Slashdot Mirror

Fiorina frequently has been ranked as one of the worst CEOs of all time.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/am...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/3050209...

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...

http://ca.complex.com/pop-cult...

Oh... and this....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"Ellen Pao gender-bias lawsuit is a setback for women"
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1025377...

Written by a female ex-CEO.

In a nutshell, the case is obviously frivolous, and if it had succeeded it would have been another barrier for women in the industry because companies would see a female applicant and go, "Is she worth the risk?"

Valid complaints would be that the numbers reported don't include the homeless (although those estimates are gathered elsewhere), you don't understand the report, or that it conflicts with your personal opinion.

Incorrect.

The numbers are specifically the number of people who are unemployed long term.

If you want to include the people who have simply stopped looking entirely, the percentage of working age people who were engaged, but are no longer, in the workforce in the U.S. who are not working is much higher.

Feel free to try and spin-doctor this:

IT’S AN ILLUSION: HERE ARE THE REAL UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBERS
http://www.infowars.com/its-an...

The Real Unemployment Rate: In 20% Of American Families, Everyone Is Unemployed
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...

Fact Check: No, ‘Actual’ Unemployment Isn’t 37.2 Percent
(it's "only" more than twice the number reported by the government)
http://www.theblaze.com/storie...

Chart: What’s the real unemployment rate?
(This is the "U-6 rate" - "The U-6 rate covers the unemployed, underemployed and those who are not looking but who want a job.")
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1020551...

Real unemployment rate is at least 18 percent
http://thehill.com/blogs/congr...

Missing Workers: The Missing Part of the Unemployment Story
(This is the economic policy institute; they have the lowest "real" estimate, slightly less than 2X what the fed is reporting; they have a somewhat vested interest in casting the numbers lower than the others, as they get more than 1/4 of their funding from labor unions)
http://www.epi.org/publication...

Feel free to disagree with them, or cite numbers from sources that don't have a political master to which their numbers are subservient (i.e. "someone other than the DOL").

The people are continually lied to about the affects of free trade.

"They fear that an accurate portrayal of U.S. manufacturing will result not in a robust U.S. manufacturing strategy but in trade protectionism," the authors write. As a result, the report warns that policymakers and business leaders are being lulled into complacency.

american banks are finally waking the fuck up from all of the easy expensive hacks and finally giving americans european style smart chip cards:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/1014121...

the chips in smart cards are the same thing as phone SIM cards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

so why can't banks team up with verizon/ att/ sprint/ etc (and do an end run around google/ apple/ samsung/ etc. plus mastercard/ visa/ etc.) and just give us phone = bankcard thataways?

what am i missing?

do i get my $30 million bonus now?

the only reason we don't have phone = bankcard technology is this power game pissing contest between all of the players here, correct?

someone please explain to me what i am missing

typical conservative, doesn't understand WHY taxis are regulated in the first place.

http://time.com/3592035/uber-t...
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1018488...
http://www.slate.com/articles/...

At worst, people lose a day's worth of work, some businesses are affected.

The annual economic output of New York metro area alone (leaving Philadelphia aside for a minute) is about $1.4 trillion dollars — or about $4billion per day (weekdays such as today produce more than weekends). If even a mere 10% of that figure was lost today because of our rulers' failures, the cost is $400 million (for New York alone).

Possible severe damage to infrastructure

Little of such damage can be meaningfully prevented by shutting the infrastructure down. But even if it could be — and even the entire $60 million cost of the "Christmas Blizzard of 2010" could've been prevented by shutting the city down, it would've still been a pretty stupid thing to do — even if the storm actually lived up to the hype.

possible death toll

The "Christmas Blizzard of 2010" is imputed with 7 fatalities — or, in dollar terms, $63 million dollar, tops.

The best course of action by far is to shut the city down.

Hundreds vs. tens of millions of dollars lead to the exact opposite conclusion.

But there is more — individuals and businesses, made aware of the risks, can (and are supposed to!) make their own decisions. Governor declaring driving on a public road a crime is something else — they violate our freedom.

and who really expects a cabaret singer to have any knowledge of risk assessment

So, where do you sing?

