Head on collisions fare better with an SUV and if your SUV wants to overtake a smaller vehicle from behind, thats a good one too.
It's worth noting the only reason that the SUV fares "better" in these scenarios has to do with its height off of the ground. In a head-on or rear-end collision, the car that is higher off of the ground sustains less damage to the chassis, as full-contact isn't always made. (Especially in a head-on collision--I've seen some accidents where the hood of the smaller car went completely under the SUV.)
Let them buy them, though. As long as people are willing to pay the financial consequences of moronic purchasing decisions, I don't really care. Maybe they'll get so tired of spending $100 a tank that they'll pressure the government more for alternative energies.
Um, that's why "analyst" is in the title. They are "analyzing" the help desk by performing statistical "analysis." What is done with that data is really up to the administrators of the company, but I'd say the title is fairly straightforward. Sort of like the "financial auditor" isn't involved in the financial process. That's what the accountants do; he just audits them.
Dell's computers aren't cheaper than Apples for the same thing.
That's really not true, unless you're going to get into a hissy fit about what's onboard and what's not. If we're going to go on a hardware basis, comparing the video card, RAM, CPU, hard drive, screen size, etc., Dells (after coupons, which are essentially always available) and HPs are much more aggressively priced than Apple computers. The thing is, Apple only has three lines of "mainstream" computers: the Macbook, the Macbook Pro, and the iMac. Each of those is a fairly specialized machine, so a real one-to-one comparison is essentially impossible. (Compare this to HP and Dell, where the differences between any two given machines, because of the plethora of hardware options, is much smaller and thus more easily quantifiable.) And then there's always the question of the OS and how much value that adds. But on a pound-for-pound hardware-only basis, the mainstream Macs are more expensive than their PC counterparts, even if you add the onboard options (like firewire) as add-in cards, which are always more expensive than their onboard counterparts.
On the flip side, though, the Mac Pro is incredibly well-priced. Anandtech posted some interesting reviews of it, though, and it looks like the decision to go with FB-DIMMs is a real thorn in its side. Besides that, though, it looks like a knockout machine. I'm really not sure how Apple did it, but kudos to them.
A word of advice: generally, telling someone that your joke was funny is not going to make them think it actually was. I agree with you, though; flamebait doesn't really fit.
Then it's a monopoly "regulated" only by keeping its price just low enough to keep competition out.
Exactly. They have, in effect, found the market equilibrium of supply and demand. If they charge too much, a competitor enters the arena. Then they can lower their prices in an effort to keep the competitor out, and then raise them again once the competitor leaves, but the end result is that the company can never consistently use its monopoly powers effectively because there is nothing to prevent someone else from coming along and establishing a business.
The problem is when there is an actual barrier to entry, like the government. It's not Verizon that keeps other companies from laying down fibre--it's the government. As long as you have perfect availability of information (another tenet of capitalism) then the market will determine how much it values a good--whether that good is produced by one company or fifty is really inconsequential. A monopoly is only negative when it artificially maintains itself; i.e. when it resorts to measures outside of the market. To date there has never been a monopoly that has been an "efficient monopoly," or one that actually provides the good to market efficiently enough that competition cannot provide the good cheaper. They have all resorted to unfair business practices, thus becoming coercive monopolies. But that is the only time a government needs to step in, and even then, it's in lieu of what should be the market regulating itself--if people actually gave a damn about business, they would use their own market power to effectively boycott a firm engaging in coercive tactics. The market isn't meant to be a static, idiotic figure--we are expected to respond in kind.
It's not about performance. Read that again. In today's market, it's about the platform and the pricing as much as it is about the product. Core 2 is too expensive ($240 for a 2.13GHz Core 2). Most of the market doesn't care whether or not Intel's $250 CPU beats AMD's $250 CPU (as it turns out, the competition is remarkably close). It's not about Athlon X2 vs Core 2. It's about Sempron vs. Celeron.
It's nowhere near close, first of all. It's just not. Look here and here for proof. (I hate linking THG, but the numbers at Anandtech agree with what they've posted.) And the Core 2 Duo is too expensive at retail, but not for OEMs like Dell or HP. They're the ones sucking up the supply. Considering how aggressively the chips are priced (even the E6300 beats all but the highest-clocked X2s), this is truly dangerous for AMD. You're right to posit that it's the budget market that determines who really "wins," but it's no longer Sempron vs. Celeron, it's Sempron vs. P4, because those prices were slashed to hell. Intel has better performing parts in every price range. That's a very scary thing for AMD to face.
One could say the same thing about Intel. From the release of Athlon 64 to the release of Core 2, nothing that Intel has released for desktop computers has even been close to the AMD equivolent.
But they more than made up for it in the laptop segment--which is where Intel knew to throw its weight, because now it's come full circle. AMD, on the other hand, has made no significant chipset or CPU updates since the X2. The manufacturing capacity is something I did not consider and you're right to call me out on it, but even so, I can't help but wonder what AMD's R&D division has been doing this entire time. It's been eons since the A64 first came out. It's seen plenty of revisions, sure, but when are we going to see a new chip? They need something to even the performance/price ratio.
