Maybe it's about time they pay their fare share, too.
Yeah, Apple! Next time we take a cab together you better chip in!
According to Wikipedia:A journalist collects and distributes news and other information.
So, it seems you call yourself journalist.
On the other hand a spammer pretty much fits the same definition.
There are lots of journalists that specialize and only report on a certain type of news. There are journalists that specialize on the automotive industry or politics or finance or technology.
The tech industry is hurting so there's negative stories about tech companies, apple is one of the only tech companies doing well so there's a bunch of positive stories about apple. If it was 15 years ago the situation would be flipped and we'd here people complaining about conspiracies AGAINST apple.
Not that there aren't paid shills but I think in this case it's unlikely that bonch is one. He's posted plenty of stories that aren't just pro-Apple/anti-Apple's competition. Sure he has a focus but that's probably just journalistic specialization. Now if he started seriously spinning Apple's failures in a positive light or the competition's successes in a negative light then you'd have some meat for your theories.
@pla: +1 because you are a 1%-er. ( intended as a wake up; I can't afford the 1% moniker, maybe I'm in the top 10)
First off - "@pla"? You just replied to him, of course it's at him. This isn't Twitter or whatever, the @name construct is nearly meaningless on Slashdot.
Secondly - someone who has a regular job, does some work on the side, and has a little cash to buy some stocks is suddenly a "1%" thingamabob? Has the country fallen so far that people think these activities are only for the ultra-elite? I'd call those activities somewhere between the "25%-er" to "50%-er".
And yes, for most people doing their individual taxes should be mind-numbingly simple. It's extremely basic grade-school math. You total up some numbers, look up stuff in some tables, do some more additions and subtractions and done. The wording can be a little tricky but anyone with a 8th grade reading level should be able to puzzle it out. If the majority can't do these activities then they pay the "ignorant slob" tax and go to a preparer. Honestly I think it's more about lazy and less about ability.
Where it gets complicated is when you start doing heaving investing, trading, contracting, running multiple complex businesses, or using tons of odd deductions. That's where a college-level finance education is really helpful to figure everything out, maybe even a team of dedicated professionals, hey now were getting into the "1%-er" range!
Lobbies also create the millions of loopholes that get rich "special interests" the discounts they want.
Don't kid yourself, the poor "special interests" also get the discounts they want. It's the people in the middle that get screwed.
The article also says "Rovio is on track to generate $1 million in revenue per month by the end of the year" and "In a few months, the 5 million downloads could prove more valuable than 5 million sales."
No where in the article does it say (other than the misleading title) that the free version has actually made more money than the pay versions. Right now it's all speculation. It could be that the people playing Angry Birds for free will move on to something else or it could be that more people will buy the app. We just don't know at this time.
It's a pretty badly written article with a misleading title. I wouldn't treat it as an authoritative source on the value of programming on iOS vs Android.
Oversampling (i.e. 192kHz) allows much more room to develop a good anti-aliasing filter.
*whoosh*
As the whole point of the article goes right over your head! You do not need any anti-aliasing. If you sample at 40 kHz with a decent equipment and a good 20 kHz low-pass filter then you can completely and faithfully recover a signal of less than 20 kHz by applying the Whittaker-Shannon interpolation formula.
Now we generally sample at 44.1 kHz in order to have some oversampling to take care of non-ideal filters and such. This is 10% oversampling and it's far more than you need with modern equipment and algorithms. By doing all this properly you will get the exact waveform back. There will be no aliasing to anti-alias.
Fine, take a look at this article from Reuters with lots of direct attributions.
Perfect! A well-known, proven, and respected news agency. A properly-written journalistic article. They obviously did some research and contacted related parties for quotes and information. That's not some rumor-flinging blog post, that's journalism.
Of course there isn't any mention of the man being beaten. I wonder if that was just a rumor after all? Now maybe it's all part of a conspiracy or something and the guy really was beaten. However, I can't make a judgement because I don't have any facts one way or the other and I don't make judgements without at least the ghost of a factual basis.
Otherwise I might as well just believe everything I read in print, right? The government is infinitely wise and kind because some blog said so? I should give my money to a preacher because there's a nice web site with kind words? I should attack my neighbor because this leaflet says he's not one of us?
