chicagobob

Actually, what Tim Cook said at the Apple's Financial Conference last quarter was that it runs "a little ahead of break even". Therefore, it is reasonable to say it runs at break even.

Even if you are cynical and assume a certain amount of money is moved from one department to another, he can't say something on the record like that, if it isn't basically the truth (these numbers are audited and are subject to Sarbanes–Oxley. So, even assuming a small amount of shifting money around between departments and his fudge factor "a little", I think you could at most say single digits, for example: 5% if you want (or whatever small % you choose), it is still close enough for normal conversation to say its break even.

Something I've always wondered is -- of course going back in time is a bad thing -- but is going "faster than light" necessarily going back in time? I wonder why, say, instantaneous communication across the galaxy wouldn't be possible, as long as it doesn't go back in time. (BTW: not necessarily from a physics point of view, they would say that not only can't one travel back in time, neither can you go faster than the speed of light, but I was wondering more from a paradox / time causality point of view).

tip #1 block HNN & Redit while coding tip #2 only check email once / hour. tip #3 profit :-)

I take the metra every day. It sucks that public transit didn't work for you, but I live in the suburbs and work downtown. I think taking the train to work is probably the best way to commute, even though its a 40/45 minute train ride each way (with about a 10 minute walk on each), depending on my mood I can do a lot of work, reading, or socializing.

I have to assume the article is talking about driving commute time. I take the train about 45 mintues each way, and although I wish it were less, I have a regular cadre of folks I've met over the years that I can chat with on the train ... or I can read or work or listen to music podcasts, etc. Frankly, to get to my job its the best possible way to commute and I think working at home would be worse than not working in an office (tho I can work from home and do so a few days / month).

Ha Ha Ha ... I love it ... tho based on the replies, it looks like you're missing some smiley faces or sarcasm tags.

Here is another analysis that I think is much more balanaced than any of the ones you linked to: http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys...

Here is his conclusion:

"Taken as a group, it feels like a remarkably solid case — Samsung can’t just up and countersue Apple with its own patents and hope to walk away with a handshake and a cross-license because of the various trademark, trade dress, and design patent claims. How the company decides to deal with those issues remains to be seen; there’s no question in my mind that Samsung designed TouchWiz to look and feel as much like iOS as possible, and then marketed it as such. . . . . . . Depending on the strength of Samsung’s promised reply and countersuit, my guess is that Apple might be willing to eventually settle the patent claims but will push the trademark and trade dress claims as far as it can — if Apple loses those it’s open season on the iOS aesthetic. You can bet Steve Jobs and Tim Cook aren’t about to let that happen."

This reminds me of an old joke:

One day in the early days of computing, General Electric had a problem with their computer. All of their engineers took a look at the problem. Although each was wise, they were unable to understand the complexity of the machinery and repair the error. A call was made to the retired engineer who had helped in the original set up of the machine.

The retired engineer walked around the machine for a few minutes, just looking it over, not touching anything. After a few minutes, He took out a piece of chalk, walked over and placed a large X on one particular part of the machine. He then said' "Tap it here with a hammer, just once."

After the one tap, the computer roared back to life and began working!

A few days later, GE received an invoice from the retired engineer for $10,000! This was a lot of money in those days, so they returned it to the engineer and asked that he itemize his invoice.

A few days later, they received an itemized bill which read:

Chalk for one X mark - $1.00

Knowing where to place the X - $9,999.00

Read the article.

The only items that Apple is asking for is pre-production versions of previously announced products that have pre-production versions that have already been distributed to journalists, etc.

Big difference to asking for unannounced and unreleased products.

Samsung's lawyers have some mighty big balls to make that kind of a gamble. Frankly, I think it has less than no chance of the Judge granting it.

As Gruber says: Measure Twice, Cut Once is the Apple approach

IMHO: wrong strategy. Tweaking your app for every patent that a troll throws at you leaves you vulnerable forever.

a) I hope Apple does something globally to protect the iOS ecosystem;

b) I think software patents need to be reformed (I'm not sure they need to be eliminated, maybe they do / maybe they don't, that's another discussion).

Awesome! Nice Comment. I wish I could produce as pithy prose as you :-)

Actually, I wasn't sure how long the title could be, so I made my main point in the first comment.

Sorry if you wanted a mega-meta-discussion. I'm just simple that way. I happen to like the points on comments, find they make my browsing more efficient and enjoyable, and hope they return.

I like the points on comments and miss them (not that I just miss change). Often I don't have time to read a whole discussion but just want to get the gist of what people are saying about an article, scanning for the highest scoring comments (while not perfect) helps me quickly decide if I want to read more of the discussion.

Hey! If you're going to turn off points in comments, please make it a preference. I enjoy seeing them.

I learned C for the first time in 1986 and still use it all the time as my day to day favorite language is Objective-C (and also I've really started to develop a fondness for Ruby too, that's a neat language).

I call BS. My neighbor is a "normal" non-geek who has an android phone and even he notices the difference in app quality and bitches about it all the time (his wife has an iPhone). Just because he isn't "trendy" doesn't mean he doesn't know what quality is. Its his work phone, when his contract is up, he's already decided he's going to lobby for an iPhone and the apps are a huge reason why.

#import "disclosure.h" I help run SecondConf, feel free to ask if you have any questions.

But, we're on the opposite end of the spectrum. We intentionally keep it small, so everyone can have a chance to talk with everyone else. We just announced our date for this year (9/23-25) and more details will be coming soon: http://www.secondconf.com/ if you're interested, you should follow @secondconf on twitter.

(minor edit to fix typo and add twitter info)

I highly recommend you read Jeff LaMarche's WWDC survival guide. http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2011/03/wwdc-first-tim...

That's ridiculous. Unless we are in a private place (like your own home, a private club, etc..)

For example, if we are in a public park, and I take your picture even against your explicit wishes, as long as I do not make any commercial profit off of it, I am pretty much free to publish it in any way I want (flicr, etc.).

If I want to sell it or profit from it in some way, you certainly have some rights. But, basically, if you are in a public place you have no privacy rights against someone taking a picture of you and publishing it.

No. What I think everyone is saying is that we find it surprising that the thief recording a video and putting it on the victims computer (essentially giving it to him) would have any rights to sue for at all in Germany or anywhere else for that matter.

The fact that the thief knows that the computer is stolen property and is not rightfully his makes a big difference. For example, if he bought the computer for $250 he might be suspicious that it was stolen (otherwise why such a good deal?), but it is theoretically possible in that situation to give him the benefit of the doubt. Of course, that's not the case here.

I've been wondering about getting fit for years, then suddenly one day out of the blue, my doctor told me the secret: "Eat Less & Work Out More"

smashes forehead, why has everyone been keep this a secret for so long :)

Cool analysis. tl;dr:

If you're using a non-thread safe structure in a multi-threaded way and think you understand what kinds of data corruption you might get (and are ok with that), you still might get totally different and unexpected kinds of data corruption than you planned for (read the article for details).