Sorry, I worked on the Xerox Star before the Lisa/Mac came out. I can't say it had every single item that today's GUI's have (this was 25 years ago, for chrissake), but all the basic concepts were there.
And, by the way, Xerox's Page Description Language (PDL) used to typeset documents with its tags, etc., was the precursor to HTML. We owe a lot to PARC.
Gates is simply following in the footsteps of other robber barons, like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Sam Bronfman (of Seagram's - he started out as a bootlegger) by trying to purchase respectability through charitable acts. It's not a case of people "alleging" MS has committed criminal acts; it's been tried and found guilty in more than one court. And since Gates is the top man, he is just as responsible as Ken Lay at Enron.
What kind of a dick are you? I handed in my four weeks notice last week, and everyone around me is supportive of my decision. I told my boss that I wanted time to make an orderly transition, and he agreed. I have developed a lot of specialised programs, and I want to make sure they can be supported after I have gone. Everyone is on good terms, and I am trying my best to document all my programs and make sure everything works well before I go. I don't hate the people I work with; I like them, but there's no career path for me here. They understand that, and are happy that I am taking a step forward. I'm not negative about the company or the people; I wish them all the best, and they feel the same about me. Just because you give up on a company doesn't mean everybody does.
How the heck the previous comment got modded "insightful" is beyond me. "Petty" or "small minded" would be better choices.
Well, as a Canadian living in a bloody cold country, I get pissed when I'm told that I'm going to have pay even higher taxes for carbon emission credits while China plans to build 500 coal fired electricity plants. Canada could reduce its carbon emissions to zero, and that wouldn't be enough to overcome the increase that will come from China and India in the next decade. All Kyoto means for Canada is higher unemployment, higher taxes, less wealth, and a poorer life for my kids WITHOUT MAKING A DAMN BIT OF DIFFERENCE IN GLOBAL C02 LEVELS. Now do you understand why we say "Kyoto is bullshit"?
You forgot to mention that the US limits (possibly blocks, I don't know), sugar imports from producing nations.
Yes, there are small quotas for sugar imports; everything beyond that is subject to a prohibitive tarriff. IIRC, Trinidad recently announced the end of its sugar cane industry due to no market for the product.
What planet do you live on? There is so much new information coming out in the medical field each and every day, all doctors must choose between continuous learning and treating patients. I'm diabetic, and I find there are new drugs, treatments, etc. all the time - and that's just one disease. Why should I expect my GP to keep up on every new thing under the sun? She needs a life too. I spend a couple of hours a day on/., and I don't pretend to be up on every geek thing.
And if a trip to Bermuda causes my GP to write me a prescription for Avandia instead of a generic equivalent, why the hell should I care? A friend of mine works in research for a generic drug maker, and he *always* insists on the brand name version over generic.
If a product is "the best", it ought to be truly the best from the consumer's viewpoint in at least one normal and legitimate way.
So if Ho-Lee-Chow says it's the best Chinese food in town, who's to disagree? The "best" is subjective at all times, and your constraints may not be my constraints. Ambassador's food might be tastier, IMHO, but it's more expensive and they don't deliver, which might be important for you. And deliberate lies about products is a good way to end up in court.
Frankly, I find advertising fills a need for me by providing me with information about products and services that I might not ever know existed. Sure, there are a ton of ads I'd like to tune out ("Head-On" comes to mind..), but there are many that I find helpful, interesting, and even amusing.
If I've bought a product from a company, why do they need to send me anything? I already know they exist so they're just wasting their and my time. If I liked the widgits I bought last time and want some more, I'll probably go back to them.
Oh, this is just stupid. My company makes engraved pens, pocket diaries, etc. We have a ton of new customers every year who have no clue about our complete product line. "Oh, I thought you only made pens" is a common response when we call about Christmas cards or calculators or employee recognition plaques or any of the other hundred products we have. We try to educate our customers about our firm, plus we add new products all the time. Email is a cheap and effective way to get the message out, and it's more environmentally friendly than direct mail (which we also do a lot of). Of course, we manage our opt-out list pretty aggressively, for both telephone and email contact. The fines for disobeying customer request are pretty large.