Its not just that, its that all these libertarian think tanks republicans use for this free trade agenda are lying so blatantly. No one is having an honest discussion.

Reported a few minutes ago, all three terrorists are dead.

Which seems like exactly what someone did. http://www.cnbc.com/id/1022920...

Another really important question is just how much of the world's creative potential is devoted to creating meta-inventions on top of rulesets intended for something else entirely

Or post on Slashdot. Umm... So let's go about changing this right now. To solve the world's problems, we need to find their roots.

rather than, say, bringing about world peace

So long as people speak different languages, worship the creator in different ways, and faraway governments attempt to impose laws that end up creating an environment hostile to a particular group's way of life, there will always be war. How should that be changed?

curing cancer

You can reduce the incidence of Cancer by forbidding penetrative sexual contact during Libra, but I don't see how people will accept that. Besides, two-thirds of malignant tumors are unavoidable. How should that be changed?

feeding the hungry

Long-term food insecurity is a distribution problem, especially when countries use hunger as a weapon against their own people. How should that be changed?

or just plain moving out of your mom's basement.

Why is living with parents considered shameful, especially in an era of telecommuting?

No. You just have an expensive plan imposed on you by a local monopoly at gunpoint. You are stuck with that plan regardless of how effective or responsive it is.

Actually, that's not true. The average American pays (considerably) more for less service than the average Canadian, and it's not just Canada. Every country in the world pays less for health care than America and many of them also get better service. Last time I checked the American health care was the most expensive in the world. As a country, the U.S. spends 50-100% more (17.9% of GDP) than other first world countries (9%-12% of GDP) on health care and Americans get the 38th best health care in the world.

I would rather spend my own money as I see fit.

Of course you would and that's why medical expenses are one of the leading causes of brankruptcy in the United States. People like you gamble and when they lose, they stick everyone else with bill. Frequently while braying endlessly about how everyone else should take personal responsibility for their actions.

Planned economies often miss important details (like flouride toothpaste) or drive away useful goods and services.

We're not talking about planned economies but rather universal health care and anyone who isn't lib-tarded should recognize that you can't have a fair market when the first question is "how much will you pay to not die today"?

Pure BS. Even if someone was retarded/insane enough to build such a product, no store would sell it,

Yeah because people wouldn't design such a product. (Well, to be fair, they wouldn't - but hardware, like software, can have bugs)

And even if they did make such a product, people would spot *before the thermostat got fitted* that something may go on fire months, possibly years after installation. (Remember the problem with a certain car and their brakes? Came down to a part that was worn down in a slightly unexpected way)

And nobody has ever made any defective product that has gone on fire before. (Everything from phone chargers to laptops to cars,cars,cars to washing machines...)

There are only two groups outside of individual rich people who can fund these endeavors: governments and normal investment. Governments are already in the game. India just launched their first heavy lift vehicle, for example.

Regular investment will never take that kind of risk. Perhaps in the past you could have raised money on Wall Street or the equivalent, but these days big financial institutions expect government subsidized guaranteed profit. It's so much easier to buy legislation, manipulate the system and control regulators then invest in long term innovation. Acquisitions and mergers along with zero interest prime rate funding lines their pockets without any bothersome "investing". Why bother with risky space investment, for example?

So it's fine if big egos go after these kinds of things. There are a lot worse ways that the ultra rich spend their wealth. Would you rather see Musk with Tesla and SpaceX, or Ellison with his billion dollar yacht?

By the way, you are subsidizing Ellison's yacht and purchase of the island of Lanai in Hawaii. He took out a loan against his stock in Oracle, so the interest he pays defers his income taxes. To quote another rich asshat, "taxes are for little people."

It does not serve America's interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse.

Why the heck not, exactly? The evil needs to be destroyed — both to end it, and to discourage future evil. If we don't have the stomach to end it with a (military) surgery, we should continue with therapy.

Simply pretending, there is no decease in the first place is stupid — and dangerous.

