelical nutcases who can't spell, it's probably a good book. This is quite common for books by Pinker, Dawkins, Dennett etc. (For some reason, I don't see too many reviews from the left wing nutcases. Why is that?)
If, on the other hand, the one star reviews are pointing out specific problems with the book, chanses are they have a point.
There is one thing to look out for, though. In some highly competetive markets, in particular computer books, I've heard that there are sock puppets who not only praises their own books but also spends considerable time dissing competitors. I usually don't buy too many books in that segment anyway, so for me this isn't an issue, but I assume the average slashdotter does, so mea culpa!
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, there are clones that emulate part of the functionality. Unfortunately, in the real world that is not close enough.
Build a better Excel and the people with money (and, accordingly, influence) will stampede to Linux.
As everyone knows, people should only use their computers to update them so that they are completely unvulnerable against any kind of attack. They should definitely not be used for work! Never! Work is boring. Besides, Linux doesn't support it, so it can't be important, either, can it?
You may think whatever you like abot these different formats. The thing is that a format dies when the *last publisher/distributor* stops using that format, not when the *first pundit* suggest that it will die.
I'm glad you could appreciate why all the earlier pundits who suggested that media format x would die out were wrong. Too bad you can't see the similarity between that and your own argument.
Time will prove me right. In twenty years I'll write a book about this. It will be published in paper. Your kids will suggest that it would have been easier to read on the text scroller in ther sun glasses. Everyone else will by the paper copy of the book.
Mr. Einstein on line 1, sir.
There are outher sources of energy than oil, however. GWB may not be able to pronounce any of them, but they are still there. (Of course, Norway has loads and loads of hydro power as well...)
Yes, just as radio killed newspapers, movies killed the radio, TV killed movies and the video killed TV.
If "do away with" means "decrease market share" you are probably right. If it means do away with, you are wrong. (Unless your time perspective is 100+ years, in which case there are a number of generations having to die off.)
On the contrary, the point is that even a beginner's course can expose an argument as completely flawed. The opposite is not true, of course.
This all started with some poor clueless slashdotter arguing that supply and demand were bogus because we had seen a tripling of oil prices but not a tripling in demand. Surely even you can spot the fallacy in that argument?
One may of course argue about the definition of "executives", but "employees at Enron broke the law" is 100% verified as tru.
Some people have pleaded guilty to some crimes (or at least misdemeanors?) so it is indeed true that Enron executives broke the law.
Yes, just like every stock market in the rest of the world immediately collapsed because only the US had the great fortitude to implement such a brilliant law.
Oh, wait! That didn't happen! If anything, the opposite happened.
Second, every company in the US now knew of these "unique" accounting practices that could instanteously increase their profit margin. I'm not saying that all corporations would do this, but a sizable percentage would, especially if they perceived that there were low risk (remember, it took over 5 years to bring the Enron Executives to court).
So, could you tell us a little about these practices? Also, could you tell us a little bit about why the Enron executives are in a trial right now?
The truth of the matter is that what Enron did wasn't legal before SOX. SOX may, or may not, help discover cases like that sooner, but do note two things:
1. SOX won't stop another company from "pulling an Enron" just like a law on speed limits won't prevent someone who wants to drive 200 mph from doing that.
2. There are costs associated with the enforcement of all laws, and SOX adds more costs than any other law I can think of. If we added one million traffic cops, speeding would be completely eliminated because everyone speeding would be caught. Since speeding is a major cause of accidents, and accidents cost money to society, society would be better off. Surely you can spot the fallacy of that argument?
The argument isn't "everything SOX does and stand for is completely evil". The argument is that costs are bigger than benefits. Such an argument can only be settled by actually looking at costs.
What GP tried to tell you was that "linear" *isn't* in the book. Supply and demand curves can look widely different depending on the good, but assuming that either curve is linear is almost always incorrect.
Also, even if both the supply and the demand curves are in fact linear, that doesn't mean that the tripling of the price should imply that supply or demand has changed by a factor of three. That obviously depends on the slope of the curves.
Yes, we are working on redesigning the site and the company we are using for this are your typical "new media" buzzword spreaders, so they obviously use Macs.
