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Are you saying Apple users are not sheep?

http://static5.businessinsider...

"Baaah!"

That's odd. Tight economic binding seems to have worked for the United States of America.

That's dumb. Morso since you even say United States of America. Greece and Ireland are still separate, sovereign nations - California and Texas are not.

Good luck little bigots, you'll do well in Putin's Europe.

Good luck, neocon, in persuading them that it's raining and not western imperialists pissing on their heads. Putin didn't spend billions to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine - that would be you guys. Putin didn't set up his son to be a head honcho at an energy company after the illegal coup was a success.

They would rather do their 9-5, get paid, and go home. They have little, if any, passion left, and I constantly wonder how they became this way.

It's hardly complacency.

It's the constant death marches for no good reason other making a trade show, meet some sales' promise or to meet some ROI number from the bean counters.

And after killing yourself to meet these deadlines you have a review. Of course, during the review, you are ramping up for yet another project and unreasonable deadline.

So, for your review you have to justify your existence and what you have done over the past year. Now, since you are currently racking your brain trying to solve a problem, going back and trying to remember everything you did is impossible. Oh! And you are also sleep deprived. And why management doesn't know just proves their incompetence or they are just bullshitting you to justify not giving a raise.

When you are done, you are then given a "meets expectations" or less on your review that you then have to sign. You feel ashamed, burnt, and wondering where you went wrong - because management will just say, "You could have done more!" There is always more you can do, as far as they are concerned.

But wait! When you are done, you remember that, hey! My team and I worked that 250 hour month and saved the company from being sued!

Nope! Too late!

Even if you DO remember because you were smart enough to keep a journal, you STILL have to work your ass off. See, having a life outside of work is no longer an option. You have to live to work. So, you are lonely, no friends outside of work, and one day, you wake up in your 30s and realize that you are unmarried, no girlfriend, and scramble to try to meet someone with your ridiculous work schedule.

Then one day, the company cans your entire location, sends the jobs to India and says you can keep your job if you move to India and take an Indian salary.

Then in the press, they have the nerve to say, "We can't find any qualified Americans so we have to go overseas."

And there is still more, sonny.

I have had to train my H1-B replacement at another company on how pointers work in C because after all, I am unqualified and do not have the skills.

I have had to take a support job to make ends meet when both my wife and I were out of work. But the way it works in the US, you are your last job. So, ten years of development experience gets wiped out because I had to spend a little over a year as a support guy.

I guess hiring managers think that I somehow forgot ten years of experience.

And there's even more bullshit that I have seen and have to put up with myself.

Oh! And then there is the startup scam.

I'll finish with - taking lower pay but with stock options is a sucker's bet.

What are you talking about? Do your research, iAd has been a huge failure for Apple, and accounts for a minuscule fraction of their revenue and the mobile ad market as a whole.

http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/20...

Probably part of the reason it's not nearly as successful as Google is the very fact that they don't read all of your emails, messages, posts, pictures, etc. to target you.

What are you talking about? Do your research, iAd has been a huge failure for Apple, and accounts for a minuscule fraction of their revenue and the mobile ad market as a whole.

http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/20...

Probably part of the reason it's not nearly as successful as Google is the very fact that they don't read all of your emails, messages, posts, pictures, etc. to target you.

No, they've got a cooler full of sandwich in the back of their car, and you can buy one. I kid a bit, it's a bit higher class, but it's not a made to order lunch. Now, when the burger machine gets added to the back of a van, you may be able to get a custom made burger in minutes.

Clearly it was someone from the NSA ;) just trying to help :) --- If you believe comcast..

"Comcast refuted the claims made in Deepdotweb, stating that they had launched an internal review into the discussions reported above:

Customers are free to use their Xfinity Internet service to visit any website or use it however they wish otherwise. Like virtually all ISPs, Comcast has an acceptable use policy or AUP that outlines appropriate and inappropriate uses of the service. Comcast doesn’t monitor users’ browser software or web surfing and has no program addressing the Tor browser. he anecdotal chat room evidence provided is not consistent with our agents’ messages and is not accurate. Per our own internal review, we have found no evidence that these conversations took place, nor do we employ a Security Assurance team member named Kelly. Tor’s own FAQs clearly state: 'File sharing (peer-to-peer/P2P) is widely unwanted on Tor' and 'BitTorrent is NOT anonymous' on Tor.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com..."