We are pushing Russia towards collapse today — which is a good thing, indeed. Why let Cuba off the hook?

An accident in southeast Ukraine in a Nuclear Power Plant.

This ends today's segment of predictive programming,
news at 11.

I wonder, though, how much it has cost Apple in sales and good will to be putting out a product without the top-of-the-line screen.

It's cost Apple nothing. They're selling every iPhone 6 they can produce.
Here's what could end Apple's winning streak

Another fear is that iPhone sales could hit a wall in 2015 because of its success rate, RBC's Daryanani said.

The iPhone is on track to capture almost 70 percent of the high-end smartphone market ($300 or more) in the next few months, at which point the company could possibly face some market saturation concerns, said Daryanani, who has an "outperform" rating on the stock with a $120 price target.

"If you are looking at having 70 percent market share in the next few months, you have to ask where is the new opportunity or where are the new revenue drivers for them?" he said. "So you have a hit point where you run into some saturation in the market. In the next six months this could become an issue."

Apple PR flacks are talking this risk down, but other than smart watches, Apple doesn't really have room to grow in the USA.

Links from that search you posted:

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/2...

Faced with the near-term catastrophe of climate change and the planet-poisoning effects of fossil fuels, is the environmental movement changing its tune on nuclear energy? It’s not a new question, and let’s be clear that the short answer is still no – or mostly no. You can’t find one major environmental organization, from activist groups like Greenpeace to mainstream conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy or the National Audubon Society, that has come out publicly in favor of nuclear power.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/1016079...

Currently, support for nuclear power among most environmentalists is tentative at best. But at least a few voices within the movement insist that soaring global demand for energy makes it imperative for climate change advocates to fully embrace atomic power.

http://www.voanews.com/content...

The four scientists say the risks of expanding nuclear energy are much smaller than those of continuing to rely on fossil fuel power plants, which they say treat the atmosphere "as a waste dump."

U.S. environmental advocacy group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, rejected the letter's emphasis on nuclear power. Spokesman Bob Deans says the world gains nothing from "substituting one set of environmental nightmares for another."

Interestingly, with the exception of the top link or two that shows a very minor environmental group or small numbers of environmentalists in favor of nuclear, most links demonstrate that the environmental movement is still very much anti-nuclear.

except we do.

My claim was not, that the government was not engaged in surveillance, but that no innocent American has been harmed by it. Your examples enumerate the cases of such surveillance, but do not list anybody being harmed by it.

This is the war on drugs .. Reagan declares war

Drugs are illegal — criminals are prosecuted. That's not evidence of innocent Americans being harmed.

This is parellel construction

Yes, I know about the parallel construction and did mention it my post. It has not, however, been used against an innocent party. Some day it may be abused that way, but it has not happened yet — whereas Obama's use of IRS and DoJ power to silence critics has happened and continues to happen.

This is civil foreiture

Yes, such forfeitures are a travesty, but they have nothing to do with NSA or DEA surveillance.

So, to counter my statement, that NSA's surveillance has not harmed innocent Americans (unlike the IRS abuse), you gave examples of criminals prosecuted or of confiscations, that had nothing to do with the NSA... I think, we are done here.

hey mr pot, the kettle called, your fucking black

More empty words.

They will eventually, when the state and insurance companies mandate the trackers.

No need to mandate, telematics is already here. Ford: We can use GPS to track your car movements.

If your vehicle has GPS and a cell modem (i.e. a nav system with apps, services, etc) then you have to assume the manufacturer is already doing this type of tracking. Ford's CEO just pulled a Biden here and admitted publicly what they're all doing. I know my non-Ford vehicle has a telematics unit and is probably reporting all my speed and location data to the manufacturer (including when I exceed the speed limit, because it knows). I haven't figured out how to pull it yet. Most of the vehicle cabin controls route through the head unit, and I don't have a wiring diagram so far.

Who are the parties driving this agreement? The corporate lobbyist in China and the US who are secretly drafting this agreement for their own benefit.

As Thomas Jefferson once stated, "Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."

