Slashdot Mirror

Indeed. But streaming sports is available right now, if only for a subset of sports. I get all the streaming sports I need from Bein Sports, which for me amounts to the MotoGP and World Superbike races. They stream it from their site on a delay for free, or offer it up live for a modest fee. It's only a matter of time before an American entrepreneur puts together a similar service and inks a deal with the US-based sports-entertainment complex. Imagine being able to watch any game anywhere, anytime, on the device of your choice, free of commercial interruption. The non-sports entertainment complex was entrenched for decades, but it is all but gone, thanks to Netflix- and Hulu-like streamers. If Aereo is successful in the defense of their business model, they will be the first nail in the coffin, and Google is going to provide the rest. Google' acquisition of youtube several years ago and their recent announcement of subscription-based channels is, realistically, the death-knell for broadcast content on the planet.

Unfortunately the Hanford stuff is a really heterogeneous pot pourri of chemical and radiological hazards. You need a very chemically tolerant process.

It's not the DOD. It's the State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance, and it's about EXPORT.

I think Timothy is having reading comprehension trouble again. TFA I read says in the first two words of the bloody *headline* that it was the State Department, not DoD, who demanded the takedown. There's a big difference. The State Department has been in charge of export control regulations for a long time. You can check out the Wikipedia article on ITAR for the history; a quick scan says these regulations have been in place since 1976.

Exactly which gun control law does this circumvent?

Why 3D-Printed Untraceable Guns Could Be Good For America

. . . current law already allows home hobbyists to build their own firearms provided they are for personal use only (and not for sale). Such guns are already “untraceable.” 3D-printing doesn’t change that basic fact — it merely allows a wider range of hobbyists without specialized machine shop skills to do what’s already legal. . . more

Exactly which gun control law does this circumvent?

Why 3D-Printed Untraceable Guns Could Be Good For America

. . . current law already allows home hobbyists to build their own firearms provided they are for personal use only (and not for sale). Such guns are already “untraceable.” 3D-printing doesn’t change that basic fact — it merely allows a wider range of hobbyists without specialized machine shop skills to do what’s already legal. . . more

Just a few more additions -

When Good People Do Bad Things

Political Culture with Thomas Sowell: Free Markets and Marxism
Dr. Sowell was a Marxist for a decade.

Leftists Will be Shot in the U.S. When Marxists come to power

How A Failed Commune Gave Us What Is Now Thanksgiving

RESULTS OF COMMUNISM / SOCIALISM

Reflections on Communism Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall

The Divergence between Theory and Practice

Richard Pipes of Harvard University has argued that in addition to these proximate causes, the fundamental cause of the collapse “was the utopian nature of its [the regime’s] objectives.” That is to say, the Soviet system from its earliest days pursued goals that were both unrealizable and unpopular, including the attempted creation of “the new socialist man.”11 Those utopian efforts demanded a waste of resources, vast amounts of coercion and fraudulent political propaganda. Martin Malia of the University of California at Berkeley made a similar point: “Of all the reasons for the collapse of communism, the most basic is that it was an intrinsically nonviable, indeed impossible project from the beginning. However important in its genesis were the heritage of Russian backwardness and authoritarianism, or the personal ruthlessness of Lenin and Stalin, it is Marxism that was the decisive factor . . . making communism the historically unique phenomenon it was. And the perverse genius of Marxism is to present an unattainable utopia as an infallibly scientific enterprise.”

These Western assessments of the nature of communism—utopian or otherwise—have great bearing on the disputes and explanations regarding the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus, one set of the responses to the collapse was shaped by the belief that it occurred because, as Malia and Pipes argued, the system sought to achieve utopian goals inspired by Marxism. In other words, the collapse occurred because theory and practice converged (i.e., Marxist theory compelled communist systems to pursue unattainable utopian goals). The theoretical foundation or blueprint itself was flawed, not viable, as Malia put it. Milovan Djilas, the Yugoslav communist politician who later became a critic of communist totalitarianism, also believed that “the [communist] idea itself contained the seeds of its own inglorious, future collapse. . . . Such visions may encourage us to sacrifice . . . but they are also opiates to the soul. . . . The idea dried up in proportion as the reality legitimized by it grew stronger.”13 . . . .