Ah, Comcast.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.businessinsider.com...

Ah, Comcast.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.businessinsider.com...

That is *exactly* what happened when the first iPhone launched. Jobs

The glass consists of a thin sheet of alkali-aluminosilicate. Gorilla Glass is strengthened using an ion-exchange process which forces large ions into the spaces between molecules on the glass surface. Specifically, glass is placed in a 400C molten potassium salt bath, which forces potassium ions to replace the sodium ions originally in the glass. The larger potassium ions take up more space between the other atoms in the glass. As the glass cools, the crunched-together atoms produce a high level of compressive stress in the glass that helps protect the surface from mechanical damage.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/...

How Sapphire Glass is made...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

http://www.businessweek.com/ne...

RWE AG said Aug. 12 it will halt an extra 1,005 megawatts of coal and lignite capacity by the first quarter of 2017, taking the total planned capacity cuts to 8,940 megawatts. Old lignite plants are candidates for closing, according to New York-based Pira, whose clients include oil companies, utilities and governments. A thousand megawatts is enough to power 2 million European homes.

They are shutting down the old coal plants, replacing them with new, more efficient and cleaner ones... and now they have to shut down and reduce production of those too.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

Wind and solarâ(TM)s share of installed German power capacity will rise to 42 percent by next year from 30 percent in 2010, according to European Union data compiled by Citigroup Inc. The share of hard coal and lignite plant capacity will drop to 28 percent from 32 percent, the data show.

German utilities plan to start new hard-coal plants with 5,606 megawatts of capacity this year and next, data from Bonn-based national grid regulator Bundesnetzagentur show. That compares with a target of at least 10,000 megawatts from new solar and wind installations in 2014 and 2015 under Germanyâ(TM)s renewable energy act, which takes effect Aug. 1. Solar output reached a record 24,244 megawatts on June 6, according to EEX.

Because... They are getting more out of all the solar and wind than expected. They are getting negative electricity prices in January and May.
http://www.reuters.com/article...
http://www.businessinsider.com...

Conspiracy and Russian propaganda retards notwithstanding.

Nor your lack of self-awareness.

With Russia it seems there are too few good opportunities to bring this sort of thing forward without questioning "the timing." Why is that?

Because the rubes taking CIA propaganda at face value (you guys learned NOTHING from the Iraq war) have a slight problem with throwing stones from within glass houses.

Theres no one source for the information, but below are a few links to some of it. They have apparently made about $6 Billion in revenue since their inception and in 2010 at least they made $700 Million in licensing fees. I did include their "investments" along with what I could call "licensing fees" because they seem to be effectively the same thing. A good chunk of their revenue is via "Patent Funds" where they offer companies a chance to join in to buy a block of patents, apparently with a thinly veiled threat that if they don't buy in IV will sue them if any of the patents in the block apply to prospective investors.

http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.businessweek.com/ar...
http://www.cnet.com/news/insid...
https://news.yahoo.com/exclusi...

The US media is now in full ass-clown mode.

Russia has invaded nothing. Sat photos? I thought so:

Apparently all those T-90 tanks only fly in by night and their cloaking devices prevent any picture of them appearing anywhere.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2014/09/ukraine-war-for-now-over-and-nato-still-in-decline.html

The nuke bullshit comes from a collapsing Oligarch, who's hold on "NATO intervention" as a tactic becomes weaker by the minute, and thus his desperate squawking. Poor little Joe Biden's son will have to make his next millions by backing another corrupt scheme, elsewhere on the globe.

Get this straight: Russia has not provided any lethal support for breakaway regions in the Ukraine civil war.

Ukraine is not a historical entity prior to Imperial manoeuvrings in the late 19th century between Austria, Prussia and Russia. Now it is being used as the same, 150 years later, to hobble Russian gas export and contain the European pivot away from the dollar and American hegemony.
 

Okay, I got a new hit on Google, it explains the rating system:
http://www.businessinsider.com...

User ratings are not changed. Instead, this is a rating system internal to Amazon. Based on your internal Amazon rating, it will chose how to promote your book. I'm assuming this means advertising on other pages, items in the "featured" section, etc. In other words, Amazon is saying that they will more heavily promote books that make them more money.

To tell you the truth, I'm surprised they don't do that already. I always assumed featured items were paid advertisements (i.e. they get a commission if you click and make a purchase) and/or high-margin items. Anyone know if that's the case with Amazon in the U.S. already?