When did this change? I lived in Windsor and worked in Detroit for a few years. I had to file US, Michigan, Detroit, Canadian, and Ontario tax returns. I had to pay taxes in the US, and in Canada, on my US earnings. However, I did receive a tax credit for the amounts paid to the American entities, so the net result was I paid very little in Canadian tax.
Cellphones are usually next to useless once you get about 12-15 miles offshore.
Maybe the handhelds nowadays, but back in the old days of analog car phones with 3 watt transmitters, the cellular company I worked for in Toronto had problems with calls being picked up from Rochester, some 30 miles across Lake Ontario.
In addition to all the fine reasons above, it makes it easier to maintain the code. I am leaving my current position in a few weeks, and one of my tasks is to go through all the code and clean it up so whoever comes along next isn't scratching their head wondering "what the hell did he do here?".
Copyright is not an inalienable right either, it is a bargain between content producers and the public. The public agrees to enforce the producer's monopoly, in exchange for which the producer agrees to allow the public access to the work for a fee, and eventually allow the work to lapse into the public domain.
An analagous situation is the pharamceutical industry. Big pharma introduces drugs, and gets a 20-year monopoly on their sales (in the USA; here in Canada, we have 'mandatory licensing', which means generic makers can create knock-offs whilst paying a license fee to the patent holder, which is why many US seniors come here to get their scripts filled). And yet, while Big Pharma would love to have that monopoly period lengthened, there is no pressure on government to do so.
Why? I'm only speculating, but I'm suggesting that the hue and cry that would ensue would be a PR nightmare. "Greedy execs withhold live-saving drugs for a few dollars more", etc. Yet Disney and the MPAA get multiple extensions on copyright. We should start asking legislators why Donald Duck deserves more protection than Lipitor.
Here's what the OP wrote: Here's an example: The DVD/VCR combo. Albeit anecdotal, several of my acquaintances have bought these products with the naive intention of renting a dvd and recording it to VHS tape, and needless to say, been very disappointed.
Here's what you wrote: Uh, duh. DVD/VHS combo devices only have READ-ONLY DVD drives on them. If they thought they were going to record to DVD with them, then they're just rock-stupid... there's nothing more to it.
And if you can't comprehend from the very clear OP that they wanted to record to TAPE, just what kind of stupid does that make you?
And people wouldn't stop going to the theater to see movies - box office ticket sales produce more than enough money to fund production.
Actually, they don't - in fact, they don't come close. Box office sales represent only about 20% of the take for a film, with over 50% coming from subsequent DVD sales. And the film studios don't get as high a percentage of box office sales as they do DVD sales. There are numerous articles covering film industry economics by Ed Epstein at Slate, and David Denby at the New Yorker, all of which are easily googled. They make for quite fascinating reading.
Canada's current minority government is neo-con and pro-corporate, denied global warming until about three weeks ago, and only rose to power because the previous government had been in power for 14 years.
Well, the fact the previous governing party stole a few million dollars from taxpayers, and used it to help buy their victory in the previous election might have been a slight factor.
But this isn't about downloading. This is about going into the theatre and making an illegal copy of the film. No Canadian court has ever said we have this right. And I have no doubt, being from Montreal originally, that this is the work of organized crime, not a few bored teenagers.
But, delaying releases for three weeks into Canada actually does make business sense for the MPAA. Except for the big hits and 'sleepers' like "Sideways", most movies do about 50% of their gross in the first two weeks. Preventing Canadian pirates from releasing copies during time period will help the studios from losing revenue during this period.
Even though box office only represents about 20% of studio revenues from a film (the remainder comes from TV/DVD sales), it still goes a long way to covering off the initial production costs. When digital film distribution comes along, as it is slowly, the studios will also be saving about $10 million in distribution costs for a blockbuster that's opening in 3,000 theaters. But if a crystal-clear digital stream is available to a pirate, how long before $2.00 DVD's are being released at the same time as the movie comes out? Will you spend $40 a couple, after factoring in drinks and popcorn, to see it at the theatre, or will you pop it into your HD/Blu-Ray and watch it on your 42-inch plasma for $2?
Because of the tax I pay on recordable media, I don't have a problem with sharing a few songs with friends. But I can't condone organized criminals making a business of ripping off the studios - at least, not if I want to continue to see good movies.