Listen to US billionaire Steve Wynn in his own words call the communist China, where most of his revenue comes from, "the most laissez-faire place on the planet at the moment". When I grew up communism was the evil empire but it appears if they start taking American Express those transgressions are quickly overlooked.

China has illuminated what the most successful government model is for economic growth as they have surpassed the US in global trade and will soon become the largest economy in the world. This secret treaty is an effort to codify the globalist's privileged trading status and would accelerate the vast income inequality that plagues both China and the US. Every American should remember that the revolutionary Boston Tea Party was a reaction to a tax imposed for the direct benefit of the East India corporation's monopoly. Any elected official that privately or publicly supports this travesty should be held accountable at the voting booth.

First, the public subsidy.

Fed funds, the U.S. overnight inter-bank lending rate, opened 0.08 percent, within the Federal Reserve’s target of zero to 0.25 percent, ICAP Plc, the world’s largest inter-dealer broker, said in an e-mailed statement.

Fed funds traded from 0.06 percent to 0.3125 percent yesterday, according to data posted on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s website. The fed effective, or a volume-weighted average of rates on trades arranged by major brokers, was 0.09 percent.

This this is on Oct. 2 2014: 0.09% is free money. Who gets this free money: the big banks, B of A, Citi, Chase. Also the top four investment firms which are also banks: #1 Goldman Sachs, #2 Morgan Stanley, #3 JPMorgan Chase, #4 Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Note the overlap, there is no meaningful difference between banks and brokerage firms.

So what is the result? Why the Fed's Zero Interest Rate Policy Isn't Working.

But, the Fed’s problem – like Japan a decade ago – is as the International Monetary Fund puts it in its latest financial stability report, the economy is “bifurcated”. Many large American companies, particularly those with global operations, are highly profitable and liquid. Unsurprisingly, for them “bank lending conditions and capital market financing remain easy”, the IMF notes.

But many small and medium-sized companies – or the entities that typically create jobs inside America, not overseas – find it hard to raise funds. A survey conducted by the International Franchise Association in Washington, for example, notes that whereas in March half of its members expected credit conditions to improve soon, now less than a quarter expect any easing; even as Treasury yields fall.

And the lack of any effective oversight: Bank of America fined $7.65M over accounting blunder.

The Wall Street Journal reports the SEC charged BofA with breaking securities laws pertaining to record-keeping and internal controls after the bank disclosed in April that it had discovered a nearly $4 billion accounting error.

So 7,650,000 divided by 4,000,000,000 = 0.019125 or 1.9125%. Note that this error existed for years, and it meant that BofA saved a huge amount of money by having $4 billion less in capital reserves then was required.

But to understand what the fine really means it should be compared to the market capitation (total worth on the stock market), which on Oct 2 2014 was $177 billion. So 7,650,000 divided by 117,000,000,000 = 4.32203e-05 = .0000432203 = 0.00432203%. Ohh, that must have really really hurt.

No one was held accountable. No one lost their job, was demoted, got a bad mark on their permanent record. The stock holders end up paying the fine. That's what it means to have no effective oversight.

So the NFL is in trouble and B of A gets a fine valued at 0.00432203% of their current net worth. That is why my brain hurts.

Company Stores and scripts are an abuse of power. Here is what I said about abuses of power ...

" Libertarianism oppose to abuses of power, and only want a government big enough to stop abuses of power. "

No government is big enough to stop all abuses of power. The current one, for example, is failing to stop a new iteration of company script. Then there's domino effect, like the current financial crisis, where a few greedy and disproportionately powerful people or institutions manage to screw the entire economy and everyone who operates in it. So while this is a fine principle, it sadly doesn't really guide us.

The fact that these types of "company towns" operated, with impunity was simply because government was NOT doing its job properly.

Specifically, it merely guaranteed property rights and enforcement of contracts (you know, the libertarian ideal), thus allowing those with more property than average to use the associated power to gather even more, until they had enough to dictate any terms they wanted for the rest. A government that doesn't restrict concentration of economic power cannot stop the majority of people from becoming beholden to the will of those who control the resources.