I'm actually reviewing intellectual property right now online--I'm beginning to realize I have a much more extreme stance on the ownership of that which the intellect creates than is considered the "norm," and is protected by law. I do believe that someone's intellectual property can be "stolen," and I see the downloading of music as intellectual theft. (Provided of course the artist has asked to be compensated for his/her work.) I view the copyright and patent laws as means of rewarding someone for previous labors--whether they're achieving that is, as you said, worthy of debate. (I agree with you, coincidentally--I don't think they're working either.) But the nature of copyright law is something I agree with: if someone expends their time and energy creating an idea (or a piece of music) then they have the right to determine how that idea (or music, or whatever) is distributed. (I actually believe they own the idea, but this is something that is considered "extreme" so I have to do more research to find some counter-arguments to my position.) Any attempts to circumvent the limits they impose constitutes intellectual theft. But, like I said, I need to read more--I was unaware of how far from the current body of law my position is.
Why do you think that, given the well-known fact that companies that undergo significant layoffs underperform the market for the next few years?
I can't find any documentation that would suggest this is true. Can you provide studies or empirical examples?
"This job cut may help" would be a rational statement. "This cut is going to help" indicates an unjustified level of confidence in anyone's ability to predict the consequences of a complex action within an evolving market.
You're right; I am probably placing too much confidence in the assumption that Intel is bloated, and that having fewer workers will not negatively impact their production or service capability. It may be better to say instead that I sincerely doubt the job cuts will negatively affect performance.
Actually, this is exactly Capitalism in it's mature form.
No, it's not. There is no free market. Capitalism in a "mature form" was pre-Great Depression, when government regulation was very low. America was the wealthiest country on the planet and had the highest standard of living. The problem at that time, though, was that capitalism in its purest form is extremely responsive to market forces, so when the stock market bottomed out from over-speculation, it literally sent shockwaves through the rest of the American economy. The famines of the time didn't help either.
As a result, the government stepped in to try and blunt the blow. Whether or not this worked (or was even a smart thing to do) is still being debated. But what has happened since is that the "New Deal" has not yet been dismantled, but instead has grown as the government regulated more markets. The reason Verizon gets away with shit like this is because the government will not let anyone else run wire. You think if anyone could lay down fiber that we would be having this problem? Verizon would have its ass handed to it. Competition makes the world go round--just look at the cellular industry. There's no regulation there; none of the big companies are granted monopolies. As a result, prices continue to fall. (Although the big telcos are doing everything in their power to establish the wireless market as a replica of the wired one.)
We need to get the government OUT of business again. I'm sure there's a middle ground where a safety net is provided to prevent another Great Depression, without letting big business control whatever the hell they want. But don't kid yourself and say "this is capitalism": we haven't had real capitalism, as it is laid out on paper by Adam Smith, since before the 1930s.
Hooray for competition, this clearly signals the end of the monopoly.
I beg your pardon? Intel is absolutely dominating AMD in the notebook market. It already had the vast majority in the desktop market, and with the release of the Core 2 Duo, it's only going to get worse. And on top of that, the new Xeons are better performers than the Opterons in every server test you can imagine. (Although Opteron scalability is still more efficient, thanks to the on-die memory controller.) The "monopoly" was shattered with the release of the AMD64; now Intel is trying to make sure that never happens again. AMD's certainly making it easy for them; they've been twiddling their thumbs (or have done a great job at acting like they have) for the past three years. Things are looking better than ever for Intel. And this job cut is only going to help.
A better analogy would be if you asked the BMW driver if you could use your Super-Duper Cloning Machine to make an exact copy of his car and you drive the copy - but even that isn't entirely accurate as the BMW owner may perceive that the value of his expensive car will go down the more people there are driving it.
That's not a good analogy either, because it ignores the team of scientists and engineers who originally designed his car. They are the ones who made money off of his purchase, and they are the ones who want you to pay for their product. Just because you couldn't afford the car doesn't mean you have the right to steal it because "you wouldn't buy it anyway." You are reaping the benefits of their work and they have asked to be compensated for it. A good has been produced, and it has a price associated with it. If you can't afford it, too bad. You do not have the right to steal any part of it, including its intellectual property--which is what you would do if you stuck it into your cloning machine. If the good were so easy to conceptualize and produce, then its price wouldn't be as high as it is. This is not a victimless crime; viewing theft as valid only when it affects physical property is a very juvenile way to look at the situation.
Unequivocably, yes. There are a few exceptions where that is not the case, and that usually involves trespass or using someone else's property without their permission. Ideas can't be patented, trademarked or copyrighted.
You're arguing against the concept of private property here. I'm not saying somebody's work in general, or an idea--I am directly referencing a good that someone else produces for the sole purpose of selling for income. If someone cuts down a tree of their own volition, you are not obligated to pay them, certainly--but if that person cuts down a tree to sell its lumber, and you take some of that wood, you are taking advantage of his/her work. If the person had said earlier that you were welcome to wood as long as you paid him for his labor in cutting down the tree, and you refused to do so, there's no doubt that you have no right to the wood. This is a pretty big distinction. If you don't believe that private property is valid, then we're arguing the wrong thing altogether.
See this is where things get complicated. I can't ethically compel someone to do work for me, but should someone be able to ethically compel me to pay for their work?
That depends on the circumstance. If their work was not requested, then of course not. But in this case, you are consciously deciding to take advantage of what someone else has produced, when they have clearly stated they wish to be paid for its usage. They have every right to ethically compel you to pay for their work--you decided it had value, and thus you decided to use it. Its usage is not free, by their decision, so they've got the ethical high ground.
I can't steal music, I can only steal the medium the music is stored on.
That's a silly distinction to make. That's like saying: "I can't steal air, I can only steal the compressed air canisters that happen to have usable air inside of them." Well, yes, clearly--but the air is of no use to you unless it is in that form. Likewise, the music only has value to someone if it is in a format that they can consume. (Consume being used abstractly here.) So it's not a big leap to go from: "I steal the medium on which music is stored" to "I steal music." The two are functionally equivalent. I understand that you are trying to separate the intellectual property (the music that the musician created) and its means of distribution (CDs, tapes, etc.) but to do so makes no sense, because the former is essentially useless to us without the latter.
Now you have to understand is in the case of pirated music someone paid for it. The musician has been paid. The people who are loosing money are the people who make the physical storage devices for the music, they aren't getting paid because people aren't buying their music storage devices because the internet obsoletes them.
This is not entirely true--your logic is sound, but it doesn't accurately reflect the market. When a musician is contracted, yes, they are paid a lump sum, but this is an advance, not an independent payment. The artist actually ends up paying it back in royalties, assuming he/she is successful. The artist also pays back numerous other sums too--really, the recording artist gets fairly dicked in the recording industry. But if enough albums are sold, the royalties exceed the costs and the artist actually starts making money. So what happens if he/she stops selling albums? You guessed it--the artist is screwed. (Check here for a succinct, if simplistic, summary of how music royalties work.)
So it's not really how you've painted it to be--the musician getting paid is in fact directly related to whether or not people are buying his/her albums. If the musician is smart, he/she will try to use his/her fame to secure an endorsement deal, or arrange for private appearances (if the contract allows it), but
Your post isn't making a lot of sense to me. At first you say:
If I buy a chair and then make one just like it, it's in no way wrong. If I had a chair-copying machine, and started churning out copies, it still wouldnt be wrong. Yet you somehow appear to believe that ease of duplication should merit legal prevention of such duplication?
which would imply that you reject outright the idea of intellectual property. But then you go on to state:
Yes, the economy as a whole constantly loses because of intellectual property.
which seems to be a contradiction, but then the rest of your post concentrates on the generation of wealth and the evils of monopolies.
It seems to me that there needs to be a moral judgement made at the very beginning: if someone else has invested time/money/whatever into creating a unique good, and it is their intent to sell it for profit, do you (or anyone else) have the right to benefit from their work without compensating them? I would argue that you do not, because theft is not restricted to monetary loss alone. (And so the argument made earlier by another poster, "it's ok because I wouldn't have bought it anyway," is intellectually bereft.) If you are unwilling to pay for the work of another, and they do not offer it for free, you're not entitled to it, plain and simple. There's not really much more to the morality of that argument, as I see it.
However, that does not justify DRM in its current form. I think the most rational solution to the problem is one that we won't be able to get to for another fifteen-to-twenty years: we need to lay down a wireless network over the entire world, and have all music be accessible from a central repository, from any handheld device. So, if I buy any version of an album, I am guaranteed access at all times to that album in the central server, and any portable device (or networked computer device) can access the server at any time. If a music file is "protected" but that protection is transparent to me, then I don't really care. What bothers me about DRM is not the attempt to enforce copyright (although that entire industry needs serious reform), but the fact that DRM prevents me from taking a legally purchased song and moving it around. I want to be able to play media at any time, from any location, period. If they can allow me that freedom while making sure others can't access the music illegally, then I say let them. (Although I'll be honest, I'll probably be cheering the loudest if record companies went belly-up.)
Personally, I realize it is a mistake to allow those in the so-called "United States" to manufacture or hold any kind of device that could be used as a weapon or in war. The consequence of allowing rogue colonists such tools were revealed to the British in 1776. That is a mistake we shall not repeat. Next time we cross the Atlantic, it shall be as Henry V took Agincourt: outnumbered but fitted with superior tools and men. Once more unto the breach, dear friends.
I, for one, welcome our British overlords. (Is that the proper response here?)
Really, could HP have more prominently declared that their traditional business model was failing miserably? After all, why try and provide a good or a service unsuccessfully, when you can just throw some patents around and generate instant income? The quality of HP products is no longer in question, because they've dealt their own credibility a far worse blow than any other competitor (or exploding battery) could ever do: they have consciously decided to invest in patent trolling, instead of spending that money on providing better products/service. Way to go, HP. Been taking business lessons from Sony?
Sharing files is almost a capitcal crime in the U.S.A.
That's really the $1 million question. And it's pretty obviously not, as far as I can tell--a publicly accessible website is not the best way to hide your personal information. All the RIAA or MPAA needs is an IP address to file suit against you; this is like handing it to them on a silver platter. You'll be hard-pressed to claim you "didn't know you were uploading files" when you have a webpage that indexes the copyrighted material you chose to share.