Your examples are extremely weak, and the aggregate inflation in Britain over that period was not 0% regardless of what they chose to charge for a stamp.
Of course, annual rates swung up and down over the period; that is related to business cycles, weather (drought years tend to make food more expensive, etc.), inventions, improvements in manufacturing, transport, and trade, etc. But my point that there was relative price stability over a sustained period is in fact correct, despite your protestations to the contrary. In fact, because of the slight general deflation, anyone living off 5,000 pounds in 1850 was actually richer in 1900, assuming he lived off the interest.
Also, the car example: you seem to be OK with 5% inflation. At that rate, your money in 14 years buys half of what it does today. May be fine by you, but I did the taxes of a lot of pensioners who suffered through rates even higher than that in the late 1960's-1970's. People who had a comfortable fixed income in 1960 ($5,000 Cdn) were dead broke by 1974. My father supported a family with three kids on $7,000 Cdn a year in 1962, when we bought our first house, and we were comfortably middle class. So I have lived through inflation; you apparently haven't.
Finally, you say "In NA and Europe, inflation barely exists". Please go visit some people living on fixed incomes and ask them if they have as much spending power as they did last year. Get your head out of the sand - the government statistics are fixed with "substitutions" and "hedonic improvements" to provide a number that they feel will be palatable to people. If my Internet service goes from $35 to $50 a month, but the line speed doubles, government stats will say my cost actually fell on kbps basis, even though it's costing me an extra $180/year. And yes, it is faster; pages that used to load in 1.5 seconds now load in 1 second. Big effing deal; the extra expense compared to the miniscule time savings should show up as in increase in CPI, not a decrease. But, please, by all means continue to drink the Kool-Aid; meanwhile, my gold funds have more than doubled in the past two years.
It amuses me whenever I hear that the CPI doesn't include "volatile" food and energy prices. I spend about 10% of my take home on gasoline, which, at C$0.75/litre while down from the $1.00 it was last year, is still up 25% from the $0.60 it was two years ago. Unfortunately, I don't have an alternative to switch to that doesn't include huge changeover costs (i.e. buying a new car with diesel/hybrid/whatever power).
Similarly, thanks to our wonderful milk/eggs/what-have-you marketing boards, the 15% I spend on food buys increasingly less. The good news is I'm finally losing weight.
This is an incredibly simplistic view of things, and still doesn't go back far enough to the root problems of macroeconomics. The problem isn't some clown with a printing press (unless he's as dumb as Germany was between the wars; that's how they paid off their war debt and screwed their economy). The problem is that more money is coming out of banks and being spent than is being saved during an economic downturn, at the same time that fewer goods are being produced. This increases prices. Note that this effect would be the same regardless of whether the currency is digital, paper, gold, or cowrie shells. It doesn't matter a bit. This is something I'll never successfully pound through the heads of the gold nuts who have absolutely no grasp of economics.
Your grasp of macroeconomics is remarkably weak. We live in a world where more goods are being made every day, as China and India rev up their production. Go to your local car dealer, and look at the inventory piled up on his lot. Yet we have inflation, which is actually far higher than the government's posted CPI. (Government and business love to keep the CPI low, as it lets them avoid cost-of-living-adjustments.) Why? Because there is too much money being created, thanks to the US deficits and the fractional banking system.
Why do you think the US Fed stopped publishing M3 statistics? Because they wanted to save ink? No, because they don't want people to be shit-scared when they realize how much their money is being devalued. Inflation has almost always been a monetary problem.
Look at Great Britain from the end of the Napoleonic wars to WWI - a span of roughly 100 years, during which Britain was on a bimetalic standard of gold and silver. It cost 2p to mail a letter when Victoria ascended to the throne; it cost 2p when she died 75 years later. That's price stability. I paid C$3,500 for a Honda Civic in 1975; 30 years later, when presumably it should have moved way down the cost curve, it costs $15,000 for a base model. That's monetary inflation
As for why gold should be used, it has many unique qualities. First, it makes pretty, shiny things that ladies have liked for thousands of years. So ladies want it. Men have learned that if they give ladies pretty, shiny things, they can get sex. So men want it. Gold is not too abundant, so scarcity makes it desirable. Gold is perfectly fungible - one gram of gold in China is exactly the same as a gram of gold in Burkina Faso. (Diamonds, for example, are also pretty shiny things that ladies like, but they don't function well as a currency because clarity, colour, flaws, etc. mean your 1 carat gem might not be worth as much as my 1 carat stone.) Gold is easily divisible into smaller amounts to facilitate smaller transactions, while retaining its value. (Gemstones lose much of their worth as they become smaller; check out the difference between the cost of a 1 carat solitaire at your local jeweler, versus a ring with "1 carat total weight" of teeny tiny diamond chips.) Gold, unlike copper or silver, doesn't tarnish easily.