For the record, my ideal solution for this would be unconditional citizen pay sufficient to live on. Let those who can stand to spend the rest of their life in their beds do so; it's not like they were likely contributing much anyway. And let those institutions who need the whip to get anyone to serve them die off; what were they ever, but soul-crushing slavemasters? We're moving to post-industrial economy and have little if any need for human robots to man the assembly line, so why stick to an economic model designed to make people just that? People enjoy building and accomplishing things, so why not simultaneously encourage that by removing the sting from failure and depotentate economic power as a tool of abuse?

However, I would suggest to you that the Government taxes and fees and whatnot amount to the same " no longer free, and it's just ugly and messy." you complain about in Libertarianism. We are serfs to the Government masters.

How do you propose a government to perform any function, proper or not, without resources? And I have a hard time imagining what way of getting them wouldn't cause far more problems than taxation.

But yes, our societies are still suffering from hierarchical power structures, of having masters and serfs. As far as I can tell, Libertarianism wold make them worse, not better. After all, a government is, at least in theory, beholden to me; a company is not.

You make it sound like no-one thought of changes in demographics before now. The SS trust fund has always had assumptions about longevity built in. And the US is not outside of that predicted range (actually a little under, IIRC.)

I don't know how I made it sound anything of the sort. I simply commented on the life expectancy difference between dates.

The problems with the SS trust fund are purely due to the artificial contributions cap combined with the decline in median household income relative to GDP. The planners didn't expect to lose the gains in income equality over the prior to the '80s. (If the national income is more concentrated at the top end, and you exclude the top end from contributing....)

That's not the problem at all. Income inequality has little to do with it. Unemployment is rampant which hurts the basic premise of the social security schema. Add to that the problem of a somewhat negative population growth and it throws it all out of whack.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/da...

You see, the planners forecast population growth and the idea was that about 80% of the working population would pay for around 15% in social security benefits. I left 5% off because there will be some eligible to draw benefits but continue to work and end up paying their allotment back in penalties. But when you have a boom in population growth and then it slows, you end up with 25% or better of the population being over the age of retirement (in 2010, there was something like 20.7% of 65 and over compared to 18-64 with roughly 8% under 18 compared to the same source and another 41.9% coming.)

Or in other words, currently, the number of people 65 and over is equal to 20.7% of people of working age. The number of people under 18 year old who will replace the retiring workers is equal to roughly 8% of the current working age population. But the number of people within 18 years of being 65 is roughly 42% of the current working population. this means that 42% will leave while only 8% replaces them leaving a deficit of 34% without bothering to estimate the number of retirees who will still be with us and dependent on Social Security or the number of working age people and others who had tragic events happen and draw from the system too..

http://factfinder2.census.gov/...

But I like you try to push income inequality as a leading factor. It shows you are willing to make something up to push the idea and I bet people believed you too.

No, the government cannot come bulldoze your house on a whim. Calm down. It COULD use emminent domain, possibly... But then, the bank could decide to mess up some paperwork and forclose on your house despite your ability to pay. Frankly, both of these have happened. They're also RARE AS SHIT and cause a shit storm in the news when they DO happen.

Accidental bank foreclosures are rare. Government bulldozing whole neighborhoods - often to hand over to private developers for the sake of "economic development" - is actually quite frequent. In fact, here's a layout of a few for you.

US is fearing China & Germany are conspiring to dilute http://www.cnbc.com/id/1018146...

In the event of mechanical (or system) failure(s), any pilot is at least going to want to be able to peer out a window with his own two eyes to see what's going on

Well, the corresponding counter point (just because) is that if people weren't relying on looking out the window ... you wouldn't have pilots landing at the wrong damned airport.

Ideally, a digital display would have big giant warning signs which say "not this airport, dummy, that one over there".

In the event of mechanical (or system) failure(s), any pilot is at least going to want to be able to peer out a window with his own two eyes to see what's going on

Well, the corresponding counter point (just because) is that if people weren't relying on looking out the window ... you wouldn't have pilots landing at the wrong damned airport.