However, this program has great implications. It's a much more efficient way of distributing content than setting up a download server, and it eliminates the normal hassle of configuring a server and tracker. Just imagine how much crappy talent is out there, waiting to be discovered but for lack of a cheap, simple distribution model. Future Jackass! stuntment, your grail has arrived.
Re:Find that in the Constitution, bright boy.
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4th ammendment. WHy can't the government search my papers and posessions? Because I have an inherent right to privacy.
Nowhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights is a right to privacy from other private entities implied. The US has been lax to regulate privacy from corporate entities for that very reason: technically, it does not have the right. A law of that nature could easily be struck down in a court because there's no constitutional basis for privacy from anything but the government.
My right to privacy never stops- its an inherent right of humanity.
That's an interesting philosophical point, and one that's not really espoused by most of the philosophers on whose work our government is based. Is this something you believe personally, or is there a particular work you believe best defends this view? Because in the US, (and forgive me if you are not a US citizen), the right to privacy is an implied right, and not explicitly stated in the Constitution. It really only manifested itself in the 20th century after numerous Supreme Court decisions, and in those cases governs only a person's privacy from the government, not necessarily other private entities. Are you saying you think the right to privacy should extend further?
A possible, though I would say far from assured, conclusion. And? This would be a bad thing?
I think it's fairly certain that, had the UK and America not provided a second front for the Nazis, the Germans would have steamrolled over the Russians. Nazi communiques consistently cursed British resilience in both Africa and on the British mainland precisely because they were drawing resources away from the much more important (and bloody) Eastern front. If Germany had been able to mobilize all of its divisions on the Soviets by the end of 1940. there is no way the Soviets could have held. The USSR was not really at wartime capacity until well after the initial German invasion, and it was a combination of good luck and bad weather that slowed the German advance enough to allow the Soviets time to recover from the attack. If Germany had thrown all of its weight behind the Eastern Army, the initial assault would have been much more devastating, and since there would be no forthcoming respite (remember, Hitler began pulling troops off of the Eastern front against the advice of his generals to combat Allied advances in the African campaign), it's safe to say the USSR would have crumbled under the onslaught.
Even so, the addition of a little Island in the north sea, and even the more substantial chunk of western europe that is France, to Germany and Austria would hardly have transformed Hitlers Reich into a global Empire. Europe is a small percentage of Earth's landmass.
You are being incredibly naive here if you think landmass is how we should measure the importance of Europe. Europe was the industrial heart of the world at this time. Had the Third Reich been able to extend its influence over all of it, it would have effectively ruled the world. I don't care how much land there is outside of Europe: if you control almost all of the factories in the world, you control the world, period.
First you're exagerating the land area considerably (the Soviets never controlled China, just Siberia, which is a totally different thing - and even if the Germans had managed to destroy the Soviet army and taken Moscow, that's still a very long, cold journey from Kamchatka) - you've gone from 'defeated the red army' to 'controls all the territory of the soviet union' in one huge, unwarranted leap.
Perhaps he should have said "Axis powers" instead of "Germany." Had the USSR fallen, the only thing keeping Japan from seizing all of East Asia (and you're crazy if you think the Chinese were mounting an effective resistance) would have been removed. So he's right--the Axis powers would have controlled the entire Eurasian landmass. And another absolutely essential part of the world is smack-dab in the middle of that landmass: the Middle East.
Think about this - did the conquest of Holland make Germany stronger? How about Belgium? France? Bohemia? Poland? Were those, in the end, assets to the third Reich? Quite the contrary, they were liabilities. In each case, and if you'll study history a bit you'll see this is hardly exceptional, these conquests were at least as much liability as asset. In each case, territory was added, yes, but that territory was occupied by a hostile population. Resistance cells formed immediately. Germany had limited manpower and limited resources, and each conquest stretched her thinner, because hostile populations cannot be trusted, they must be occupied, patrolled, kept under heel firmly or they bite back. This is the weakness of Empire.
You have an interesting argument, but it is essentially pointless. Ok, so a German "empire" would not have been a good idea. But that's not really the point: Germany has never been much in favor of colonies or occupations, so its somewhat suspect to think they would have done the same here. But they would have been completely unopposed in Europe and Asia, and that's all it would take. It would have been a superpower to much
I agree with a lot of your points, but in all honesty, creating the state of Palestine would not stop Islamic extremism--and that's truly the source of the conflict. Doing what you say would do a lot to sway general public opinion in the Middle East towards America--which would be extremely important--but there needs to be a concerted effort by Muslims in the region to wrest control of their religion and their governments from the crazy sons of bitches that currently run the show. There needs to be a dramatic internal purge of Islamic, conducted by Muslims, to remove the extremism that is destroying their society. Right now, the Arab world is ambivalent to terrorism--if not quietly supportive. And there is not going to be any progress in the region until they start actively opposing it.
Iran is only slightly different, but the same general principle applies. The real problem in the entire region is that a philosophy that embraces death, as opposed to life, has taken root and is not being weeded out. The real tragedy of it is that our foreign policy has been so misguided and imbalanced that the aforementioned philosophy is often seen as the only way of gaining justice--so rather than despising terrorism and Islamic extremism for what it is, they've accepted it as a viable political avenue for change, and the only one that has ever been successful. America can't do anything to change that acceptance; it has to come from within. All we need to do is prove that we care, that we're not going to be so one-sided in the future (both of which our president has failed fucking MISERABLY at doing) and then step back and pray that the change will happen. But I'm an Iranian Muslim, and I'm not kidding myself any longer: there's an honest chance that my culture and my religion may never turn back from this road, and will be completely destroyed--from without or within--before the end of the century.
