Slashdot Mirror

"Show of hands: how many of you guys even knew this guy's name before the VP announcement?"

Actually, Paul Ryan has gotten a lot of mention in political news for the last few years due to his budget proposals. That's the whole reason Romney picked him for VP. If you've been paying attention to American politics (and I don't blame you for not), you should have heard of him by now. People on the left talk about him a fair bit because the media takes his "deficit-reduction" plans very seriously even though they don't actually reduce the deficit (Republicans get a free pass on this sort of thing). Here's ThinkProgress way back in 2009:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/03/30/37165/ryan-gop-budget/

Here's Paul Krugman in 2010:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/opinion/06krugman.html

Here's Dean Baker in 2010:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/08/can-we-plese-shut-the-washington-post-down-today.html

Here's Bruce Bartlett in 2011:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2011/04/07/Wealthy-Get-Free-Pass-in-Ryan-Budget.aspx

Finally, here's some Ryan critiquing from earlier this year:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/24/why-do-new-york-times-columnists-keep-swooning-for-paul-ryan/

And here's DeLong again from yesterday:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/08/in-which-i-disagree-with-josh-barro-on-paul-ryan-arithmetick-has-to-be-primary-hey-rocky-watch-me-pull-a-rabbit-out-of-th.html

You'll note that neither Ryan's budgets nor their criticisms have changed very much. As for your friends, perhaps they felt their "cut+pasted pre-digested talking points that someone else wrote" were informative enough. There's nothing wrong with referencing someone else's writing.

This bill reduces oversight, regulation, and investor protection measures when companies want to raise investment capital. Please read the following:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/20/cfa-institute-against-the-jobs-bill/

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/21/jobs-disaster-looms/

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/22/last-ditch-attempt-to-save-a-little-bit-of-investor-protection-in-the-united-states/

One of the biggest cause of the recent financial crisis was too little regulation of the financial industry. I do *not* want to do it again in 5 years.

The only crisis you don't want to have happen is the one you don't see coming... If this is as plain-faced as many out there think it is, what is the worry? Wait for the momentum to pick up, then bet big against crowd-vesting. Then, sit back and watch your millions roll in!

This bill reduces oversight, regulation, and investor protection measures when companies want to raise investment capital. Please read the following:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/20/cfa-institute-against-the-jobs-bill/

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/21/jobs-disaster-looms/

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/22/last-ditch-attempt-to-save-a-little-bit-of-investor-protection-in-the-united-states/

One of the biggest cause of the recent financial crisis was too little regulation of the financial industry. I do *not* want to do it again in 5 years.

The only crisis you don't want to have happen is the one you don't see coming... If this is as plain-faced as many out there think it is, what is the worry? Wait for the momentum to pick up, then bet big against crowd-vesting. Then, sit back and watch your millions roll in!

This bill reduces oversight, regulation, and investor protection measures when companies want to raise investment capital. Please read the following:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/20/cfa-institute-against-the-jobs-bill/

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/21/jobs-disaster-looms/

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/22/last-ditch-attempt-to-save-a-little-bit-of-investor-protection-in-the-united-states/

One of the biggest cause of the recent financial crisis was too little regulation of the financial industry. I do *not* want to do it again in 5 years.

The only crisis you don't want to have happen is the one you don't see coming... If this is as plain-faced as many out there think it is, what is the worry? Wait for the momentum to pick up, then bet big against crowd-vesting. Then, sit back and watch your millions roll in!

This bill reduces oversight, regulation, and investor protection measures when companies want to raise investment capital. Please read the following:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/20/cfa-institute-against-the-jobs-bill/
http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/21/jobs-disaster-looms/
http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/22/last-ditch-attempt-to-save-a-little-bit-of-investor-protection-in-the-united-states/

One of the biggest cause of the recent financial crisis was too little regulation of the financial industry. I do *not* want to do it again in 5 years.

This bill reduces oversight, regulation, and investor protection measures when companies want to raise investment capital. Please read the following:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/20/cfa-institute-against-the-jobs-bill/
http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/21/jobs-disaster-looms/
http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/22/last-ditch-attempt-to-save-a-little-bit-of-investor-protection-in-the-united-states/

One of the biggest cause of the recent financial crisis was too little regulation of the financial industry. I do *not* want to do it again in 5 years.

This bill reduces oversight, regulation, and investor protection measures when companies want to raise investment capital. Please read the following:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/20/cfa-institute-against-the-jobs-bill/
http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/21/jobs-disaster-looms/
http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/22/last-ditch-attempt-to-save-a-little-bit-of-investor-protection-in-the-united-states/

One of the biggest cause of the recent financial crisis was too little regulation of the financial industry. I do *not* want to do it again in 5 years.