. . . The reasons leading to the collapse included both sets of factors: some of the ideals or theoretical propositions of Marxism were clearly adopted and zealously pursued but they had adverse, unintended consequences. For example the collectivization of agriculture retarded food production, and state controlled industrialization created a huge, inefficient bureaucracy, diminished incentives of the workers, and contributed greatly to the concentration of political power. Marx and Lenin (initially) believed that communist ideals would command broad popular support and therefore little violence or coercion will be required to implement them. They also believed that all forms of human misbehavior will “wither away” after the proletarian revolution and the seizure of the means of production. As Leszek Kolakowski put it, “Marx seems to have imagined

Remember when Mazda tried to make having an mp3 player actually the headline feature of a limited-edition car?

We should be proud the US, "only 6% of the world's population, using 25% of it's energy" invents 50% of everything invented every year.

Indeed. And brave Americans like John Steele are at the forefront of protecting that 50% from the world's other 94% who want to take away.

Go USA.

Context is important. The context here is that he had, in the same speech, called Obama a "fake" president, said Eric Holder was "rabidly un-american," and that Hillary Clinton was actively trying to abolish the second amendment along with the UN.

Whether you think those things are true is beside the point: he was pretty clearly suggesting that we were bordering on tyranny and people should be prepared to fight back, potentially against the current government, with weapons. You can't honestly tell me he meant "train people to use weapons so they can fight tyranny in foreign countries." He meant the US.

Left4dead 2 (beta) is also in there. That's a new game.

Here is another source showing global warming slowing down and even reversing some cases!

I am a former Alaskan. Tell that to the Alaskans where May first 60 degree days hit and leaves start appearing on the trees when it just hit 4 a night or two ago and the snow hasn't even melted yet?

Before you say climate != weather, check this graph out? For 13 years straight it has persistently getting colder. The UK is getting colder every year as well. The climate of the world did get warmer starting in the 1970s but it is reversing now. It is not just Alaska or the UK.

I think our calculations on CO2 are way off.

After the UK and Alaska has seen a 2 - 5 degree temperature drop since 2000, and cooling global wide many observations are counteracting the global warming models.

As a former Alaskan I can tell you that glacialization has come back the last 3 years and summer temperatures are rapidly falling year after year. So climate != weather but 13 years of data is starting to make a case for a cooler climate regardless of increased CO2.

Don't feel too cocky yet, my American friend. The difference between America and China is that China doesn't make the headlines with such a military/scientific/technical achievement. When time will come, they'll show up..

Although it is possible they'll invent their own - assuming they feel a need to have it - the more likely outcome is they'll wait till it is perfected by the US and then use espionage to steal the design and make their own copy. In the unlikely event that the US is able to foil the Chinese attempt at stealing the design, the Russians will probably build their own at some point and the Chinese will steal it from them. It is an old pattern.

China also has more than 3,000 front companies in the U.S. “for the sole purpose of acquiring our technology,” . . .
Inside the Chinese Boom in Corporate Espionage
Chinese Army Directing Cyber Espionage Against Western Businesses
China military unit 'behind prolific hacking'
The China Problem

This was after the Boston Marathon bombings and police chase that led to the death of one suspect and the capture of the other.

He claims it's no flip flop, it was his position even during the filibuster, it just wasn't accurately reported.

In this case you would get more insight from a calculator or spreadsheet than from cynicism. The US Cyber Command budget isn't that large compared to either the Air Force budget or the DoD budget. Finding some justification to bump it up wouldn't make much difference - it isn't going to be the tail that wags the dog.

Misplaced cynicism can also mislead you by pointing you in the wrong direction, as above. If you started digging into the question of Chinese espionage against the United States, you would quickly and easily lean that it is a huge effort against wide ranging targets. Why you would think this relatively minor event is in some way inconsistent wtih the total Chinese effort, and therefore not real, is baffling. Interesting who you effectively trust.

China also has more than 3,000 front companies in the U.S. “for the sole purpose of acquiring our technology,” . . .
Inside the Chinese Boom in Corporate Espionage
Chinese Army Directing Cyber Espionage Against Western Businesses
China military unit 'behind prolific hacking'
The China Problem

So, your thinking is that no nation spies on another nation unless it gets spied on first? You're thinking that it doesn't go on all the time? No nation attacks another unless it is attacked first? Before any of that can happen, you have to air the "dirty laundry?" Your planet sounds like a great place, can I ask where it is? I'd like to visit.

China also has more than 3,000 front companies in the U.S. “for the sole purpose of acquiring our technology,” . . .
Inside the Chinese Boom in Corporate Espionage
Chinese Army Directing Cyber Espionage Against Western Businesses
China military unit 'behind prolific hacking'
The China Problem

In 1992, US intelligence agencies started to become concerned about China's designs for its next-generation nuclear weapons. A series of explosions monitored by the West suggested that the People's Republic of China was working on smaller, lighter thermonuclear warheads, with an increased yield-to-weight ratio. US officials did not think Chinese science was advanced enough to produce such sophisticated weapons on its own. They suspected something else-that the PRC had stolen US nuclear secrets.