Rember that for some Japanese the war was an attempt to free asian people from the suppression by western powers. They were actually doing a noble thing.
I'm sure they told themselves that when they were raping women in Korea... and then in Manchuko... and then in Indonesia... and then in the Phillipines. They were fiercely expansionist and committed unspeakable crimes against the Asian population. But you're right; we shouldn't have objected to that by refusing to fuel their war machine.
You know what pisses me off SO MUCH about people like you? (And the posts before yours?) You are more concerned with avoiding "hypocrisy" than actually preventing war crimes. You throw around bullshit phrases like: "that's so hypocritical; Europeans were doing it, why couldn't the Japanese?" as if that somehow reflects anything but your own idiocy. It was wrong when the Europeans did it, and it was wrong when the Japanese did it. Big fucking deal if America was quicker to stop the Japanese than the Europeans--at least they stopped someone. You'd rather attribute our intervention to scheming and political machinations than the very simple explanation that Japan was running rampant through Asia, attacking our allies (China comes to mind), and we decided: "Hey, you know, this is wrong." And suddenly, because we didn't say that every time there was aggression in the history of the fucking world, suddenly the act loses all moral implications and becomes evil and self-serving. Well fuck that. Japan did some horrible, horrible shit between 1930 and 1945, and I am very proud that America didn't stand for it.
Perhaps I am misinterpreting what you have said...
What I was trying to say was that it doesn't matter what you label yourself as, in their eyes. If you don't believe exactly what they believe, then you are not Muslim, and fit only for execution. And they decide what you believe, regardless of what you profess. So, even if the entire world was Muslim, it wouldn't stop them, because they'd soon find excuses enough to continue the killing. They won't be satisfied until everyone is dead--including themselves--because then there won't be any more unbelievers.
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It's worth noting the only reason that the SUV fares "better" in these scenarios has to do with its height off of the ground. In a head-on or rear-end collision, the car that is higher off of the ground sustains less damage to the chassis, as full-contact isn't always made. (Especially in a head-on collision--I've seen some accidents where the hood of the smaller car went completely under the SUV.)
Let them buy them, though. As long as people are willing to pay the financial consequences of moronic purchasing decisions, I don't really care. Maybe they'll get so tired of spending $100 a tank that they'll pressure the government more for alternative energies.
Um, that's why "analyst" is in the title. They are "analyzing" the help desk by performing statistical "analysis." What is done with that data is really up to the administrators of the company, but I'd say the title is fairly straightforward. Sort of like the "financial auditor" isn't involved in the financial process. That's what the accountants do; he just audits them.
That's really not true, unless you're going to get into a hissy fit about what's onboard and what's not. If we're going to go on a hardware basis, comparing the video card, RAM, CPU, hard drive, screen size, etc., Dells (after coupons, which are essentially always available) and HPs are much more aggressively priced than Apple computers. The thing is, Apple only has three lines of "mainstream" computers: the Macbook, the Macbook Pro, and the iMac. Each of those is a fairly specialized machine, so a real one-to-one comparison is essentially impossible. (Compare this to HP and Dell, where the differences between any two given machines, because of the plethora of hardware options, is much smaller and thus more easily quantifiable.) And then there's always the question of the OS and how much value that adds. But on a pound-for-pound hardware-only basis, the mainstream Macs are more expensive than their PC counterparts, even if you add the onboard options (like firewire) as add-in cards, which are always more expensive than their onboard counterparts.
On the flip side, though, the Mac Pro is incredibly well-priced. Anandtech posted some interesting reviews of it, though, and it looks like the decision to go with FB-DIMMs is a real thorn in its side. Besides that, though, it looks like a knockout machine. I'm really not sure how Apple did it, but kudos to them.
A word of advice: generally, telling someone that your joke was funny is not going to make them think it actually was. I agree with you, though; flamebait doesn't really fit.
Wow. You mean 51st?
Exactly. They have, in effect, found the market equilibrium of supply and demand. If they charge too much, a competitor enters the arena. Then they can lower their prices in an effort to keep the competitor out, and then raise them again once the competitor leaves, but the end result is that the company can never consistently use its monopoly powers effectively because there is nothing to prevent someone else from coming along and establishing a business.
The problem is when there is an actual barrier to entry, like the government. It's not Verizon that keeps other companies from laying down fibre--it's the government. As long as you have perfect availability of information (another tenet of capitalism) then the market will determine how much it values a good--whether that good is produced by one company or fifty is really inconsequential. A monopoly is only negative when it artificially maintains itself; i.e. when it resorts to measures outside of the market. To date there has never been a monopoly that has been an "efficient monopoly," or one that actually provides the good to market efficiently enough that competition cannot provide the good cheaper. They have all resorted to unfair business practices, thus becoming coercive monopolies. But that is the only time a government needs to step in, and even then, it's in lieu of what should be the market regulating itself--if people actually gave a damn about business, they would use their own market power to effectively boycott a firm engaging in coercive tactics. The market isn't meant to be a static, idiotic figure--we are expected to respond in kind.