Has there been inflation in countries that use gold/silver as currency? Yes, when abundant new supplies of gold/silver suddenly arrived into a pre-industrial economy, such as Spain in the early 1500's. In that agrarian society, where the ability to produce new goods to meet demand was severely limited, this influx of wealth did create the classic "too much money chasing not enough goods" inflation, but as we have moved through the industrial, and post-industrial eras, that situation would never exist again on a metallic standard (unless a good-sized asteroid of gold hit the earth.. not much chance of that).
But today, with the Fed pumping out billions each week, and the multiplier effect of fractional banking, we are creating trillions in more currency (note: not wealth!), and items that are difficult to mass manufacture (apartments on Fifth Avenue, houses in La Jolla, Monet paintings, 5-carat diamonds, dinner at La Tour D'Argent) are sky
(I believe that the Canadian Dollar bill I have in my drawer is still legal tender).
It certainly is, but I suggest hanging on to it for another ten years, by which time it
will be worth more as a collectible than as currency. I have a few stashed away (along
with a US $2 bill).
Slashdot Mirror
And, by the way, Xerox's Page Description Language (PDL) used to typeset documents with its tags, etc., was the precursor to HTML. We owe a lot to PARC.
Gates is simply following in the footsteps of other robber barons, like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Sam Bronfman (of Seagram's - he started out as a bootlegger) by trying to purchase respectability through charitable acts. It's not a case of people "alleging" MS has committed criminal acts; it's been tried and found guilty in more than one court. And since Gates is the top man, he is just as responsible as Ken Lay at Enron.
How the heck the previous comment got modded "insightful" is beyond me. "Petty" or "small minded" would be better choices.
Well, as a Canadian living in a bloody cold country, I get pissed when I'm told that I'm going to have pay even higher taxes for carbon emission credits while China plans to build 500 coal fired electricity plants. Canada could reduce its carbon emissions to zero, and that wouldn't be enough to overcome the increase that will come from China and India in the next decade. All Kyoto means for Canada is higher unemployment, higher taxes, less wealth, and a poorer life for my kids WITHOUT MAKING A DAMN BIT OF DIFFERENCE IN GLOBAL C02 LEVELS. Now do you understand why we say "Kyoto is bullshit"?
Yes, there are small quotas for sugar imports; everything beyond that is subject to a prohibitive tarriff. IIRC, Trinidad recently announced the end of its sugar cane industry due to no market for the product.
And if a trip to Bermuda causes my GP to write me a prescription for Avandia instead of a generic equivalent, why the hell should I care? A friend of mine works in research for a generic drug maker, and he *always* insists on the brand name version over generic.
Cricket - isn't that the game where, once everyone who's in is out, then the side that's out goes in?
So if Ho-Lee-Chow says it's the best Chinese food in town, who's to disagree? The "best" is subjective at all times, and your constraints may not be my constraints. Ambassador's food might be tastier, IMHO, but it's more expensive and they don't deliver, which might be important for you. And deliberate lies about products is a good way to end up in court.
Frankly, I find advertising fills a need for me by providing me with information about products and services that I might not ever know existed. Sure, there are a ton of ads I'd like to tune out ("Head-On" comes to mind..), but there are many that I find helpful, interesting, and even amusing.
Oh, this is just stupid. My company makes engraved pens, pocket diaries, etc. We have a ton of new customers every year who have no clue about our complete product line. "Oh, I thought you only made pens" is a common response when we call about Christmas cards or calculators or employee recognition plaques or any of the other hundred products we have. We try to educate our customers about our firm, plus we add new products all the time. Email is a cheap and effective way to get the message out, and it's more environmentally friendly than direct mail (which we also do a lot of). Of course, we manage our opt-out list pretty aggressively, for both telephone and email contact. The fines for disobeying customer request are pretty large.