Three years later the US received apparent confirmation of such thefts from the Chinese themselves. An unsolicited Chinese individual--a "walk-in," in the argot of espionage--turned a pile of PRC documents over to the CIA. Among them was a paper stamped "secret" which contained design information on perhaps the most advanced warhead in the US arsenal, the Trident II's W88

You know, I don't recall any period of great public introspection and breast beating, or airing of "dirty laundry" before they started these actions. Do you think it is possible they play by different rules?

Back in the 1970s we were all promised that increased automation would lead to us all needing to do less work, and having increased leisure time. It all seemed like a rosy future at the time. The only problem seems to be that the owners of the robots don't want to share the benefits.

The problem is we listened to those who wanted to protect jobs in the 1970s and 1980s. We resisted the urge to automate in order to preserve menial assembly line jobs. That was great for the protecting the workers' jobs in the short term, but long-term it led to the outsourcing of not only their jobs to China in the late 1990s and 2000s, but the factories as well. So they lost their jobs anyway, and they also lost the opportunity to retrain to become a robot operator/repairman in their old factory. The factory owner got screwed too - he lost a ton of money or even went bankrupt when his factory closed. The companies which placed orders with the factories only benefit because they still own the product line. The end result is the same for them, it's just the manufacturing step which has changed locations.

All of us know the lesson here. We've had it pounded into our heads since childhood when we first heard the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. When given a choice between a better long-term outcome which has bad short-term consequences, or a better short-term outcome which has bad long-term consequences, it's almost always better to prioritize the long-term. Note that the industries which openly embraced automation and robots - e.g. the auto industry - still do most of their manufacturing in the U.S. It's mostly the factories which didn't automate or were difficult to automate - steel, textiles, electronics assembly - which have almost completely shifted overseas.

This is a problem I see over and over. People fail to properly take opportunity costs into account and deliberately stack the comparison to force it to produce the outcome they want. In the 1980s they would insist on comparing the labor situation (and nothing else) if robots replaced workers (fewer jobs), vs. if nothing else changed except robots didn't take their jobs (more jobs). They completely ignored the positives which came with automation (lowering of manufacturing costs leading to lower prices, and competitiveness with low-wage labor in developing countries), and the possible long-term negative consequences of their preferred choice never crossed their mind.

The owner of Foxconn gets it. He realizes wages are rising in China, and that China isn't going to remain the lowest-bid manufacturer of choice of the West for long if they persist using manual labor. So he's trying to automate his factories with robots as quickly as possible. He doesn't want Vietnam or Thailand to do to him what China did to us. Some of the workers in China are complaining about it now, but they'll be thanking him in 10-20 years when those manufacturing factories still exist to employ Chinese workers instead of everything having been moved to other countries.

Sounds like you read the Forbes article and are just repeating what they said.

Especially fun is that the Rats that they fed the fucking roundup pesticide live longer than any of the other rats.

Just because they didn't get cancer from drinking the pesticide doesn't mean the pesticide-resistant GMO crops are safe.

And that's really the problem with GMO, testing sucks. There are very few, if any, meaningful and rigorous tests. Lots of short term test and tons of grandfathering in genes because they came from other organisms where they were not a problem. But when it comes to comprehensive testing that could reassure the general population of the safety of GMO crops, there just isn't any.

Given the history we have with things like thalidomide, DDT, leaded gasoline, fen-phen, etc it is not unreasonable that people be genuinely concerned about GMO crops, especially given how widespread they've become with such little public notice. Dismissing those concerns as the equivalent of creation science is at least as bad as creationism itself because it is just another misplaced faith.

Government spending under Obama's budgets has increased only 1.4% total and in fiscal 2013 it even went down by 1.3%. If you take inflation into account the effective spending is even less.