Like kill puppies :( http://www.businessinsider.com...

not to mention that he's doing it wrong: you put your hotel on Boardwalk first, since you get the most money AND the most likely landing there thanks to the "Advance token to boardwalk" cards.

But they aren't the best investment anyway; you'd do better putting your hotels on Orange, then Red/Yellow, then Light Blue...

Tsk, tsk....

The most efficient project team is one really good engineer and one business person

Business and engineering are not really separate things. Good engineering always considers cost, and engineering problem solving can often be applied to business situations. One third of the CEOs in the S&P 500 are engineers, and their companies are more successful than average.

I can't be the only one shocked, SHOCKED to discover, the government is inefficient and wastes money. I mean, after the staggering success of everything else it operates — things like US Postal Service or Amtrak — it is certainly most disappointing to encounter a government program, that fails to live-up to our high expectations.

Nay, this may even chill our collective enthusiasm for making food and shelter a government's responsibility too — you can't be healthy without nutrition and a roof above your head, can you, so it only would've seem natural to further expand the government's omniscient and benevolent control into that direction. But not any more... Not quite...

The NSA/Pentagon/CIA always wants all sorts of bullshit scifi Star Trek shit.
Doesn't necessarily mean it's feasible.

It's easy to squander Other People's Money.

Except that, assuming that you are the average software developer (so FFS don't anecdote me, bro), Apple

I'm not "anecdoting you", you just don't know what you're talking about. You might notice that Apple isn't at the top of the list, either in pay or quality:

http://www.businessinsider.com...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Some of my friends have left Apple to go work for other companies (including where I work) or start startups themselves. Competition for talent in the valley is fierce.

The result is, the context in which Apple/Google/Microsoft/Facebook/etc. hire is *very* different from the context in which Bweezbo.me hires. They have all the qualified applicants they want, and are limited by headcount

Low-level functions in those companies are limited by headcount, but above a certain level of qualification, headcount ceases to be a consideration and there is a scarcity of people. And startups are competitive with places like Apple: they offer higher salaries, better upside potential (but also more risk), and far more control over what you do.

They're probably hurting for "qualified applicants", but that's a tautology: The definition of a "qualified applicant" is an applicant that you're willing to hire, given the talent pool available to you. All of us want our geniuses to be a little bit geniuser.

Nope, sorry, that's not not how it works.

Except that, assuming that you are the average software developer (so FFS don't anecdote me, bro), Apple

I'm not "anecdoting you", you just don't know what you're talking about. You might notice that Apple isn't at the top of the list, either in pay or quality:

http://www.businessinsider.com...

http://www.businessinsider.com...

Some of my friends have left Apple to go work for other companies (including where I work) or start startups themselves. Competition for talent in the valley is fierce.

The result is, the context in which Apple/Google/Microsoft/Facebook/etc. hire is *very* different from the context in which Bweezbo.me hires. They have all the qualified applicants they want, and are limited by headcount

Low-level functions in those companies are limited by headcount, but above a certain level of qualification, headcount ceases to be a consideration and there is a scarcity of people. And startups are competitive with places like Apple: they offer higher salaries, better upside potential (but also more risk), and far more control over what you do.

They're probably hurting for "qualified applicants", but that's a tautology: The definition of a "qualified applicant" is an applicant that you're willing to hire, given the talent pool available to you. All of us want our geniuses to be a little bit geniuser.

Nope, sorry, that's not not how it works.

Nah, I foresee a large number of vacant positions in the very near future - Particularly as we get closer to November 4th.

Wishful thinking. Federal employees are practically unfirable. For one, they are — bizarrely — unionized (to protect them from their employer — us), but that's only part of the reason, for corporations with unionized workforce still do fire bad workers, even if it is harder for them to do so than it ought to be.

The real problem is that firing an underling reflects poorly on his manager(s). This is also the truth everywhere, of course, but in normal enterprises there is this dirty and otherwise reprehensible "profit" to think about, so a bad employee can still be fired even if the manager's record gets hurt in the process. But the glorious government enterprises do not defile their mission with concerns for profit — their revenue is collected for them at gun point by the IRS.

Hence, practically nobody ever gets fired from government — "counseling" and "discipline" is the worst, that usually happens to our civil servants. Is it not time, we put our health care into their capable hands? Oh, wait...

They have not shown a causal relationship.