Ideally, a digital display would have big giant warning signs which say "not this airport, dummy, that one over there".

Dude, when has it ever been used?

Can be is not is and not does.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/3725654....

Cuban-Americans can trade, send money, etc., and trading food is permitted (although with heavy regulation by the US govt.): http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/cuba.txt. The article says nothing about how many current businesses there are, though.

http://www.thecanadianencyclop...

Maclean's January 15, 1996

Rrrright... Did you even read my previous post?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/29/...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

http://www.tradecommissioner.g...

These do not even talk about current businesses, which says a lot about your knowledge of Cuba... Tell me, how many businesses are trading with Cuba? Do they also trade with the US? If so, how are they permitted by the US govt.?

Furthermore:

Cuba is still designated a "State Sponsor of Terrorism" by the US, which complicates financial transactions with the island, and raising capital.

Do you know what this means?

The problem if any exists in Cuba lacking anything regarding trade is in their own corruption and government.

You do not know what you are talking about. A simple google search found those in the first two pages.

You, OTOH, seem to know a lot about Cuba... I guess you get your info from Fox News or CNN.

Dude, when has it ever been used?

Can be is not is and not does.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/3725654....

http://www.thecanadianencyclop...

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/29/...

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...

http://www.tradecommissioner.g...

The problem if any exists in Cuba lacking anything regarding trade is in their own corruption and government.

You do not know what you are talking about. A simple google search found those in the first two pages.

Taxpayers in the red - that means losses

Since its creation it's lost $800 million

Energy Department projects $2.9 billion in losses

I can provide many more if you like - because the program hasn't made a dime. It's lost billions (and it was planned to lose even more billions, but the program's not done yet - there's still time to lose more. Dywolf's link showed nothing about a gain. It said losses were less than expected - but still losses. I can't find anything that says the program is making money - it's all losses. And if you want to dig further, read the White House's independent review of the program where it states we're on the hook for 30 years, we have inexperienced people managing it, poor oversight, no planning, no accountability, and no goals.

It's more likely with private individuals.

For example:
http://forum.freeadvice.com/au...

I was looking for a used car, found one one craigslist. Got a cashiers check to pay for it received the car and title payed with the check. Tried to get a temporary tag from the dmv but the car was never registered to the guy i got it from. The title he had was still from where he bought it from someone else. So needless to say i couldn't get the tag. I put a stop payment on the check and just want out of the deal. Now he won't take the keys and title back. What are my options? Am i just out of luck?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/1012508...

---

But basically, we have different priorities. You feel this isn't stressful. I would find having to validate the title to be stressful.

I know some people say warranties don't make sense. I buy them on my large purchases and have a repair warranty on my house. Insurance *never* makes sense on an individual basis unless you "lose" the gamble.

I've had good luck with warranties. Most have been close to break-even. One was ridiculously profitable for me. So I may like them more than some people.

My family were early adopters of smartphones (I used to work for a carrier) and none of us ever got one stolen

I own a car. It has never been stolen.

And, yet, I know that car theft happens.

Your lack of knowledge of it is irrelevant.

Want stats? here.

About 3.1 million Americans had their phones stolen last year, according to a just-released national survey by Consumer Reports. That's nearly double the magazine's estimate of 1.6 million mobile phones stolen during 2012.

The real issue is just how juicy of a target this makes for hackers ... because the ability to destroy a large number of phones is likely to be a pretty tempting target.

You really have no clue.
In much of the 'third world' - phones - dumbphones are revolutionizing banking, and doing things to enable farmers to get higher prices for stuff at market, as well as microinvestment.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1011804...
Firefox are launching a $25 phone. Is it a good nice internet access device - no.
But it will render wikipedia (for example) and let someone track weather forecasts, and do email and essentially everything the internet was when you had a 9600 modem.
(neglecting for the moment that it won't be able to connect to the above satellites - but in several years it's plausible for the same price).
$25 is a lot of money for someone earning a dollar a day.
But, it is much less expensive than the cost of schooling for a year for a child.

