Is that true when you consider drives that arrive DOA or die early in their life? I could see DOA numbers being similar for SSD and HDs (anyone have statistics on this?) but it would seem like SSDs would be more likely to just keep working unlike HDs which may have an early failure.

It is kind of sad. I saw a news report of a guy on Monday setting up his tent outside his local Walmart so he would be one of the first in line (yes, there were people in front of him) for the $99 TVs. It's a good deal from what I saw but to stand in line for 3 days just to get it??? And the stores are getting even worse since Walmart and others are opening up on Thanksgiving day to rake in the early money. The sad thing is that those unbelievable deals tend to be in very limited quantities so most of the people in the crush won't pick up any of those special deals. Instead they will end up getting items at prices they could find at many other times during the year. Stores know the big sale prices draw in the customers but they aren't going to stock up on items they are going to sell at a loss or near cost in order to draw in the rubes. Sadly many people don't seem to understand it.

Yep. This is the number one reason I've stayed away from Google+. It would be one thing if they just threatened to delete your G+ account, but they say they will get rid of your G+ account, your Youtube account, your Gmail account and any other Google account you have. Unfortunately they did manage to create a Nano Flower G+ account finally when I hit the wrong button when trying to use Youtube. So I'm at risk of losing my accounts just because Google kept trying to force us to create and eventually succeeded.

I don't see why you would doubt the ability of the shadow banking system to have more money than exists. Wasn't that one of the major complaints during the financial collapse of 2007-2010 that things like CDOs and derivatives allowed these companies to show more money on the books than they actually had. That if they had to back everything out and pay out all the money on the books (and get paid) that there wouldn't be enough to go around (and I'm not even talking about paper money.) As I understand it we essentially have a house of cards that keeps going so long as no one knocks it down and everyone keeps going in the hopes that it won't happen while they are on watch.

Imagine if they had caught you playing a game like Carmageddon where much of the fun was in running down pedestrians.

I fully agree. The most beautiful sky I saw was when I went up to the Grand Canyon and made a day of it. I was heading back to Phoenix and stopped between Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon at about 10PM at night. The night was crystal clear and you could actually see more stars in the sky than I could as a young lad in rural Georgia. No cities being near by and being up 7000ft above sea level makes a huge difference in what you see in the night sky.

It can be tracked automatically at the state level without much trouble. The problem comes when we get down to the lower levels when tax rates can change without much public notice. That makes it much tougher.

Agreed. It had little to do with piracy and much to do with the rise of only a few companies owning the radios stations in multiple markets. They decided that focusing on the most popular music and playing the same thing in every market was the way to go. That made it much harder for new bands that didn't fit the mold to make it.

Limiting the size of the company is certainly going to help, but I see another problem with the way Valve was setup that might not impact W.L.Gore & Associates. According to the article Valve gives out bonuses to specific teams that work on hot projects. That sort of thing is bound to lead to infighting since everyone wants to be on the hot project and participate in the money rain when the project ships.

I bet many of those same people in the industry said that PC sales were down before Windows 8 was released because people were waiting for Win8 to be released. People in the industry can be wrong just about as often as the average Slashdot reader when it comes to why sales are down. Everything from the economy, to having PCs that are good enough there's no need to upgrade. to not liking Win8 (or the comments people have made about it without having seen it/tried it) play a part. Which one is the most important is unknown. My own guess would be a combination of the economy and current PCs being good enough but it's just a guess. I've industry analysts say one thing about where things are heading and why. Then a few months later they completely change their story. Which just shows that without some clear indicator of why things are happening they have to guess. It may be an educated guess, but it's still a guess.

I was out there a few times. I loved where BeOS had their headquarters. There was a little complex of houses just across the street so that you could walk down a tree lined street and cross one street to the office. Of course those homes, though only 2 bedroom, probably cost a million or so back in the 90s. Guess you can't have everything.

I'm already there and I make far less than 6 figures. Of course the trash is building up and there's a big pile of stinky clothes in the bed room and the sink is kind of full, but at least I've got plenty of free time.

Doesn't matter what history shows. The best procedure is to give the company notice of the bug and give them a chance to fix it. Not years, certainly but a few months seems very reasonable. The only reason not to do would be if you knew someone was already taking advantage of the vulnerability in the wild.

So it's the beer you drink to get the buzz. Not the beer you drink because you want to enjoy the taste. That makes sense as I've never known anyone to have just one Bud. It's always three or more.

I guess you will be providing the popcorn?