True.

This indicates that if there is a genetic component, it is largely irrelevant as the learning environment has the greater impact.

False. I'm unclear how you came to that conclusion based on the quote you highlighted. It does not say that learning environment has a *greater* impact. It says learning environment has *some* impact. Overall, but it is less than or equal to the importance of genetics.

This result is consistent with other studies on the topic. Unfortunately, this fact pisses people off, especially educators. (Understandably since it is their job to educate everyone equally, and especially to raise the level of the poorest performers). But it is well correlated at this point. Think back to high school: everyone realized this at some point - there were some students who just seemed smarter. Some of them didn't even have to work for it. It sucked if you sat in one of these kids' shadow. It doesn't mean hard work doesn't pay off, it doesn't mean you should not invest in your children, but it does mean that just like in sports, your genes are as big a contributor as the environment.

On that note: why are people willing to accept this in sports, but not in academics? It's totally cool to say something about Nigerian runners having long legs, or say "white men can't jump, hahaha" or "Asians are short" but if you say some people are genetically gifted in intelligence sets off everyone's alarm bells.

Excerpt from Freakanomics:

Eight factors that correlate to higher test scores
        Highly educated parents
        Parents have high socioeconomic status
        Mother was thirty or older at the time of first child's birth
        Child had low birth weight
        Parents speak English at home
        Child is adopted
        Parents are involved in the PTA
        Child has many books in the home

Eight factors that do NOT correlate with higher test scores:
        Family is intact
        Family's recent move to a better neighborhood
        Mother did not work between birth and kindergarten
        Child attended Head Start
        Parents bring children to museums regularly
        Child is regularly spanked
        Child frequently watches television
        Parents read to him nearly every day

The reason being because your PHP can't figure-out how to automate the task, he figures no one else can.

Law enforcement should surely investigate, but unless there is something life threatening a judge would be foolish to give a warrant for here-say accusation.

The requirements for a issuing a warrant are much less stringent, than for a court conviction — they have to be. A warrant is issued over a mere probable cause, whereas a conviction requires "beyond reasonable doubt". In other words, while hearsay is not enough for a trial, the term does not even apply in a non-court setting. Consider the circumstances: whereas your landlord may have planted the drugs in your bedroom to get rid of an inconvenient tenant, there is no incentive for Google (or Microsoft) to falsely implicate one of their users, so if they do report them to police anyway, it is probable, there is something behind the accusation.

But in either case — be it landlord or e-mail service provider — a judge may issue a warrant if he agrees with the police, that probable cause exists, even if they all remain reasonably doubtful.

Obviously a kidnapping (as well as other crimes)

For better or worse, it is generally agreed in this country (and most others), that child pornography is both as vile and urgent, as anything else you can think of.

issue a warrant without an investigation

In the US "investigation" is not something the judge (or the jury) does. Police investigate and then present whatever they found.

certainly rare because they may not hold up in court as Constitutional

Once a judge has issued a warrant, the Constitutional requirements are satisfied. Because, as I said, it does not matter, what arguments were used to convince him to issue it. The 4th Amendment is only there to ensure Judicial oversight of police. And that's enough for decent living because, after all, a search warrant itself does not mean conviction (or even further prosecution) — the ensuing search still has to find something.

I'll need to read more on these proceedings because there is surely a mismatch between your statement and the headline.

Oh, but they are consistent. The e-mail provider finds (what appears to be) criminal material and forwards it to police — the "tip" mentioned in the headline. Police take the material to a judge, who issues a warrant for a search (in Google's case) or arrest (in Microsoft's case). Police arrest the subject and get him to incriminate himself (in Microsoft case) or search the suspect's possessions and find more criminal material. While the originating tips themselves couldn't be used to convict, each was enough to begin an investigation which uncovered more evidence — as is very often happens in criminal prosecutions.

Now, because police could (and did) abuse their powers with malicious prosecutions, an officer's own "hunch" can no longer justify initiation of an investigation — nor even asking for your ID. But an anonymous tip about a "suspicious person" in the neighborhood is still sufficient for them to have a reasonable suspicion and harass such person over nothing more than a glance at some soccer mom's precious daughter.

So $3m/episode for the main stars. The other stars aren't making anywhere near that, and factoring in production costs, say we double the amount to $6m. Average show has 8 minutes of commercials and presuming 30-second ads, that's $375k/commercial (or probably less)

Coincidentally, ads were $326k last fall so my $6m/episode may not be that outlandish.