AFAIK, if you have residential ties to Canada, you pay tax on your world-wide income. see: http://www.howlandtax.com/articles/foreign.htm
Maybe the handhelds nowadays, but back in the old days of analog car phones with 3 watt transmitters, the cellular company I worked for in Toronto had problems with calls being picked up from Rochester, some 30 miles across Lake Ontario.
In addition to all the fine reasons above, it makes it easier to maintain the code. I am leaving my current position in a few weeks, and one of my tasks is to go through all the code and clean it up so whoever comes along next isn't scratching their head wondering "what the hell did he do here?".
In Korea, only old people sail solo.
An analagous situation is the pharamceutical industry. Big pharma introduces drugs, and gets a 20-year monopoly on their sales (in the USA; here in Canada, we have 'mandatory licensing', which means generic makers can create knock-offs whilst paying a license fee to the patent holder, which is why many US seniors come here to get their scripts filled). And yet, while Big Pharma would love to have that monopoly period lengthened, there is no pressure on government to do so.
Why? I'm only speculating, but I'm suggesting that the hue and cry that would ensue would be a PR nightmare. "Greedy execs withhold live-saving drugs for a few dollars more", etc. Yet Disney and the MPAA get multiple extensions on copyright. We should start asking legislators why Donald Duck deserves more protection than Lipitor.
Here's what you wrote: Uh, duh. DVD/VHS combo devices only have READ-ONLY DVD drives on them. If they thought they were going to record to DVD with them, then they're just rock-stupid... there's nothing more to it.
And if you can't comprehend from the very clear OP that they wanted to record to TAPE, just what kind of stupid does that make you?
Actually, they don't - in fact, they don't come close. Box office sales represent only about 20% of the take for a film, with over 50% coming from subsequent DVD sales. And the film studios don't get as high a percentage of box office sales as they do DVD sales. There are numerous articles covering film industry economics by Ed Epstein at Slate, and David Denby at the New Yorker, all of which are easily googled. They make for quite fascinating reading.
Well, the fact the previous governing party stole a few million dollars from taxpayers, and used it to help buy their victory in the previous election might have been a slight factor.
Um, google "Sundance" and "Zoo"..
But, delaying releases for three weeks into Canada actually does make business sense for the MPAA. Except for the big hits and 'sleepers' like "Sideways", most movies do about 50% of their gross in the first two weeks. Preventing Canadian pirates from releasing copies during time period will help the studios from losing revenue during this period.
Even though box office only represents about 20% of studio revenues from a film (the remainder comes from TV/DVD sales), it still goes a long way to covering off the initial production costs. When digital film distribution comes along, as it is slowly, the studios will also be saving about $10 million in distribution costs for a blockbuster that's opening in 3,000 theaters. But if a crystal-clear digital stream is available to a pirate, how long before $2.00 DVD's are being released at the same time as the movie comes out? Will you spend $40 a couple, after factoring in drinks and popcorn, to see it at the theatre, or will you pop it into your HD/Blu-Ray and watch it on your 42-inch plasma for $2?
Because of the tax I pay on recordable media, I don't have a problem with sharing a few songs with friends. But I can't condone organized criminals making a business of ripping off the studios - at least, not if I want to continue to see good movies.
Saw IV? The guys are hooked up to an intravenous tube?
http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/inflatio n/result.php
Annualized British inflation 1812-1912: -0.39
Of course, annual rates swung up and down over the period; that is related to business cycles, weather (drought years tend to make food more expensive, etc.), inventions, improvements in manufacturing, transport, and trade, etc. But my point that there was relative price stability over a sustained period is in fact correct, despite your protestations to the contrary. In fact, because of the slight general deflation, anyone living off 5,000 pounds in 1850 was actually richer in 1900, assuming he lived off the interest.