It's nowhere near close, first of all. It's just not. Look here and here for proof. (I hate linking THG, but the numbers at Anandtech agree with what they've posted.) And the Core 2 Duo is too expensive at retail, but not for OEMs like Dell or HP. They're the ones sucking up the supply. Considering how aggressively the chips are priced (even the E6300 beats all but the highest-clocked X2s), this is truly dangerous for AMD. You're right to posit that it's the budget market that determines who really "wins," but it's no longer Sempron vs. Celeron, it's Sempron vs. P4, because those prices were slashed to hell. Intel has better performing parts in every price range. That's a very scary thing for AMD to face.
But they more than made up for it in the laptop segment--which is where Intel knew to throw its weight, because now it's come full circle. AMD, on the other hand, has made no significant chipset or CPU updates since the X2. The manufacturing capacity is something I did not consider and you're right to call me out on it, but even so, I can't help but wonder what AMD's R&D division has been doing this entire time. It's been eons since the A64 first came out. It's seen plenty of revisions, sure, but when are we going to see a new chip? They need something to even the performance/price ratio.
I'm actually reviewing intellectual property right now online--I'm beginning to realize I have a much more extreme stance on the ownership of that which the intellect creates than is considered the "norm," and is protected by law. I do believe that someone's intellectual property can be "stolen," and I see the downloading of music as intellectual theft. (Provided of course the artist has asked to be compensated for his/her work.) I view the copyright and patent laws as means of rewarding someone for previous labors--whether they're achieving that is, as you said, worthy of debate. (I agree with you, coincidentally--I don't think they're working either.) But the nature of copyright law is something I agree with: if someone expends their time and energy creating an idea (or a piece of music) then they have the right to determine how that idea (or music, or whatever) is distributed. (I actually believe they own the idea, but this is something that is considered "extreme" so I have to do more research to find some counter-arguments to my position.) Any attempts to circumvent the limits they impose constitutes intellectual theft. But, like I said, I need to read more--I was unaware of how far from the current body of law my position is.
I can't find any documentation that would suggest this is true. Can you provide studies or empirical examples?
You're right; I am probably placing too much confidence in the assumption that Intel is bloated, and that having fewer workers will not negatively impact their production or service capability. It may be better to say instead that I sincerely doubt the job cuts will negatively affect performance.
No, it's not. There is no free market. Capitalism in a "mature form" was pre-Great Depression, when government regulation was very low. America was the wealthiest country on the planet and had the highest standard of living. The problem at that time, though, was that capitalism in its purest form is extremely responsive to market forces, so when the stock market bottomed out from over-speculation, it literally sent shockwaves through the rest of the American economy. The famines of the time didn't help either.
As a result, the government stepped in to try and blunt the blow. Whether or not this worked (or was even a smart thing to do) is still being debated. But what has happened since is that the "New Deal" has not yet been dismantled, but instead has grown as the government regulated more markets. The reason Verizon gets away with shit like this is because the government will not let anyone else run wire. You think if anyone could lay down fiber that we would be having this problem? Verizon would have its ass handed to it. Competition makes the world go round--just look at the cellular industry. There's no regulation there; none of the big companies are granted monopolies. As a result, prices continue to fall. (Although the big telcos are doing everything in their power to establish the wireless market as a replica of the wired one.)
We need to get the government OUT of business again. I'm sure there's a middle ground where a safety net is provided to prevent another Great Depression, without letting big business control whatever the hell they want. But don't kid yourself and say "this is capitalism": we haven't had real capitalism, as it is laid out on paper by Adam Smith, since before the 1930s.
I beg your pardon? Intel is absolutely dominating AMD in the notebook market. It already had the vast majority in the desktop market, and with the release of the Core 2 Duo, it's only going to get worse. And on top of that, the new Xeons are better performers than the Opterons in every server test you can imagine. (Although Opteron scalability is still more efficient, thanks to the on-die memory controller.) The "monopoly" was shattered with the release of the AMD64; now Intel is trying to make sure that never happens again. AMD's certainly making it easy for them; they've been twiddling their thumbs (or have done a great job at acting like they have) for the past three years. Things are looking better than ever for Intel. And this job cut is only going to help.
That's not a good analogy either, because it ignores the team of scientists and engineers who originally designed his car. They are the ones who made money off of his purchase, and they are the ones who want you to pay for their product. Just because you couldn't afford the car doesn't mean you have the right to steal it because "you wouldn't buy it anyway." You are reaping the benefits of their work and they have asked to be compensated for it. A good has been produced, and it has a price associated with it. If you can't afford it, too bad. You do not have the right to steal any part of it, including its intellectual property--which is what you would do if you stuck it into your cloning machine. If the good were so easy to conceptualize and produce, then its price wouldn't be as high as it is. This is not a victimless crime; viewing theft as valid only when it affects physical property is a very juvenile way to look at the situation.