This also doesn't factor in any other money they make from merchandise sales, syndication ($1.5m/episode several years ago), and "goodwill" for other shows that BBT attract viewers too.

Meanwhile the park employees are all atwitter about StripedCow's 300 children.

But once management finds out about their tweets, watch them end up fired for spilling the beans, like Nicole Crowther in this BI article, in favor of people who can keep their mouth shut. Then watch management find people like twitter, who can do the job of a dozen people.

Consider that "atwitter" does not necessarily mean "tweeting", or whatever social that people use to destroy their lives.

My point was that StripedCow seems to think that kids telling an ice cream vendor that they are his kids, so they can buy their munchies at the park was a good idea. Then suddenly everyone becomes StripedCow's children. It's like in-app purchases gone wild.

Meanwhile the park employees are all atwitter about StripedCow's 300 children.

But once management finds out about their tweets, watch them end up fired for spilling the beans, like Nicole Crowther in this BI article, in favor of people who can keep their mouth shut. Then watch management find people like twitter, who can do the job of a dozen people.

No, I used the on-site search, and missed that page. It says that FRB with Bitcoin is possible, which contradicts what you are saying.

Apparently you didn't bother to click through the links on that page (or read any of the threads on the forum) that express opposing viewpoints. Now, I don't really follow bitcoin that closely anymore, but the last I checked the matter was hardly settled.

But hey, if you can point to a real world example of an operational bitcoin bank practicing fractional reserve banking, I'd certainly be willing to reconsider my position. : )

Back to my example

Please, spare me. I can assure you that my professional credentials in the banking arena are...well, let's say they're above average.

They also used to have a role in safeguarding money, much less important with Bitcoin.

Off-topic, but you can't be serious. The total amount of stolen bitcoins compared to the total amount in circulation is staggering.

Having an "equal opportunity" President is proving to be so popular, I can't wait for Mr. Jackson to be treated by an "equal opportunity" heart surgeon...

fessed up to having a tech workforce that's only 1% Black, apparently par for the course in Silicon Valley.

Not only is Silicon Valley young and Illiberal, they are also working on developing their businesses and would not sabotage their start-ups' success by turning away real talent.

Whatever the problem is, Silicon Valley's "racism" ain't it...

His skin looks dark to me.
That's based on the large picture shown at the top of article about Sharron Laverne.
Where did I find such an article? Oh, it's the one posted in the summary/story. So, jsepeta is known to not check the article before posting.
Not that your comment seemed bad or contrary to the article, but this publicly shows that you didn't seem to check.

That's disingenuous. Those aren't really in the same category as modern nukes. We're talking about much more power than all of WWII including those two bombs

I get the impression that you have about equal chances of getting a rude gate agent no matter what airlines you fly with. Which is to say they're almost all reasonable people, but sometimes have bad days, other times it depends more on how you ask. The guy here seems to have an entitlement. He's a frequent flyer, his kids aren't, he was asking if they could get on with him in the early boarding. He could have paid the early check-in fee for them and gotten on before most people anyway. I think it's $15 on southwest. Point is, he had other options. It's fine to ask for favors, but if you're fuming about someone NOT granting you a favor, you're probably the asshole in that situation.

Moreover, personally, I'm willing to pay for more polite staff. Specifically, I'm willing to pay maybe five dollars. Southwest is still cheaper usually. Who cares about rude gate agents?

On service (as in flights on time) I have gotten the impression that they're slipping. Their fleet isn't as young as it used to be. Mechanical issues seem to be causing more delays. That said, they're still newer planes than Delta. I suspect southwest's reputation is working against them here: If Delta is delayed 2 hours you think "Fucking Delta, always pulling this shit, good thing I brought a book to read just in case this happened." If Southwest is delayed you think "WHAT THE FUCK!!! SOUTHWEST ISN'T SUPPOSED TO DO THIS SHIT!!! AAAAA!!!!"

I may be biased though because Delta woke me up in very the middle of a trans-pacific flight to fucking sell me duty free shit, and I didn't get back to sleep the remaining 6 or so hours, then on the ground I learned they had smashed both of my checked articles, and then told me with a straight face that I took that risk when I checked it. Southwest doesn't do international flights, so doesn't have a chance to wake me up trying to sell me something, and I don't check bags anymore.

Example?