"will be" dumped back into real estate? Dude, that's been happening for years... Berkshire Hathaway (you know, Warren Buffett, the 4th richest guy on the planet) created an entire division JUST for getting in on single family houses. http://www.berkshirehathawayhs...

I'm quite certain that, if the risk were more easily manageable at scale, he'd make true on his desire to buy up 100,000+ single family homes: http://www.cnbc.com/id/4653842...

What, that trillions in taxes that the "nuclear weapons program" have cost to date did not go towards something useful like crumbling infrastructure, education, etc?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/1012142...

Yeah, totally jealous....that "cold war mentality" still exists.

MS share price is a valid measure, though not the only one.

I don't blame him for 2001 or a short time after. However his tenure was flat for a *very* long time, during which several notable competitors outperformed him by a lot.

I think people are a little hard on Ballmer sometimes, but there are lots of realistic measures where he's not wildly successful. And frankly, you pay CEOs what they get paid expecting wild success (Ballmer did request a relatively low salary as major CEOs go, with cash well-under a million and about 1.3 million in total compensation, cite: http://www.cnbc.com/id/1010870...), probably in part because he already had a shit-tonne of MS stock and was a billionaire so money could not possibly motivate him in the same sense that it motivates people who live on their salaries. He'd have received hundreds of times more than his total compensation *purely in dividends from MSFT stock*. A quick back-of-the envelope calculation is about 300x more.

I found two non-fringe or slightly suspect news links: EFF.org. The article completes the circle back to sites like reason.com and The Guardian. The other is CNBC.com. It links to entertainment sites like Perez Hilton. Not the sort of thing you expect to find when a secret government operation like this is uncovered.

What I don't see, is anything linking directly to information about the DOJ's Operation Chokepoint. The list of targets is a bit broad and the tactics are a little suspect. You wouldn't think of a far left liberal like Obama as someone who is anti-porn. We'll have to watch this and see how things develop. Maybe someone will find a few hard government generated facts and write up a 2600 article?

The percentage of income the wealthy give to charity is miniscule compared to the middle class.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/4872514...

Labor laws in this country aren't what they used to be. Since this did occur in California I'm sure that there will be criminal prosecution of some sort on this however don't let that fool you into thinking that somebody will be held accountable for this. Use the recent bank mortgage fiasco as an example where large banks essentially settled with many states en-mass to avoid jail time for the execs. Of course those settlements aren't secret however it still allows a company to settle without admitting to any criminal wrongdoing or whatever the settlement comes out to be. I'll cite the recent Toyota case with the DOJ where Holder got up on a podium and lambasted Toyota over their egregious actions but nobody will go to jail and the Feds will pocket the cash.

It was my understanding that the "little green men" were simply Russian servicemen already stationed there ...

Putin admits Crimea involvement

No, as far as I know the only Russian ground combat forces stationed in Crimea prior tot he crisis were a regiment of marines, only about 2,000 men. The Russians moved in attack helicopters, airborne infantry, spetsnaz commando units, and possibly others.

Except in China... it's not just BTC exchanges... banking not so safe; it's normal banks defaulting on their loans, too.

depositors in some of Yancheng City's largest farmers' co-operative mutual fund societies ("banks") have been unable to withdraw "hundreds of millions" in deposits in the last few weeks. "Everyone wants to borrow and no one wants to save," warned one 'salesperson', "and loan repayments are difficult to recover." There is "no money" and the doors are locked.

You're right; I'd pay to specifically not store my data on a Seagate hard disk. Is Eminem (or anybody) exclusively licensed to Spotify? That would be pretty dumb for anyone already well known.

Well, there are artists doing this. However my point was not exclusive deals, my point is that you do care about specific artists, and therefore are interested that those specific artists continue to make music, which they might not do if they are not adequately paid. OTOH, when using web storage, you care about storing your data, not about specific products used.

8% annual interest? Where are you making that!??!?!!?

An S&P 500 index fund.