You're arguing against the concept of private property here. I'm not saying somebody's work in general, or an idea--I am directly referencing a good that someone else produces for the sole purpose of selling for income. If someone cuts down a tree of their own volition, you are not obligated to pay them, certainly--but if that person cuts down a tree to sell its lumber, and you take some of that wood, you are taking advantage of his/her work. If the person had said earlier that you were welcome to wood as long as you paid him for his labor in cutting down the tree, and you refused to do so, there's no doubt that you have no right to the wood. This is a pretty big distinction. If you don't believe that private property is valid, then we're arguing the wrong thing altogether.
That depends on the circumstance. If their work was not requested, then of course not. But in this case, you are consciously deciding to take advantage of what someone else has produced, when they have clearly stated they wish to be paid for its usage. They have every right to ethically compel you to pay for their work--you decided it had value, and thus you decided to use it. Its usage is not free, by their decision, so they've got the ethical high ground.
That's a silly distinction to make. That's like saying: "I can't steal air, I can only steal the compressed air canisters that happen to have usable air inside of them." Well, yes, clearly--but the air is of no use to you unless it is in that form. Likewise, the music only has value to someone if it is in a format that they can consume. (Consume being used abstractly here.) So it's not a big leap to go from: "I steal the medium on which music is stored" to "I steal music." The two are functionally equivalent. I understand that you are trying to separate the intellectual property (the music that the musician created) and its means of distribution (CDs, tapes, etc.) but to do so makes no sense, because the former is essentially useless to us without the latter.
This is not entirely true--your logic is sound, but it doesn't accurately reflect the market. When a musician is contracted, yes, they are paid a lump sum, but this is an advance, not an independent payment. The artist actually ends up paying it back in royalties, assuming he/she is successful. The artist also pays back numerous other sums too--really, the recording artist gets fairly dicked in the recording industry. But if enough albums are sold, the royalties exceed the costs and the artist actually starts making money. So what happens if he/she stops selling albums? You guessed it--the artist is screwed. (Check here for a succinct, if simplistic, summary of how music royalties work.)
So it's not really how you've painted it to be--the musician getting paid is in fact directly related to whether or not people are buying his/her albums. If the musician is smart, he/she will try to use his/her fame to secure an endorsement deal, or arrange for private appearances (if the contract allows it), but
Your post isn't making a lot of sense to me. At first you say:
which would imply that you reject outright the idea of intellectual property. But then you go on to state:
which seems to be a contradiction, but then the rest of your post concentrates on the generation of wealth and the evils of monopolies.
It seems to me that there needs to be a moral judgement made at the very beginning: if someone else has invested time/money/whatever into creating a unique good, and it is their intent to sell it for profit, do you (or anyone else) have the right to benefit from their work without compensating them? I would argue that you do not, because theft is not restricted to monetary loss alone. (And so the argument made earlier by another poster, "it's ok because I wouldn't have bought it anyway," is intellectually bereft.) If you are unwilling to pay for the work of another, and they do not offer it for free, you're not entitled to it, plain and simple. There's not really much more to the morality of that argument, as I see it.
However, that does not justify DRM in its current form. I think the most rational solution to the problem is one that we won't be able to get to for another fifteen-to-twenty years: we need to lay down a wireless network over the entire world, and have all music be accessible from a central repository, from any handheld device. So, if I buy any version of an album, I am guaranteed access at all times to that album in the central server, and any portable device (or networked computer device) can access the server at any time. If a music file is "protected" but that protection is transparent to me, then I don't really care. What bothers me about DRM is not the attempt to enforce copyright (although that entire industry needs serious reform), but the fact that DRM prevents me from taking a legally purchased song and moving it around. I want to be able to play media at any time, from any location, period. If they can allow me that freedom while making sure others can't access the music illegally, then I say let them. (Although I'll be honest, I'll probably be cheering the loudest if record companies went belly-up.)
Duly noted.
I, for one, welcome our British overlords. (Is that the proper response here?)
Really, could HP have more prominently declared that their traditional business model was failing miserably? After all, why try and provide a good or a service unsuccessfully, when you can just throw some patents around and generate instant income? The quality of HP products is no longer in question, because they've dealt their own credibility a far worse blow than any other competitor (or exploding battery) could ever do: they have consciously decided to invest in patent trolling, instead of spending that money on providing better products/service. Way to go, HP. Been taking business lessons from Sony?
Ok, because I'm a moron, the quoted text should read: "But is it anonymous?" and not "Sharing files..." My mistake.
That's really the $1 million question. And it's pretty obviously not, as far as I can tell--a publicly accessible website is not the best way to hide your personal information. All the RIAA or MPAA needs is an IP address to file suit against you; this is like handing it to them on a silver platter. You'll be hard-pressed to claim you "didn't know you were uploading files" when you have a webpage that indexes the copyrighted material you chose to share.
However, this program has great implications. It's a much more efficient way of distributing content than setting up a download server, and it eliminates the normal hassle of configuring a server and tracker. Just imagine how much crappy talent is out there, waiting to be discovered but for lack of a cheap, simple distribution model. Future Jackass! stuntment, your grail has arrived.
Nowhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights is a right to privacy from other private entities implied. The US has been lax to regulate privacy from corporate entities for that very reason: technically, it does not have the right. A law of that nature could easily be struck down in a court because there's no constitutional basis for privacy from anything but the government.