That's where we're at?
I see this garbage all the time... and I never understand it. Growing up my father ran a factory and was damned good at it. His people showed up on time, did great work, had low scrap and were very productive. How did he manage this amazing feat? Minders that followed you everywhere in the factory? Discreet blood samples taken hourly? No...

They had stats. That's it. You produce X parts per week. Go way above that get a bonus, go way bellow that, you get fired. If everyone is getting bonuses the stats would rise... if everyone was getting low stats they'd first check for procedural problems that might be hindering peoples work and baring that they'd lower their expectations. It worked marvelously well... people would think of ways to go faster and bring them up... because it meant a bonus until everyone else caught on. Anything that made production harder was immediately reported because people wanted their bonus.

Damn near every successful factory in the country works this way. Do the same thing for code. What my father always said was "They could spend 7hrs in the bathroom every day... I don't care... if they can come out at hit 1000% efficiency that last hour to make up the difference it's fine with me. But they better keep in mind their peers are going to eventually figure out how they pulled it off and change the curve."

If you 'search the net' for events relating to drones ... take away the EquuSearch related results, you'll find that pretty much EVERY ONE OF THEM is some fucking moron doing something that either DID hurt someone, was dangers as shit, came very close to hurting someone, or certainly had the potential to hurt someone.

I've been paying attention to the almost daily news stories about "drones," and I have not observed what you claim. The vast majority are people spooked by multirotors hovering around.

A commercial drone at a wedding
A creepy guy flying a multirotor around a medical faciltiy
NYPD getting excited about another multirotor
FAA warns a multirotor pilot to stay at low altitude
"Drone" crashes in someones yard
"Drone" videos Pirates baseball game
Drug smuggling with a multirotor
"Drone" reported outside someone's apartment
"Drone" used to spy on French football team
Woman Attacking Teen with "drone"

Some of those were dangerous to aircraft, but most didn't involve manned aircraft, and no one was hurt or killed. There have been plenty of close calls with model planes, but there haven't been many actual collisions and I'm not finding any deaths due to collisions with manned aircraft.

In all likelihood there won't be either. Most of these "drones" are small and light. When they collide with manned aircraft they disintegrate and perhaps scratch some paint. Here is what happens when a aerobatic aircraft slams into a typical model plane. Balsa and foam don't rate against aircraft aluminum. Is a death possible? Of course. Obviously. However, I think the interval between such events will be many years and the fault will not be attributed to the drones in every case, either.

I'm with you in that the stupid among us are creating the need for regulation. Adding to the hysteria of it all with claims of imminent "danger" is not useful.

The largest source of income for the NRA is membership dues

http://www.businessinsider.com...

While that is still part of the organization's core function, today less than half of the NRA's revenues come from program fees and membership dues.

The bulk of the group's money now comes in the form of contributions, grants, royalty income, and advertising, much of it originating from gun industry sources.

http://www.theatlantic.com/bus...

But around 2005, the group began systematically reaching out to its richest members for bigger checks through its "Ring of Freedom" program, which also sought to corral corporate donors. Between then and 2011, the Violence Policy Center estimates that the firearms industry donated as much as $38.9 million to the NRA's coffers. The givers include 22 different gun makers, including famous names like Smith & Wesson, Beretta USA, SIGARMS, and Sturm, Ruger & Co. that also manufacture so-called assault weapons.

Some of that funding has given the NRA a direct stake in gun and ammo sales.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

One of the NRA's 27 websites calls such donors "corporate partners," while another says the association is "not affiliated with any firearm or ammunition manufacturers or with any business that deals in guns and ammunition."

I'll grant that a plurality of the NRA's funding seems to come from dues, but the majority of its money comes from those with a direct or indirect financial interest in the sale of weapons and ammunition, as inconvenient that is to the NRA's projected public image.

Chinese company hosts prize to hack western company. Chinese group claims prize using secret methods which i'm sure are totally legit and prove how advanced they are. Just like in engineering and construction; look at all these bridges they're building!

Because you think working longer hours makes you a "better" worker?

French workers are among the most productive workers in the world: http://www.businessinsider.com/are-the-french-the-most-productive-people-in-the-world-2009-8

Yeah. They destroy legitimate businesses with their wonderful algorithms...

You went long on Demand Media stock, didn't you?

That butthurt's gotta burn!

Samsung's dominance in the Android market is legendary - it's what, 90% of all Android phones?

It's not that high. A C|net article from a few months ago puts them at slightly more than 30% of the global share, which is still pretty damned impressive. What's been impressive is that Samsung has been one of the only companies actually making money. HTC just posted that they were back in the black for the first time in a while and neither LG, Sony, or any of the other big players have done much better than break even. Motorola bled like stuck pig both before and after Google acquired them. Blackberry and Nokia all but disappeared.

In the first quarter of 2014, Apple and Samsung together had 106% of industry profits. That number only makes sense because all of the other companies (China wasn't included) lost money. That's what has been most incredible with the company.

yes but if we spend the next 5-20 years modeling we don't actually have to do anything real about it.

China isn't like the USA.
They tend to move purposefully and quickly when goals are set.

In the run up to the Olympics, China unilaterally closed coal power plants, various heavy industries, and took cars off the road, all in a bid to reduce pollution in Beijing.
It took the USA 40 years to tell grandfathered coal plants to either shape up or shut down.
  Compare to China:

Beijing plans to limit the total number of cars on the road to 5.6 million this year, with the number allowed to rise to 6 million by 2017, the local government has said.

It will also aim to meet its 2011-2015 targets to cut outdated capacity in sectors like steel, glassmaking and cement by the end of this year, one year ahead of schedule. On top of the original targets, it will also close an additional 15 million tonnes of steel smelting capacity and 100 million tonnes of cement making capacity next year.

The key idea here is that all this is happening unilaterally.
Their actions probably wouldn't even be constitutional in the USA.

Something seems really, really off kilter if so many of us see the federal government's law enforcement agencies as the enemy.

There has been a war on people by certain aspects of The Law for a while now. Read the report - War Comes Home. That's America today.

https://www.aclu.org/sites/def...

It's sad when "insurgent countermeasures" as learned from Iraq actually win law enforcement awards for novel policing!

http://www.businessinsider.com...

âoeOnce it became clear to me that he wasnâ(TM)t talking about checkpoints or fast roping from helicopters," replied Springfield Deputy Police Chief John Barbieri, "that he was talking about going door-to-door, organizing the neighborhood into a collaboration to report crime, to get involved in solving their own problems, it became obvious to me that that was exactly the type of program needed in that neighborhood.â

Less SWAT mentality, more community policing and maybe people will start to trust law enforcement.. Less about "convictions" and more about "giving a helping hand". Imagine that! Policing should be about helping people solve problems, not throwing grades into their homes because of some anonymous drug tip.

Give respect and you'll get it back. Terrorizing communities with SWAT and long jail sentences does not result in much respect.

You remember correctly:

http://www.businessinsider.com...

According to this: http://www.businessinsider.com... even when he was still around, he didn't know what users really wanted.

As far back as 2010 iOS was losing ground to Android. By 2011 iOS was haemorrhaging users to Android.

Apple has a very backward way of marketing features. They tell you what you want, then they give you no choice. If you happen to agree with them after trying it, you join their side and yell that this is the best way and everyone should do it that way, ignoring that you're in a minority.

Its great that Apple creates a product that millions of users prefer, and I don't mind that they do. Its just wrong to claim that its the best way for everyone; its practically a niche product already, like the Mac has been for decades.

before or after you add int he cost from illness caused by pollution? Before or after CO2 impacts?

After. And the costs get worse when you start factoring in capital costs, opportunity costs, etc.

I've heard that in a few years solar will be cheaper than coal in China. So....

Electricity Prices Fall In Europe As German Renewable Energy Output Increases

According to this article, wholesale electric power contract prices in Germany and neighboring countries peaked last November at 50.50 Euro/MWh, which I believe works out to just under 7 cents/KWh. Ask folks in California whether that's "outrageously expensive".

Since then, prices have decreased in December, January, February, and March; March prices were about 4.85 cents/KWh.

Even better, due to regulations requiring grid participants to purchase renewable energy when it's available, the price of non-renewable power is sometimes actually dropping to or below zero . That's right, there were apparently brief intervals where nuclear and coal plants were paying customers to draw power from them.

Early predictors of the tuition bubble: John Stossel and Matthew Continetti http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

In the news this week, Mark Cuban on the tuition bubble: http://www.businessinsider.com...

Making the bubble worse: the current Administration, by nationalizing the student loan industry and further removing market forces from individual decisionmaking: http://heritageaction.com/2013...