It's implied right in the goddamn article, asshat:

Before each payment is made, Coinbase sets an exchange rate, immediately converts the buyer’s bitcoin into dollars, and transfers the dollars to Overstock. The retailer never holds any bitcoin.

Here's the CEO saying it himself in another article:

we will either immediately convert bitcoin to dollars or hedge our bitcoin risk through bitcoin-dollar derivatives (should such a market develop).

Given that no such market has yet developed, they are indeed converting bitcoins directly to dollars.

What's it like wearing your ass as a hat?

The US nuclear weapons program cost around $8.66 trillion (in current dollars).

Wonder if the money could have been better spent: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101214258

Hmm, let's make a list.
spending on nuclear weapons
pro: we have a lot of nukes.
con: nukes costs a lot of money

spending on infrastructure
pro: our bridges get a new coat of paint
con: they wouldn't be _our_ bridges anymore

There have been hominids for 5m years, proper humans for only 200k years, civilization for just 20k years, and in 100 years we invented a lot of things (from nukes to biological agents) that could end mankind any day, while going rampant sabotaging the earth ecosystem... and things keeps accelerating. What make you think that will be humans around in not in 1 billon nor 1 millon, but only 10k years in the future being very generous?

Yes, laying eggs somewhere else could improve the chances, self-sustaining space colonies is the way to try it more than generation ships, if any of them is ever possible. But that don't have a chance to happen with current culture where profit in the present is more important than having a future.

To put an example, an asteroid impacted earth 2 days ago that wasn't detected till that moment, how much you think is "invested" on mapping any potential space threats compared with, i.e. spying on ourselves, bailing out banks or even denying climate change? When the federal government had budget problems one of the first victims was the NASA program to detect space debris (a good example of a surveillance system that worth it), while the pentagon wasted 5.5billons the night before the shutdown (if we are talking about our survival, that was a waste), And always will be an "emergency" that will divert efforts and attention to something else, even if we have to create it. Unless we figure out a practical, safe way to travel (far) into the future (yes, we could done it doing a relativistic speed trip, or some suspended animation process could be developed, but nothing practical and for masses yet) we should not worry about what will happen in a millon years, is just too out of the reach of mankind.

Our country's fondness for sports has made team affiliation creep into everything.

The most successful response power ever had to rebellion--whether in this century or another--involves the simple device of "divide and conquer." Ego is such an important foundational aspect of our species. It extends into identity politics as well. One reason the left will have trouble accomplishing anything is the lingering use of 70's radical nomenclature and thought norms. Groups of similar structural animus will self-divide themselves--not as one unified group in solidarity--but into disparate groups with separate structurally insignificant goals. Instead of "The People," it becomes: "The Blacks" or "The Gays and Lesbians" or "The Women" or "The Workers." It pays dividends to the structure if it doesn't even occur to anyone there is a bigger picture at stake.

Structural problems require structural change. Structural change occurs slowly. It also occurs very, very quickly.

What is most fascinating about what is occurring now is that those who write the software will determine the future of the power structure. Their biggest vote won't come at the polls, but will instead be determined--among other things--by what organizations for whom they choose to work.

What if Silicon Valley decides to rob the military-industrial complex of its toys? It could certainly be plausible. As the state decays due to lack of revenue (outsourced jobs, lower tax revenue because folks have no jobs) and those with excess amounts of capital (These folks, perhaps) decide to take advantage of both human capital (software talent) and structural capital, it's going to be an interesting next 50 years.

Looked at from this light, the Boston Dynamics acquisition by Google looks ahead of the curve.

"Don't be evil."

We'll see.

$50K _is_ priced like a ford. Have you looked at new truck prices lately? You might be able to squeak in under $25k if you special order a bare bones, V6 base model F150 (no dealer would be crazy enough to stock them) but its shockingly easy to break $50k on a pickup nowadays. How else would pickups account for 90% of ford's profits? http://www.cnbc.com/id/100900410

Replying to my own under-informed comment. Turns out that diesels ARE on the radar of a lot of auto manufacturers for the 2014 model year:

Diesel comeback, August 23, 2013.