That's an interesting philosophical point, and one that's not really espoused by most of the philosophers on whose work our government is based. Is this something you believe personally, or is there a particular work you believe best defends this view? Because in the US, (and forgive me if you are not a US citizen), the right to privacy is an implied right, and not explicitly stated in the Constitution. It really only manifested itself in the 20th century after numerous Supreme Court decisions, and in those cases governs only a person's privacy from the government, not necessarily other private entities. Are you saying you think the right to privacy should extend further?
I think it's fairly certain that, had the UK and America not provided a second front for the Nazis, the Germans would have steamrolled over the Russians. Nazi communiques consistently cursed British resilience in both Africa and on the British mainland precisely because they were drawing resources away from the much more important (and bloody) Eastern front. If Germany had been able to mobilize all of its divisions on the Soviets by the end of 1940. there is no way the Soviets could have held. The USSR was not really at wartime capacity until well after the initial German invasion, and it was a combination of good luck and bad weather that slowed the German advance enough to allow the Soviets time to recover from the attack. If Germany had thrown all of its weight behind the Eastern Army, the initial assault would have been much more devastating, and since there would be no forthcoming respite (remember, Hitler began pulling troops off of the Eastern front against the advice of his generals to combat Allied advances in the African campaign), it's safe to say the USSR would have crumbled under the onslaught.
You are being incredibly naive here if you think landmass is how we should measure the importance of Europe. Europe was the industrial heart of the world at this time. Had the Third Reich been able to extend its influence over all of it, it would have effectively ruled the world. I don't care how much land there is outside of Europe: if you control almost all of the factories in the world, you control the world, period.
Perhaps he should have said "Axis powers" instead of "Germany." Had the USSR fallen, the only thing keeping Japan from seizing all of East Asia (and you're crazy if you think the Chinese were mounting an effective resistance) would have been removed. So he's right--the Axis powers would have controlled the entire Eurasian landmass. And another absolutely essential part of the world is smack-dab in the middle of that landmass: the Middle East.
You have an interesting argument, but it is essentially pointless. Ok, so a German "empire" would not have been a good idea. But that's not really the point: Germany has never been much in favor of colonies or occupations, so its somewhat suspect to think they would have done the same here. But they would have been completely unopposed in Europe and Asia, and that's all it would take. It would have been a superpower to much
I agree with a lot of your points, but in all honesty, creating the state of Palestine would not stop Islamic extremism--and that's truly the source of the conflict. Doing what you say would do a lot to sway general public opinion in the Middle East towards America--which would be extremely important--but there needs to be a concerted effort by Muslims in the region to wrest control of their religion and their governments from the crazy sons of bitches that currently run the show. There needs to be a dramatic internal purge of Islamic, conducted by Muslims, to remove the extremism that is destroying their society. Right now, the Arab world is ambivalent to terrorism--if not quietly supportive. And there is not going to be any progress in the region until they start actively opposing it.
Iran is only slightly different, but the same general principle applies. The real problem in the entire region is that a philosophy that embraces death, as opposed to life, has taken root and is not being weeded out. The real tragedy of it is that our foreign policy has been so misguided and imbalanced that the aforementioned philosophy is often seen as the only way of gaining justice--so rather than despising terrorism and Islamic extremism for what it is, they've accepted it as a viable political avenue for change, and the only one that has ever been successful. America can't do anything to change that acceptance; it has to come from within. All we need to do is prove that we care, that we're not going to be so one-sided in the future (both of which our president has failed fucking MISERABLY at doing) and then step back and pray that the change will happen. But I'm an Iranian Muslim, and I'm not kidding myself any longer: there's an honest chance that my culture and my religion may never turn back from this road, and will be completely destroyed--from without or within--before the end of the century.
I'm sure they told themselves that when they were raping women in Korea... and then in Manchuko... and then in Indonesia... and then in the Phillipines. They were fiercely expansionist and committed unspeakable crimes against the Asian population. But you're right; we shouldn't have objected to that by refusing to fuel their war machine.
You know what pisses me off SO MUCH about people like you? (And the posts before yours?) You are more concerned with avoiding "hypocrisy" than actually preventing war crimes. You throw around bullshit phrases like: "that's so hypocritical; Europeans were doing it, why couldn't the Japanese?" as if that somehow reflects anything but your own idiocy. It was wrong when the Europeans did it, and it was wrong when the Japanese did it. Big fucking deal if America was quicker to stop the Japanese than the Europeans--at least they stopped someone. You'd rather attribute our intervention to scheming and political machinations than the very simple explanation that Japan was running rampant through Asia, attacking our allies (China comes to mind), and we decided: "Hey, you know, this is wrong." And suddenly, because we didn't say that every time there was aggression in the history of the fucking world, suddenly the act loses all moral implications and becomes evil and self-serving. Well fuck that. Japan did some horrible, horrible shit between 1930 and 1945, and I am very proud that America didn't stand for it.
What I was trying to say was that it doesn't matter what you label yourself as, in their eyes. If you don't believe exactly what they believe, then you are not Muslim, and fit only for execution. And they decide what you believe, regardless of what you profess. So, even if the entire world was Muslim, it wouldn't stop them, because they'd soon find excuses enough to continue the killing. They won't be satisfied until everyone is dead--including themselves--because then there won't be any more unbelievers.