Banksters.

Yours In Krasnoyarsk,
K. Trout

P.S.: Detain Newt Gingrich !!!

"Initially, they're focused on online pharmacies"

As Simon Johnson wrote in The Atlantic, the U.S.A. is the richest oligarchy.

Thank you, Big Pharma. Thank you, Obamarama, blame Canada.

Yours In Novosibirsk,
K. Trout

This is exactly what Apple wants to have happen: every developer now publishes a native iOS version of their app. The lack of Flash support on iOS is merely the tip of the iceberg. If Apple's strategy comes to fruition, iOS becomes the dominant app platform so developers are basically forced to support it - just as Windows was for the past 20 years. And Apple both gets to control what is available for iOS (read: keep out competition), and gets a cut of everything that sells. Read this (this is not my blog, it's mostly about finance and banking and that whole mess, but there are a handful of posts on other topics):

http://baselinescenario.com/2010/05/30/personal-computing-apple-google-2/

It's a pretty scary future indeed, but sadly with iOS's dominance I can't see how to stop the freight train. With PCs, maybe there was enough market pressure for an "open" system where we can run whatever we want. But with smartphones, it's enough of an "appliance" that I don't think anyone will care. And we'll be stuck with Apple's draconian policies for the next 20 years.

Not an "operating system" graduate course.

Is it a slow news day or is the Slashdot crew too busy
snorting the leftover cocaine from the
Goldman Sachs Party?

Yours In Almetyevsk,
Kilgore Trout

After you have enlightened Goldman Sachs, please give some money to the U.S.A to pay the remaining balance of its lease of Alaska from Russia.

Yours In Riga,
K. Trout

I don't know why I bother reading the comments.

Maybe it's the favorable ranking Slashdot has in my Firefox awesome bar. Maybe it's the arbitrary and Skinnereque reinforcement that comes from being modded up. Perhaps it's just a bad habit. Regardless, arguing here is like wrestling a fifth grader. Between the ultra-individual libertarian ideologues and the clueless teenagers (never mind the considerable overlap), it's hard to find anything challenging.

As another poster mentioned a few weeks ago, Slashdot has become a site for "computer janitors" --- i.e, the bored and easily amused who have no real ideas, power, or authority. The comments section has become a showcase for naivety. Oh, there's sound and funny and fury, but there's no creativity, even among the trolls: does anyone remember OOG_THE_CAVEMAN? Now we're left with copypasta that aims to offend in the most superficial way.

Frankly, reading Slashdot has become an embarrassment. I mention it with the same tone and trepidation I might use to admit I'd purchased a Big and Rich album. Remember when we used to talk about technology? Now we mainly argue about people talking about technology.

If I want interesting stories, fair and timely news, or probing analysis, I know where to find it. Still, there's nothing that can replace the Slashdot of yore.

First link should be http://baselinescenario.com/2009/10/14/calvin-trillins-theory/ instead of linking back to Slashdot.

I say this as an American: we've become barbarians. We torture people. We incarcerate more people, both in absolute terms and on a per capita basis, than any other nation in the world, and think it's okay to gang-rape 1% of our population. Our wealth is distributed like that of a banana republic. We're stupid, vapid, and like a feral child, we snarl and bite when someone tries to help us. America really is the sick man of the world, and personally, I'm about ready to give up and pronounce the disease incurable. We can argue about causes and solutions, but you can't deny that we're in a steep decline. As George Orwell write,

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Your two problems have intertwined solutions, actually. We'll start to see certain independent blogs gain credibility naturally. The process has already started: consider Nate Silver's blog, or James Kwak and Simon Johnson's, both of which are top-rate sources of analysis that match anything you'll find in the paper. I think the emergence of credibly blogging will occur naturally: the Internet flocks to quality.

That leaves the problem of foreign news, but I don't think it's much a problem. Credible blogs will appear worldwide. Consider how much news we've been able to read from Tehran lately. If you'd like news from Madrid, or Tokyo, or Londom, you can look up a reputable blogger there and read the primary source directly. These native blogs will replace, to large part, foreign correspondents. (This change will be made possibly by the fact that English has become a lingua franca, and it's easier for people from across the world to talk to each other than ever before.)

This model, of course, will lead to rampant astroturfing, disinformation campaigns, partisan hackery, medical quackery (I'm looking at you, Huffington Post), and so on, and I'll miss the Gray Lady, but I don't think it's the end of the world. The discerning reader will still be able to find reliable news, and for the rest, well, they're already reading The Sun or watching Fox News.