Come to think of it, they are probably the ones responsible for the bulk of the Mac visits. I have *never* seen a Mac in a financial company, a bank or a utility and those are our main customers.
(I should be explicit and say that I am talking about front and back office users here, not people at their respective marketing departments who may or may not use Macs but are almost guaranteed not to use our site.)
Even then, you have to be goatse to catch the baseball, I think...
Both the links you provided time out for me. I assume you just slashdotted them...
Possibly for home users, but I really doubt it for business users. These are the stats from our site, a pan Nordic commodities site. We serve a little over 3M pages/month, so it's a small but not tiny site, I would say. Browsers:
The big question mark here is "unknown". I think it's automated programs that retrieve stuff programatically. We have prices and other figures that are frequently updated, so that would make some sense.
Looking at OS:
Same question for "unknown", but this gives a Mac/Linux share well below 3% each.
I do realize that the figures for slashdot.org are *completely* different.
This is so heads on! Thanks for something that is both insightful and funny at the same time!
You do realize that these are two conflicting pricing structures that are incompatible and inconsistent, right?
What, pray tell, "should" they get?
Eh, mea culpa. I should have written "makes them less money than they could get". Sorry, I agree that it was incrompehensible as it stood.
No, actually, the point is that you don't know the first thing about pricing, and, to quote a famous thinker "since when did ignorance become a point of view?"
The classic example of pricing schemse such as this is in pocket calculators where an entire line of calculators use the same chip and the only difference is the number of buttons (i.e. functions) actually implemented by wiring.
But I assume you know that the Japanses companies were morons as well...
It's sort of funny to see so many people here simultaneously pour hate on MS (and Google and other successfull companies as well) for making so much money and for supposedly bad business practices that makes them less money than they shoud get...
The GP doesn't indicate if that was the case or not, but I know that when I used ZoneAlarm, I never even once denied an application access.
I am willing to bet good money that in 90% of typical homes, the users accept everything. Or they deny one thing once which they should have accepted, which breaks some functionality. They then "learn the lesson" and accept everything from then on, including whatever malware they may have.
Come to think of it, I have never heard of a success story where someone got infected, but micromanaging the firewall prevented the infection from creating havoc. I'm sure they exist, but I doubt they are common.
A previous poster mentioned SecurID from RSA or similar solutions: a small device, typically attached to your keychain, that displays a six figure number that changes every minute. In order to login, you use username and a password consisting of your password and the six figures from the ScurID concatenated.
In such a setting, giving away your password is meaningless and never happens. This system works surprisingly well. I've used it a three different places, and find it far better than anything else I've seen.
I do too, but I find that this is very uncommon and not even a standard policy, which is just weird to me. I think this is by far the biggest security concern in a regular office today.
I have only seen it strongly enforced at one place ever (and I've been a cosnultant, so I have seen several dozen companies), and the way it was enforced there was that whenever someone from IT spotted a non-locked PC, they changed the background picture to pr0n!
That way, it was obvious to everyone that there had been a major screwup, and the person who had forgotten to lock the computer was embarrased as hell. I spent almost a year at that company and only saw two unlocked PCs during that whole time.
Similarily, Amazon obviously spends a *lot* more than $1M on security per year, as does any company of some size.
Also, the $1M figure seems quite low. Anyone would care to guess what security for GWB costs? I'd guess about 100 times as much.
It isn't claimed. In fact, one of the original game #s, 11,982, isn't solvable either.
That said, the help file still says "It is believed (although not proven) that every game is winnable", but that is both untrue and technically different from statting that it is claimed.
If a book gets loads of one and two star reviews from right wing evangelical nutcases who can't spell, it's probably a good book. This is quite common for books by Pinker, Dawkins, Dennett etc. (For some reason, I don't see too many reviews from the left wing nutcases. Why is that?)
If, on the other hand, the one star reviews are pointing out specific problems with the book, chanses are they have a point.
There is one thing to look out for, though. In some highly competetive markets, in particular computer books, I've heard that there are sock puppets who not only praises their own books but also spends considerable time dissing competitors. I usually don't buy too many books in that segment anyway, so for me this isn't an issue, but I assume the average slashdotter does, so mea culpa!