I'm really not surprised. Several companies have artifically hyper-infloated values even though their business acumen has led the companies to constantly incur losses, especially in the case of certain Internet stocks like Amazon.com -- who have lost money every year it has been running, but yet still has a worth of more than $100/share. It seems to be the condition that the stock market hopes to inflate the prices of these stocks because they are being hyped so much by the media without the realization that some of them will never make a profit. Microsoft is no exception. People see it as a "safe" tech stock without taking into consideration factors in the industry that are costing MS money and probably driving profits below zero. It's almost like they are determined to bne ignorant of tech stocks.
Well, considering she received 2nd and 3rd degree burns from a cup of coffee, I would definitely have to say that something is wrong with the situation. After all, do you expect people to drink something that burns flesh like that? For quite a long time their policies regarding such things as the exceedingly hot temperature of the coffee, and that was a bit of a wakeup call. However, even after the amount was reduced on appeal (but the judgement remained in favor of her), her lawyer got almost all of the money, so it's not like she benefitted from being burned -- he did.
BTW, do you fully understand the circumstances of the case, or do you just hear what dumbass joke someone like Leno has to say about it? What was she to do? Hand this thing to her small granddaughter who was sitting next to her while she was putting her purse away? I saw the pictures of what it did to this woman, and anyone would have thrown the book at McD's if that happened to the girl. Or would you blame her stupidity for burning herself too?
This thing is kind of like a bank. You give them all your passwords in the hope that no one in the bank steals it, they don't use it with your permission through some loophole, or someone doesn't break in and steal your money (passwords). Basically, it's built on the perception of safety of a system created by a compnay with a very dubious reputation at best. Personally, I'd prefer a client side system like Mac OS 9's keychain if I ever decide to consolidate all my password somewhere other than my brain, thank yoou.
You don't say. I guess it has nothing to with the fact that the NSA is officially a part of the Department of Defense and the Director and Deputy Director are mandated to be flag officers of the US military (any branch). Juts like the DIA, the NSA as part of the military intelligence will naturally have a large percentage of military personnel, because the US military does not like civlians in the DoD.
While I agreee with AC that the money just isn't there in all probably, this does not preclude the NSA from keeping contractual agreements with RSA and such anymore than they did with Ma Bell in the 50s to tap the trunks directly or with IBM and DES. It sure beats having to pay those that leave while still keeping track of them and the corps' progress in general.
I would assume because they might let you work on projects you would never be able to do in the private sector, give you tons of experience in devloping and working on mathematics (which must be important to you if you actually decided to shoot for a Ph.D), if you showed a high aptitude and interest early on they might pay for college and such. And if you do feel like leaving, you casn wait until your five years are up and then head on over to RSA and work for them.
On the flip side, as an example of dumb beauracracy, the actual head honchos in the agency are supposed to be secret. They're given other "official" positions like colonel so-and-so in the U.S. Army, etc. etc.
Actually, the head of the NSA is supposed to be a three-star admiral or general (last I read, it was a Lt. General of the USAF), and is public knowledge. Obscure, but public. However, NSA is a part of the DoD, so those "official" positions are in all likelihood their legitimate titles.
While I was still working for the Treasury Department last year, I was asked to do some research on certain technology businesses, but the one article that caught my eye was about the number of people from the NSA who were leaving to go work for RSA or Netscape or such designing crypto systems from 3x what they were making at the NSA. One of the comments was from a guy who had worked at Ft. Meade before leaving, and had mentioned that while there was nothing like being launched off the deck of an aircraft carrier (I would assume on an E-2 Hawkeye), he was enjoying his new job (and extra money) even more. The article made a point of mentioning that the NSA was having a hard time keeping people on after the usual four-five year stints they spend out of college. They'd get experience working on crypto for the government, and then when the time came they'd jump ship to go work in the private sector, and this had become a bit of a problem even to the point of NSA starting to offer even more money, but they just can't compete. It reminds me a lot of the numerous people I know who have left the military or just the numbers of people leaving the military because the rest of the DoD is investing so much in things like the F-22 that they can't afford to pay (opinionated) decent salaries to the guys who actually work on the tech.
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I'm really not surprised. Several companies have artifically hyper-infloated values even though their business acumen has led the companies to constantly incur losses, especially in the case of certain Internet stocks like Amazon.com -- who have lost money every year it has been running, but yet still has a worth of more than $100/share. It seems to be the condition that the stock market hopes to inflate the prices of these stocks because they are being hyped so much by the media without the realization that some of them will never make a profit. Microsoft is no exception. People see it as a "safe" tech stock without taking into consideration factors in the industry that are costing MS money and probably driving profits below zero. It's almost like they are determined to bne ignorant of tech stocks.
BTW, do you fully understand the circumstances of the case, or do you just hear what dumbass joke someone like Leno has to say about it? What was she to do? Hand this thing to her small granddaughter who was sitting next to her while she was putting her purse away? I saw the pictures of what it did to this woman, and anyone would have thrown the book at McD's if that happened to the girl. Or would you blame her stupidity for burning herself too?
This thing is kind of like a bank. You give them all your passwords in the hope that no one in the bank steals it, they don't use it with your permission through some loophole, or someone doesn't break in and steal your money (passwords). Basically, it's built on the perception of safety of a system created by a compnay with a very dubious reputation at best. Personally, I'd prefer a client side system like Mac OS 9's keychain if I ever decide to consolidate all my password somewhere other than my brain, thank yoou.
You don't say. I guess it has nothing to with the fact that the NSA is officially a part of the Department of Defense and the Director and Deputy Director are mandated to be flag officers of the US military (any branch). Juts like the DIA, the NSA as part of the military intelligence will naturally have a large percentage of military personnel, because the US military does not like civlians in the DoD.
While I agreee with AC that the money just isn't there in all probably, this does not preclude the NSA from keeping contractual agreements with RSA and such anymore than they did with Ma Bell in the 50s to tap the trunks directly or with IBM and DES. It sure beats having to pay those that leave while still keeping track of them and the corps' progress in general.
I would assume because they might let you work on projects you would never be able to do in the private sector, give you tons of experience in devloping and working on mathematics (which must be important to you if you actually decided to shoot for a Ph.D), if you showed a high aptitude and interest early on they might pay for college and such. And if you do feel like leaving, you casn wait until your five years are up and then head on over to RSA and work for them.
Actually, the head of the NSA is supposed to be a three-star admiral or general (last I read, it was a Lt. General of the USAF), and is public knowledge. Obscure, but public. However, NSA is a part of the DoD, so those "official" positions are in all likelihood their legitimate titles.
Really? I was under the impression that some pesky treaty has forced Russia and the US to stop developing new nuclear weapons systems.
While I was still working for the Treasury Department last year, I was asked to do some research on certain technology businesses, but the one article that caught my eye was about the number of people from the NSA who were leaving to go work for RSA or Netscape or such designing crypto systems from 3x what they were making at the NSA. One of the comments was from a guy who had worked at Ft. Meade before leaving, and had mentioned that while there was nothing like being launched off the deck of an aircraft carrier (I would assume on an E-2 Hawkeye), he was enjoying his new job (and extra money) even more. The article made a point of mentioning that the NSA was having a hard time keeping people on after the usual four-five year stints they spend out of college. They'd get experience working on crypto for the government, and then when the time came they'd jump ship to go work in the private sector, and this had become a bit of a problem even to the point of NSA starting to offer even more money, but they just can't compete. It reminds me a lot of the numerous people I know who have left the military or just the numbers of people leaving the military because the rest of the DoD is investing so much in things like the F-22 that they can't afford to pay (opinionated) decent salaries to the guys who actually work on the tech.