Beating/killing reporters that are making successful companies or politicians look bad is the standard operating procedure in China. It doesn't just happen sometimes, it happens all the time. If you are arguing that it doesn't happen, or is just random, isolated incidents, it shows that you are completely ignorant of how bad the situation is in China.
I'm not arguing that. Nothing that I wrote even remotely implies that I am arguing that.
I'm arguing that blogs and rumors are not substitutes for proper reporting practices. Yes, the environment might be hostile towards proper reporting practices but that doesn't change the concept that we can't properly judge issues and stories in the absence of verifiable information.
So perhaps the more dire issue is to fix the system that prevents the investigation and reporting of the facts, THEN go after the issues that the facts highlight. And no, I don't have a good grasp on how to do that other than for the people in the nation to strongly demand it and, if necessary, lay down their lives for it. Just as we did in the USA a couple of hundred years ago and other people in other nations have done throughout history.
Bribing an activist with an iPhone 4, or beating up a worker to control the news, is hardly what I'd call "do[ing] better".
Did you bother to click through to the actual "article"?
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/07/21/reports-of-suicide-in-china-linked-to-missing-iphone/
It's a blog that's very light on any verifiable facts and instead uses unattributed reports:
Some publications reported that, in the days prior to his suicide, Sun had been detained and beaten by a senior official
So you linked to a blog about a blog that uses treats terms like this as facts with nearly no direct reporting or attribution:
I suppose that I have too high of standards for this day-and-age of blog rumormongering...
Maybe this incident occurred, maybe it didn't. Maybe Foxconn is evil, maybe it isn't. Maybe Apple is responsible, maybe it isn't. We'll get any meaningful answers if all we have are rumors and unsubstantiated aspersions!
Do you really think it costs that much to run a software repository?
Do you really think that the app store is a simple software repository? Apple writes and maintains the software to interface with the apps, runs the billing system and pays the credit card fees, vets apps and handles legal issues, buys bandwidth and server space, performs advertising, etc.
This is all done on a much larger and more involved scale than the usual "set it and forget it" software repository. Obviously Apple does make some profit from the app store but there's no doubt that they have significant expenditures in running the thing. Is 30% too much? Not when you compare it to how much other distribution channels take off the top. I'm sure if there is more competition then you'll see that 30% get shaved but right now 30% is pretty darn nice for what you get.
For big apps apple will need to have a lower cut and a much better way for site licenses and multi unit pricing systems / let app makes set a lower price per unit for say packs of 25, 50, 100 and so on.
For all we know they do! The 30% app store cut is just what we see publicly. This doesn't prohibit Apple and software manufacturers from cutting private deals that use a different percentage. It also doesn't prohibit Apple from selling codes in bulk to companies for certain apps.
I'm not saying that this is currently being done, just that there's nothing preventing this sort of thing and it could be happening right now without public knowledge of it.
Don't forget that Apple got their OS for free too (most of it, anyhow).. since its primarily based on BSD, which they use and then of course contribute little back to the open source community, unlike Google who makes significant contributions to many open source projects
Oh really?
It looks like Apple contributes quite a few open source projects.
What the do indicate is the excessive level of profit is cranked into the iphone/ipad line.
By my estimate they could cut the price in half and still make a profit.
Apple struggles to keep up with demand as it is and they continually expand their production capabilities. Rest assured that there are bean counters in Apple that do the price/demand/production calculation and come up with the best fit.
As far as a high price contributing to a "cool factor" there is no doubt that it contributes to the allure for some people. However, there are also a lot of people who buy on the "cheap trumps quality" factor. In the end it's the balance between price and features that wins out overall. There's no doubt that Apple is doing just fine there, their sales speak to that.
Type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome are so easy to prevent by not eating the wrong kinds of foods
Which is what this article is all about, the demands that your body makes upon you when there is a metabolic/digestive disorder.
Yes, you could eat less or eat better. The problem is that some, perhaps many, people get the wrong kind of signals from their metabolic and digestive systems. These confused signals create cravings very similar to a drug addiction. You WANT to eat less and better but the cravings derail you.
Some people are able to get on top of this and get their metabolic/digestive system back on track, some people are not as lucky. If there were a way to restore some of the balance by changing your gut culture then that would HELP people to break the destructive cycles.
Very few people choose to be overweight and sick. Some people just need a bit more assistance in avoiding/correcting it than others.
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -- William E. Davidsen