Also, the car example: you seem to be OK with 5% inflation. At that rate, your money in 14 years buys half of what it does today. May be fine by you, but I did the taxes of a lot of pensioners who suffered through rates even higher than that in the late 1960's-1970's. People who had a comfortable fixed income in 1960 ($5,000 Cdn) were dead broke by 1974. My father supported a family with three kids on $7,000 Cdn a year in 1962, when we bought our first house, and we were comfortably middle class. So I have lived through inflation; you apparently haven't.
Finally, you say "In NA and Europe, inflation barely exists". Please go visit some people living on fixed incomes and ask them if they have as much spending power as they did last year. Get your head out of the sand - the government statistics are fixed with "substitutions" and "hedonic improvements" to provide a number that they feel will be palatable to people. If my Internet service goes from $35 to $50 a month, but the line speed doubles, government stats will say my cost actually fell on kbps basis, even though it's costing me an extra $180/year. And yes, it is faster; pages that used to load in 1.5 seconds now load in 1 second. Big effing deal; the extra expense compared to the miniscule time savings should show up as in increase in CPI, not a decrease. But, please, by all means continue to drink the Kool-Aid; meanwhile, my gold funds have more than doubled in the past two years.
Similarly, thanks to our wonderful milk/eggs/what-have-you marketing boards, the 15% I spend on food buys increasingly less. The good news is I'm finally losing weight.
Did that government/Federal Reserve Kool-Aid taste good?
Your grasp of macroeconomics is remarkably weak. We live in a world where more goods are being made every day, as China and India rev up their production. Go to your local car dealer, and look at the inventory piled up on his lot. Yet we have inflation, which is actually far higher than the government's posted CPI. (Government and business love to keep the CPI low, as it lets them avoid cost-of-living-adjustments.) Why? Because there is too much money being created, thanks to the US deficits and the fractional banking system.
Why do you think the US Fed stopped publishing M3 statistics? Because they wanted to save ink? No, because they don't want people to be shit-scared when they realize how much their money is being devalued. Inflation has almost always been a monetary problem.
Look at Great Britain from the end of the Napoleonic wars to WWI - a span of roughly 100 years, during which Britain was on a bimetalic standard of gold and silver. It cost 2p to mail a letter when Victoria ascended to the throne; it cost 2p when she died 75 years later. That's price stability. I paid C$3,500 for a Honda Civic in 1975; 30 years later, when presumably it should have moved way down the cost curve, it costs $15,000 for a base model. That's monetary inflation
As for why gold should be used, it has many unique qualities. First, it makes pretty, shiny things that ladies have liked for thousands of years. So ladies want it. Men have learned that if they give ladies pretty, shiny things, they can get sex. So men want it. Gold is not too abundant, so scarcity makes it desirable. Gold is perfectly fungible - one gram of gold in China is exactly the same as a gram of gold in Burkina Faso. (Diamonds, for example, are also pretty shiny things that ladies like, but they don't function well as a currency because clarity, colour, flaws, etc. mean your 1 carat gem might not be worth as much as my 1 carat stone.) Gold is easily divisible into smaller amounts to facilitate smaller transactions, while retaining its value. (Gemstones lose much of their worth as they become smaller; check out the difference between the cost of a 1 carat solitaire at your local jeweler, versus a ring with "1 carat total weight" of teeny tiny diamond chips.) Gold, unlike copper or silver, doesn't tarnish easily.
Has there been inflation in countries that use gold/silver as currency? Yes, when abundant new supplies of gold/silver suddenly arrived into a pre-industrial economy, such as Spain in the early 1500's. In that agrarian society, where the ability to produce new goods to meet demand was severely limited, this influx of wealth did create the classic "too much money chasing not enough goods" inflation, but as we have moved through the industrial, and post-industrial eras, that situation would never exist again on a metallic standard (unless a good-sized asteroid of gold hit the earth.. not much chance of that).
But today, with the Fed pumping out billions each week, and the multiplier effect of fractional banking, we are creating trillions in more currency (note: not wealth!), and items that are difficult to mass manufacture (apartments on Fifth Avenue, houses in La Jolla, Monet paintings, 5-carat diamonds, dinner at La Tour D'Argent) are sky
It certainly is, but I suggest hanging on to it for another ten years, by which time it will be worth more as a collectible than as currency. I have a few stashed away (along with a US $2 bill).