Why do they grow rice in Texas (a drought state)? There's always a big hubbub in Austin when the LCRA releases water to the south Texas rice farmers when we're in the middle of a drought. Don't grow rice in a desert!
Parts of Texas get 45-50 inches of rain a year. East Texas is lush and green. It's pretty shocking if your only exposure to Texas has been a television show about drug smuggling through West Texas a trip to the Hill Country (Austin).
Maybe the public at large is more concerned about which husband/wife the latest Kardashian is on, but the age of the geeks is accelerating far faster than any it ever has, and it will continue to do so as long as there is the tiniest of means.
I think most people are tired of Hollywood stars, reality TV, and people famous for being famous. Mass market media is now a race to the bottom to keep the dwindling ignorant interested, and it was never very good at keeping the public informed about science and technology, and my guess would be that it's always been easier to have an "informed" interview with a Kardashian versus and informed interview of a scientist or engineer.
The multi national corporation is calling the tune, and the laws are now being adjusted to ensure that any infraction against the all mighty corporation anywhere on the planet is dealt with swiftly and with overwhelming force.
Hey!!! Corporations are people, too!
Yes, they release a new model to prevent the old model falling under the magic US$200 price point. They've got to keep the price up somehow.
This exactly. How many people aren't in the market for a game system but would buy one if the price were right. There are probably quite a few people who don't want a Wii (which is now essentially priced at as an impulse buy) who wouldn't mind a PS3. Too bad they won't crank out the old systems for cheap.
Because, as the news keeps reminding us, it's a scary world out there. Drug-Resistent Gonorrha If you need me, I'll be in my parents' basement.
...we are aiming for support on future hardware platforms.... Existing devices cannot be supported because of those many proprietary components....
Good thing that it was so easy to install ICS on my Touchpad. I feel sorry for all those not-too-technically-savvy folks who bought one but will never be able to upgrade their devices. HP still sucks.
WHat innovation is this discouraging? Samsung copied a feature someone else created and patented 8 years ago. How is doing that innovation. Do you own a dictionary? Now they get to be real innovative and come up with their own way of doing it.
So, Samsung owners aren't supposed to do a local search on their phone, something old POS desktops have been able to do for years, because it's on a phone? Seriously? How again is the patent system not broken?
The reason for the fragmentation is that the phone manufacturers and carriers don't want old phones updated. That would cut into sales of newer shinier phones.
Is it really about making money on newer, shinier new phones? It's not like you can go and buy a cheap data & voice plan from Verizon or AT&T if you already have a phone and don't need a subsidized one. I think it's probably more a problem with the U.S. having a pretty saturated mobile market, and carriers spending most of their marketing dollars to lure customers away from other carriers with a new shiny phone. That's an easier business model for the suits to implement than, oh, I don't know, having great service at a reasonable price. I think a lot of Americans are going to follow the shiny while complaining about the mobile service.
There will be consequences.
Case closed.
Nice pun.
Sigh. Like the new transatlantic cable for high speed trading, another project created solely to shave off time on automatic trades and thus print money. Does this do anything? Am I the only one who sees this as driving up transaction costs because you have "investors" who really don't invest in companies trying to take almost microscopic profit automatically? Where is the benefit to the financial system? What about the economy? I wonder how long people would stand for an extra layer being added to some other industry that does nothing but get paid for doing nothing?
These trades are like taxes, but they don't pay for any roads, health care, retirement, of national defense. They just make a few DBs who don't manufacture or invent anything rich. It will never happen, but I would like some politicians to get into an ethical debate on the socioeconomic benefits of this type of activity. Seriously. How defensible is this type of activity under Western Judeo-Christian ethical frameworks? Most American jurists publicly support natural law, at least while going through public confirmation hearings, so where exactly does this fit?
Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein