Slashdot Mirror

people, at least not that i know of.

people who cannot comprehend the difference between a priavte corporation, with your consent, sharing your information, and government agencies obtaining your email without warrant, are...

Facebook use leads to Arrest
5/26/13 In Britain, Police Arrest Twitter and Facebook Users If They Make Anti-Muslim Statements

Facebook use leads to Imprisonment
5/25/13 Jailed for Facebook Comments, Marine Sues

Facebook use leads to Rape
5/28/13 Facebook Rape Joke Prompts 15 Companies to Pull Ads

Facebook use leads to Killing
2/09/12 Facebook "Defriending" Led to Double Murder, Police Say

It seems you're right in that there is a difference between Facebook and the NSA. The NSA's system has a far cleaner track record. If only the NSA would let us join their social network we'd live in a safer world.

Firstly, I think they got Nokia to do most of the heavy lifting making apps for Win 8.

They also offered developers US$100 for every app in their store

They could have of course taken it one step further and hired them to make the apps, but that would have been monumentally expensive and I think they underestimated the lack of developer interest in Win8.

What the NSA is doing goes well beyond the authorization of the Patriot act.

Obama Supports Extending Patriot Act Business Records Snooping
Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants

They have a pretty good migration shedule, sure, they "close" stuff without warning, but they give you plenty of time to get your data out

They give you the ability to get your data out, that's what makes them not evil AFAIC. Example:
Google Buzz, The Social Network No One Cared About, Is Finally Going Offline

Not too many people cared to use it, and in October 2011 Google announced that itâ(TM)d eventually discontinue the service. Finally and at long last, Googleâ(TM)s determined that the time has arrived. Doors are closing on Buzz forever, and youâ(TM)ll receive a backup data file of all your posts saved to your Google Drive on or after July 17, 2013. Any active Buzz users out there better take note â" your service is only guaranteed through July 17. For everyone else, you can go about continuing to live your lives.

18 months is fair notice, if it's something you care about you've got time to figure a solution.

You dont think at least one US telco had the leadership and legal insight to look at what the NSA requested and saw many legal questions?
http://au.businessinsider.com/the-story-of-joseph-nacchio-and-the-nsa-2013-6
Note what happens to the person if you say just say yes or ....
Lawyers and lots of money will not save a person from a ~80-90+% US http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate
http://cryptome.org/mayer-016.pdf
ie you dont start with questions about warrant or subpoena, criminal activity?
"...to assert that its wireless, wireline and internet businesses gave no customer phone records or call data to the NSA.""
Terms like "Call Monitoring Center for the Exclusive Use of the NSA."
"The NSA program was initially conceived at least one year prior to 2001"
Would you like your brand linked into something called "Groundbreaker Enterprise System"?
How long do you think you can hold out for warrants issued by a court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or an opinion of the Attorney General holding that any program your telco enters into is lawful?

Please See: http://www.businessinsider.com/22-maps-that-show-the-deepest-linguistic-conflicts-in-america-2013-6

You do all recall that all the Romance languages are based on Roman, but they were once all dialects of Roman. Welcome to America, we we have all kinds of regional and local dialects.

Just remember what happened when New York decided to use technology to solve a little payroll challenge...

Hiring SAIC to do something was bad enough, letting the project get so out of hand that the cost increased by a factor of ten, half a billion dollars of which was recovered by the feds as being directly tainted by fraud...

The rest of the participants should probably just tell mean jokes about the Bloomberg terminal's embarrassing little spying-on-customers-who-really-don't-like-that problem until he goes away.

This makes little sense. The world population is supposed to peak in 2030 at 8.5 billion.

http://www.businessinsider.com/analyst-world-population-will-peak-at-85-billion-in-2030-2012-11

Even as population trends, this 11 billion by end of century figure is not believable. We can't predict the weather or climate change, but we can easily predict population growth and the African population growth angle is absolutely not justified in a non-speculative sociology realm.

Representatives of Microsoft may be hanging out on the social news site voting up positive comments about the Xbox One, voting down negative comments and adding pro-Xbox comments of their own, Misty Silver says.

While at Microsoft for a meeting, Misty Silver saw and overheard some employees on Reddit. She looked at one of the employee’s screens:

“I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own. I couldn’t make out exactly what he was posting, but I presumed he was doing RM (reputation management) and asked my boss about it later. According to my boss, MS have[sic] just brought in a huge sweep of SMM managers to handle reputation management for the Xbox One,” Silver reported.

“Reputation management” is the term social media marketers use to “pose as happy customers” on social media sites. They upvote/downvote and make comments.

http://au.businessinsider.com/microsoft-positive-reddit-comments-2013-6 [businessinsider.com] [businessinsider.com]

So what? This is basically the equivalent of a bunch of neckbeards down-voting Xbox comments just because hey hate Microsoft, or can't get laid, or whatever.

O/S bigotry is bullshit, and most of the time when I meet someone who is constantly bitching about windows, they have no substantial reasons, they are just haters. It really doesn't make sense to me. All of the modern operating systems have a place, and being able to put the right tool in the right place at the right time is a skill that has put me in the top 5% of the IT folks at my organization, with pay to match.

I will bring up a linux box, or a windows server, or a freakin' MAC whenever I want for whatever reason I want. I will read up on the latest techniques to harden the particular O/S I am working on. I will decide what services will run according to the environment the machine with reside, etc.

This is how things get done.

Representatives of Microsoft may be hanging out on the social news site voting up positive comments about the Xbox One, voting down negative comments and adding pro-Xbox comments of their own, Misty Silver says.

While at Microsoft for a meeting, Misty Silver saw and overheard some employees on Reddit. She looked at one of the employee’s screens:

“I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own. I couldn’t make out exactly what he was posting, but I presumed he was doing RM (reputation management) and asked my boss about it later. According to my boss, MS have[sic] just brought in a huge sweep of SMM managers to handle reputation management for the Xbox One,” Silver reported.

“Reputation management” is the term social media marketers use to “pose as happy customers” on social media sites. They upvote/downvote and make comments.

http://au.businessinsider.com/microsoft-positive-reddit-comments-2013-6 [businessinsider.com] [businessinsider.com]

Representatives of Microsoft may be hanging out on the social news site voting up positive comments about the Xbox One, voting down negative comments and adding pro-Xbox comments of their own, Misty Silver says.

While at Microsoft for a meeting, Misty Silver saw and overheard some employees on Reddit. She looked at one of the employee’s screens:

“I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own. I couldn’t make out exactly what he was posting, but I presumed he was doing RM (reputation management) and asked my boss about it later. According to my boss, MS have[sic] just brought in a huge sweep of SMM managers to handle reputation management for the Xbox One,” Silver reported.

“Reputation management” is the term social media marketers use to “pose as happy customers” on social media sites. They upvote/downvote and make comments.

http://au.businessinsider.com/microsoft-positive-reddit-comments-2013-6 [businessinsider.com]

Representatives of Microsoft may be hanging out on the social news site voting up positive comments about the Xbox One, voting down negative comments and adding pro-Xbox comments of their own, Misty Silver says.

While at Microsoft for a meeting, Misty Silver saw and overheard some employees on Reddit. She looked at one of the employee’s screens:

“I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own. I couldn’t make out exactly what he was posting, but I presumed he was doing RM (reputation management) and asked my boss about it later. According to my boss, MS have[sic] just brought in a huge sweep of SMM managers to handle reputation management for the Xbox One,” Silver reported.

“Reputation management” is the term social media marketers use to “pose as happy customers” on social media sites. They upvote/downvote and make comments.

http://au.businessinsider.com/microsoft-positive-reddit-comments-2013-6 [businessinsider.com] [businessinsider.com]

Representatives of Microsoft may be hanging out on the social news site voting up positive comments about the Xbox One, voting down negative comments and adding pro-Xbox comments of their own, Misty Silver says.

While at Microsoft for a meeting, Misty Silver saw and overheard some employees on Reddit. She looked at one of the employee’s screens:

“I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own. I couldn’t make out exactly what he was posting, but I presumed he was doing RM (reputation management) and asked my boss about it later. According to my boss, MS have[sic] just brought in a huge sweep of SMM managers to handle reputation management for the Xbox One,” Silver reported.

“Reputation management” is the term social media marketers use to “pose as happy customers” on social media sites. They upvote/downvote and make comments.

http://au.businessinsider.com/microsoft-positive-reddit-comments-2013-6 [businessinsider.com]

Representatives of Microsoft may be hanging out on the social news site voting up positive comments about the Xbox One, voting down negative comments and adding pro-Xbox comments of their own, Misty Silver says.

While at Microsoft for a meeting, Misty Silver saw and overheard some employees on Reddit. She looked at one of the employee’s screens:

“I noticed he was mass-downvoting a ton of posts and comments, and he kept switching to other tabs to make posts and comments of his own. I couldn’t make out exactly what he was posting, but I presumed he was doing RM (reputation management) and asked my boss about it later. According to my boss, MS have[sic] just brought in a huge sweep of SMM managers to handle reputation management for the Xbox One,” Silver reported.

“Reputation management” is the term social media marketers use to “pose as happy customers” on social media sites. They upvote/downvote and make comments.

http://au.businessinsider.com/microsoft-positive-reddit-comments-2013-6

"I am The Law!" - Judge Dredd and the NSA

The Patriot Act needs to go! Join the EFF Today! and start writing you your Senators and members of congress now to get this horrid piece of legislation repealed. The only way it will stop is if we tell them both in writing and in the voting booth that we want this violation of our privacy to stop.

We have a huge hidden intelligence network that has ballooned since 9/11 and it just feeds on data and money. It's largely ineffective and couldn't actually target a couple of brothers that were directly warned by the Russians, leading to the bombing of the Boston Marathon. If you think the current administration is in support of your privacy rights, Think Again!"

“All it takes for evil to succeed is for a few good men to do nothing...” - Edmund Burke

I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-dell-1997-apple-quote-2013-2#ixzz2VMh5IUD9

Rolex does not pay corporate tax as it is privately held by the registered charity Hans Wilsdorf Foundation.

Productivity of the average American worker went through the roof since 1979:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-americans-working-harder-charts

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-worker-productivity-rising-faster-wage-growth-1114871

Did your inflation-adjusted paycheck? Oh hell no, you're (the average American ) treading water.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3220

http://www.businessinsider.com/corporate-profits-just-hit-an-all-time-high-wages-just-hit-an-all-time-low-2012-6

and have been for decades... DECADES

OK then. All this cost savings is pocketed by billionaires , not passed on to you. The ONLY form in which it's ever passed on to ordinary people is at their own expense, e.g. Walmart prices and Walmart

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/03/1213437/-What-Walmart-Costs-Taxpayers

http://www.walmarteffectbook.com/

So if you want to realize what any of the productivity gains / cost savings you've worked for and created, start a company, force everyone who works for you be to be part time, steal the benefits of THEIR increase in productivity, lobby your congresspig for tax breaks for the wealthy..... oh and shop at Walmart.

America is a nation of by and for billionaires, who fund our elections, occupy our political offices, write our laws and own our media. They do this for their own benefit and anything which does not effect their personal lives is not *real* and doesn't matter.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2296684923/

So no- it's not for you.

Now get back to work.

You know, until that happened, you'd just be a tin-foil hat wearer, without a shred of credibility to you. Actually, you still are. But thanks to the colossal mistake of a couple of people in the IRS and Obama's total and complete inability to deal with a scandal, that singular act has managed to make the tinfoil hat crowd look more credible than the government.

Well, you know what, okay. Out of the thousands of times Obama and the "rabid liberals" have gotten it right, after six years of constant, sustained, unending attempts by the Republicans to find something, anything, to sink Obama even if it means repeatedly punching themselves in the face (Comeon guys, with all the major issues out there, your party platform for the previous four years has been trying to ensure Obama didn't get re-elected. Petty much?)... I suppose yes, with that much scrutiny eventually something had to pan out.

So take this one, singular victory. Have it, it's yours. You can feel righteous for a bit now -- you have a right to be upset

Well, that's mighty white of you. You are indeed a generous spirit.

True Scandal - A tea-party group ... gets attention from the IRS—and the FBI, OSHA, and the ATF.
The IRS Fiasco Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg
A Frequent Visitor to the White House

...Douglas Shulman, Commissioner from 2008 to 2012, during the Obama administration, visited the White House 118 times just in 2010 and 2011. His successor, Steven Miller, also visited “numerous” times.

Lawmakers say IRS targeted dozens more conservative groups than initially believed

The IRS targeting of conservative groups is far broader than first reported, with nearly 500 organizations singled out for additional scrutiny, according to two lawmakers briefed by the agency

IRS Admits Targeting “Tea Party” Groups
The New Nixon This time, the press cheered as the IRS investigated the president's opponents.
Tea party groups call IRS process 'nightmare'
IRS approved liberal groups while Tea Party in limbo
Curious IRS Timing - Did the tax agency also target groups that support Israel?
Obamacare + IRS = gangster government
7 Questions That The IRS Inappropriately Asked Of Tea Party Groups
The IRS’s Tea-Party Targeting - An apology, but no explanation
Did The IRS Try To Swing Election To Obama?

Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert

http://www.businessinsider.com/study-watching-fox-news-makes-you-less-informed-than-watching-no-news-at-all-2012-5

....just saying.

Not quite sure why hiring from a heterodox offshoot that both the catholic protestant church consider a heretical cult and in the recent past was involved in armed insurrection against the state is a good idea for sensitive posts.

The Catholics and Protestants believe each other to be heterodox relative to each other. It's difficult to classify the LDS church as a cult, as they have survived more than a generation past the death of their charismatic leader, without also classifying any follower of a faith that at one point had a charismatic leader as a cult. No idea what you are talking about on the armed insurrection comment, so I'll say "citation needed".

http://www.mormonthink.com/QUOTES/gov.htm
http://www.businessinsider.com/11-surprising-things-you-didnt-know-about-mormons-2011-6?op=1

You should also consider that the vast majority of the US military is recruited from "red states", and three letter agencies also tend to recruit from ex military.

I generally don't believe that respect for authority is always a good thing, But couple that with an abstinence from drugs, alcohol, and in the more devout, even caffeine done for religious reasons, along with foreign language skills from foreign missions on behalf of the LDS church, also for religious reasons, and you'd have a hard time coming up with a better recruiting pool for three letter government agencies.

I was going to counter your argument by stating that mechanics will just move to specializing on the other car systems that get replaced by simpler and more efficient electrical components, but then I realized that we could have incredibly simple, free, and direct tax filing, but companies like Intuit have successfully lobbied to keep the more efficient system from coming to fruition.

Not to mention that Snapchat doesn't actually delete your photos.

What's really missing in the discussion here is that all large multinational corporations use tax avoidance strategies. GE for example has a team of lawyers and accountants just focused on minimizing their tax liabilities globally. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/general-electric-taxes_n_2852094.html . This Tax avoidance problem has been discussed for the past few years especially with deficits running as high as they have been. It's the old "we're not taking in enough revenue, so where can we get more." The administration plays that message up, the spin doctors on the Sunday morning news programs echo it because it keeps the discussion in the public eye. Even the news in the UK about the same avoidance strategies being questioned just echos the same problem. What's missing from the discussion is how much money is being pissed away by bad ideas, red tape and boondoggles like studying the sex life of squirrels. Fraud and waste alone cost us billions in the US each year and for every billion we save, that's a billion that could be put to towards other programs (like offsetting the sequester) or simply put back into the taxpayer's pockets by not taking it in the first place. http://www.businessinsider.com/government-waste-spending-sequestration-sequester-2013-3?op=1

So, Apple in this case isn't alone and it's just business. What needs to happen in the US is that the crappy tax code and the IRS need to be changed. We need to get rid of the loopholes that allow companies to shelter billions in profits overseas and allow them to move money from place to place without being taxed. That requires changes to the law and specifically to the tax code, I for one am in favor of abolishing it and going to consumption taxes or a flat tax. Think of it: no April 15th hassles. No audits.. That will put thousands of bureaucrats out of work and H&R block and Quicken to boot! Does that mean a smaller government too? Yes, and that is a good thing.

NRA is a marketing arm of gun manufacturers.

Except for the fact that the NRA gets very little money from gun manufacturers. Where they get their money from is millions of Americans writing checks so that the NRA will represent them in Washington.

More facts, less emotion.

Okay, here are FACTS . If you think that all their money comes from their members, you sir are more than just a bit delusional. ( BTW, I was a life member, before the NRA became the mouthpiece of the gun manufacturers )

as an owner myself, don't fool yourself about the NRA

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/whom-does-the-nra-really-speak-for/266373/
http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-industry-funds-nra-2013-1
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16324652

t doesn't matter how good your company is or what your corporate charter's stated mission is, you're still portrayed as a Big Evil Company that's out to greedily gather money and decimate your adversaries

Because they're are usually a Big Evil Company and the mission is just PR bullshit.

Example?

Lets take Google.

Google's mission from: http://www.google.com/about/

"Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

And Google does things like this:

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-admits-it-was-blocking-wp8-maps-2013-1

http://wmpoweruser.com/surprise-or-not-google-demands-microsoft-cease-and-desist-with-official-youtube-app/

Is it the press' fault that they need to cover this up by putting it on page 12 and concentrate on Google's clean image in the front page?

Larry Page: Every story I read about Google, it's us versus some other company or some stupid thing.

He means like in these stories?

http://www.wpcentral.com/google-microsoft-remove-youtube-windows-phone-store

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-admits-it-was-blocking-wp8-maps-2013-1

Stupid thing indeed, to send lawyers to make things worse for Windows Phone users who are mere pawns in Google's strategic games.

For example, the imaging tech in Nokia's flagship Windows Phone is far better than Android phones, look at the below videos for proof.

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/samsung-galaxy-s4-video-is-shakier-than-rivals-in-test-50011238/

How about advancing the state of the art for smartphone camera imaging tech through its loss making Motorola Unit instead of trying to compete by making Windows Phone worse by sending C&D take down letters?

Why doesn't Google use it's loss making Motorola to advance the state of smartphone camera tech like Nokia is doing instead of trying to prevent people from getting Windows Phone by sending C&Ds and takedowns?

It might sound like that, but...

but nothing, you might not like the figures which even with accounting for windows dressings are enormous(390 Million active users).

According to Internet analytics firm GlobalWebIndex it can boast 359Million active users (not far of Goggles announcement) up 33% from 269 at the end of June 2012. (The same report put Facebook at 701Million) http://www.businessinsider.com/google-plus-is-outpacing-twitter-2013-5?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Falleyinsider%2Fsilicon_alley_insider+(Silicon+Alley+Insider)

The bottom line is however you spin it both scale and growth of Google+ are enormous.

In 2012, Gates ended up 7 billion dollars *richer* after "giving away" billions --- to the "charity" that re-invests in the companies that Gates holds the rest of his fortune in. Pretty convenient to "accidentally" make 7 billion dollars in a year, while trying to "give away" your wealth. Almost as if the Gates Foundation was actually a wildly successful tax-sheltered front for advancing the extremely profitable interests that Gates is heavily invested in, that, after a few years of initial start-up investment, is now paying back ridiculously high dividends.

Well, he's doing a terrible job. In 2012, Bill Gates got $7 *richer* after all his "charitable" donations --- to the foundation that serves as a lobbying/investment firm for Gate's for-profit holdings. The "philanthropy" is a scam front for investing money back to Bill Gates empire. You don't "accidentally" get $7 Billion richer in a year after "giving away" all your money. So, yes, based on 2012, Gates is earning an immense return on all that wealth he's "giving away."

North Korea devalued currency over the weekend 100 to 1.

Cyprus basically split Euro in 2 at least, where if your money was in one of their banks, you lost anywhere between 40 and 100%, that would be a devaluation. All of a sudden if your money is in a Cyprus bank your Euro is not worth at all what other Euros are worth.

Rubble collapsed with the collapse of USSR, but even before the collapse it was just in a constantly accelerating free fall. Grivna or Hryvna or however you write that in English (Ukrainian post USSR currency) replaced another currency that existed before it (and there were more than one), which devalued at amazing pace day to day and things like that happen over DAYS or HOURS sometimes, that's because a restructuring is not a restructuring without massive losses.

By the way, that's a big reason as to why I only sees gold as real money, something that cannot be 'revalued' by gov't in a heartbeat.

There are South American stories, there are European stories, the Japanese are going down that path, there are African stories, Asian stories, you point at a location on the world map and if there are people there, there was a currency collapse there at some point (and there will be more later on).

As has been mentioned already, B&N already won against Microsoft regarding these patents so clearly they're not exactly paragons of validity.

No, they did not "win" - they settled and the settlement was structured to maintain MS's patent charade.

All Google needs to do is offer a commercial licence, for a small fee, to all Android OEM's that indemnifies them. This way if Microsoft has an issue with Android or Linux they can take on Google directly. But, we all know that would never happen because Microsoft clearly knows that Google would single handily invalidate all of their obvious, worthless and prior art ridden patents one by one.

That will not happen because Google can't protect itself(i.e the Motorola it bought which loses billions every year by the way because of making crap phones), how can it protect its partners? It's about to get bitchslapped for trying to abuse FRAND standard patents on H.264 and WiFi for extortion.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/05/06/eu-rules-googles-motorola-abused-patents-in-seeking-injunction-against-apple
http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/26/4271432/does-anyone-know-why-google-bought-motorola
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/technology/07iht-google07.html?_r=0
http://www.zdnet.com/in-microsoft-patent-spat-ruling-hints-that-google-grossly-overpaid-for-motorola-7000014582/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-29/motorola-buy-delivers-google-more-heartbreak-than-help.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-slapped-google-around-in-court-and-its-becoming-clear-google-overpaid-for-motorola-2013-4

Membership dues provide less than half of the NRA's funding - a very large amount (tens of millions) come through sales of guns. How various organizations under the umbrella of the NRA get funded

So the NRA at least has a financial interest in the success of the gun manufacturing industry.

The quid-pro-quo for the gun manufacturing industry came when the NRA pushed and got passed legal immunity for liability related to the use of the gun industry's products, even in the case of defective and unsafe products. This was unprecedented. Manufacturers of defective or unsafe weapons now enjoy legal protection that Ford never received when manufacturing the Pinto.

The NRA does not act solely as a gun-manufacturers rights organization, but it is both significantly funded by gun manufacturers and has acted to protect the financial interests of the gun manufacturers. It is not "outrageous" to point this out.

individual companies don't stand a chance of protecting against attacks from the resources available to a nation-state

True for China but not true as a statement. 25 corporations bigger than countries.

Given the alternative, I would prefer a cruse ship that let you man the sails.

From the article:

Hallways were flooded with human waste, there was no A/C or running water, and passengers were left to survive on limited food and water.

In the days of sailing ships, you only got those conditions in first class.

Or a ship where you don't have to climb the ratlines in a storm.

Given the alternative, I would prefer a cruse ship that let you man the sails.

Ford? You mean the company that dropped from the top of Consumer Reports quality rankings in 2009, to 23rd out of 26 in 2012? Where the only changes made to their vehicles were superficial adding of Microsoft SYNC, which was so disastrous that it had to be re-branded "MyFordTouch" and "MyLincolnTouch" and users are still frustrated? (note: I'm not referring to their refresh of engines for model year 2013, that won't be reflected until next year's Consumer Reports).

Now they are offering hour long classes for customers to learn the new system. Why do I have to spend an hour learning how to use my radio?

Yeah, good luck with that. Microsoft is shitting all over Ford even though they had started showing signs of life after the recession.

...All without a single patriot in the government going public and blowing the lid off this

Thus far, we've had the same story from a number of whistleblowers:

Former NSA technical director William Binney.

Former house intelligence committee staffer Diane Roark

Former AT&T technician Mark Klein

At what point would you consider the lid blown?

"Ethnic homogeneity" (thinly veiled xenophobic rants) has absolutely nothing to do with how well off we are.

http://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-politics-immigration-and-population-ageing-present-policy-challeng-2012-8

http://www.nordiclabourjournal.org/nyheter/news-2012/article.2012-12-13.5374023955

As for size, compare Sweden to single US states if you wish.

I've been home taking care of my son since he was three months old. He'll be 18 months when I get back to work.

That's not a typo - I'm a proud Swedish dad.

#1 Sweden is the most socially advanced country in the world.

Sweden is ranked 1st in Personal Safety, 3rd in Air, Water, and Sanitation, and 4th in Nutrition and Basic Medical Care. However, it ranked 37th in Ecosystem Sustainability. In terms of Opportunity, the Scandinavian country has stellar rankings — 2nd overall, 1st in Personal Freedom and Choice and Personal Rights, and 5th in Access to Higher Education. Its lowest score in this category is Equity and Inclusion, with a ranking of 7th.

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-most-socially-advanced-countries-2013-4?op=1

Companies don't get big by having a net profit margin of less than 5%

OK, let's look at S&P 500 net profit margins by sector. The S&P 500 comprise some pretty big companies.

Consumer discretionary -> autos and components: 4.2%
How about Consumer discretionary -> retailing: 4.0%
Food and consumer staples retailing: 2.9%
Health care equipment & services: 4.7%

Most people think net margins are gigantic. In some sectors they are substantial, up to 20% sector-wide, but in other very important sectors they are extremely modest. Even the S&P overall is 9.0%. That means plenty of S&P 500 companies overall are below that figure.

Samsung is already working on a solution to that. Basically, instead of your employer having full run of the phone, all the employer stuff is put into a sandboxed instance of the OS. Your personal phone runs into another sandboxed instance. Like having two virtual machines running simultaneously, you can flip between the two. Your employer has full control over one, and you have full control over the other.

I'm a little skeptical of how well it'll work in practice (backups will probably be problematic). But if they can pull it off, it will eliminate the need to carry two phones just because your workplace wants full access and control.

Despite the promises made by President Obama, there are plenty of lobbyists with jobs in government, hired on his watch. What's one more? What difference does it make?

http://www.businessinsider.com/meet-the-lobbyists-inside-the-obamas-administration?op=1

The software and network vulnerability issues are the least of the problems for this Water Turkey.

The LCS is not expected to be survivable in a hostile combat environment
From the Congressional Research Service: "The LCS is not expected to be survivable in a hostile combat environment as evidenced by the limited shock hardened design and results of full scale testing of representative hull structures completed in December 2006."

"So, we have a warship design that is not expected to fight and survive in the very environment in which it was produced to do so. Poorly-armed, poorly-protected, with an over-abundance of speed that will eat through a fuel supply in half a day."

This New $350 Million Combat Ship Has Nearly Two Equipment Failures For Every Million Bucks

"The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) researches Pentagon weapons procurement and has published its April 23 letter to members of the House Armed Services Committee, who have themselves 'repeatedly questioned the utility and effectiveness of the Littoral Combat Ship program' in the past.... From the time the Navy accepted LCS-1 from Lockheed Martin on September 18, 2008, until the ship went into dry dock in the summer of 2011 - not even 1,000 days later - there were 640 chargeable equipment failures on the ship. On average then, something on the ship failed on two out of every three days."

Hello US Navy! Thanks for accelerating climate-change, while subverting your mission and betraying the tax payer. I guess your next job, at Lockheed or General Dynamics will be worth all the criminal fraud and needless deaths.

OK. Here you go

This might explain it a little bit: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-is-planning-to-release-a-set-top-box-for-video-streaming-2013-4

How about accomplishing something meaningful for minorities for a change?

They are. Whites will be the minority around 2050.

They're just looking towards the future rather than living in the past where no black, hispanic or asian person ever shoped at an IKEA.

Arguably it misses the point in a slightly different way: it is alleged that the 'summly' acquisition was more or less a sideshow to the purchase, from SRI International(who built the actual summarization technology, and also a little toy called 'Siri' among a variety of other projects, some quite interesting and high powered), of some of the related technology and patents.

Still not something that Yahoo could develop internally(hence the buying of it); but SRI isn't exactly a lean and hungry startup, just an organization with actual serious R&D focus.