So, no, not "departmental cuts."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/05/24/who-is-the-smallest-government-spender-since-eisenhower-would-you-believe-its-barack-obama/

With doctors and lawyers, a physical presence is a near-necessity (although this is less true today than 20 years ago even in those occupations). In STEM fields, physical presence is simply not that important. Consider that a vast majority of American servers today run Linux, written in Finland, or that virtually every streaming video service is based in some way on ffmpeg, written by a lone wolf superprogrammer in France. Software programmers can practice anywhere, provided they are capable of producing good software, physical distance is not a barrier. So it is possible to lose the STEM war, I think that the attractiveness of US colleges to intelligent people around the world (including from within the US) has been the main factor in keeping most of the global talent in the US. The immigration system is sort of a lottery, yeah you get the average dudes who "depress wages" but you also get the extremely talented people who start a lot of the companies. http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/04/25/40-largest-u-s-companies-founded-by-immigrants-or-their-children/

Although you can probably point out that I'm getting the information from cookey right wing conspiracy sites... like FORBES. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/03/10/why-the-heck-is-dhs-buying-more-than-a-billion-bullets-plus-thousands-of-guns-and-mine-resistant-armored-vehicles/

It does indeed read like something from a right wing conspiracy site. Or Fox News. Note how there are several links throughout the piece but not a single one on the fundamental thing the article is about; the same thing you are claiming.

Note also at the end of the article they've already had to apologise from inflating one figure from thousands to millions.

But for signs of tin-foil hattedness, start at the top. It's not from a Forbes journalist it's from a "contributor". The same label Fox News use when they want to keep some distance from cranks.

Second he contributes on climate, energy, environmental issues. So, what;s the betting he's a Global Warming denial crank? [click}. Oh look, first article that comes up. Yes, he's a denier.

This is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Making things up?

I shouldnt have said anti-mine. That makes it sound like they are used to get rid of mines. They are instead Mine-Resistant Armored Protection vehicles. (MRAP. The same units deployed by the US military in the middle east.) But Dept of Homeland Security only ordered 2700 of them. Only 50 or so per state. Just think that thru for a second. Why would you need 50 in any state? How many does DHS think it actually needs to have at any one place at any one time, where they couldnt instead have 1 with more in transit for a couple of hours?

Although you can probably point out that I'm getting the information from cookey right wing conspiracy sites... like FORBES. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/03/10/why-the-heck-is-dhs-buying-more-than-a-billion-bullets-plus-thousands-of-guns-and-mine-resistant-armored-vehicles/

This info came to light at about the same time as the "1.6 billion rounds of hollow-point ammunition, along with 7,000 fully-automatic 5.56x45mm NATO “personal defense weapons” plus a huge stash of 30-round high-capacity magazines." that are mentioned in the same Forbes article.

Where DO you get your lies?
Four years into full operation, President George W. Bushâ(TM)s Medicare prescription drug program is coming in well below its projected cost, giving hope to backers of the new health insurance law that it, too, could beat budget expectations. The numbers are stark and conclusive: In 2009, the government spent $60.8 billion on the drug benefit, or far less than the annual $111.2 billion cost projected just five years ago, after the program was enacted.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/16/bush-drug-plan-beats-cost-mark

For fudge sake regardless of your position..its likely the only g'ment program that has ever come in under budget!!

Part D was created to cover the drug coverage gap that that once existed in the Medicareâ(TM)s plan for older and disabled Americans. Under Part D, seniors choose from a wide variety of privately run drug plans that negotiate individually with drug makers: seniors pay far less than they used to for coverage. According to a recent survey, the program has a 90 percent approval rating and, unique among major federal programs enacted in recent years, will actually cost lessâ"$334 billion lessâ" than original estimates. Even better, improved access to drugs appears to be saving costs elsewhere: The Congressional Budget Office found every one percent increase in prescriptions filled results in a .20 percent decrease in spending in Medicare.
Part D works so well because it recognizes both the virtuesâ"and the limitsâ"of free, competitive markets.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougschoen/2013/02/19/looking-for-a-way-to-reduce-medicare-spending-look-no-further-than-part-d/

Preparing for being modded down for not participating in the re-writing of history and group think..
Dive! Dive! Dive!

What the privacy advocates don't want to admit here is that anyone using a free, ad-supported service has no moral right to not have their use evaluated for better advertising.

Is that meant to be sarcasm or satire?

"Better" advertising?

This is about collecting data - and selling it.

This is about creating profiles of people to not only sell crap - and it's all crap when it comes down to it - but it's a proxy for government's to collect information on people.

You know, just by using a scary letter and sending it to: Google, Medical Information Bureau, Credit Bureaus, credit card companies, ISPs, Cell phone providers, I CAN create a dossier that would make an East German Stazi agent of old jump for joy?!

So much information is collected on us that it creates this lop-sided power over us - the consumer.

Because shit like this HAS happened!.

And it's just the beginning.

Businesses use it for predatory lending, charging us more just because their algorithms say so, and considering the data available, I can easily discriminate against people that I'm prejudiced against. Illegal? Who gives a shit! Prove it!

So, take your advertising, crap that being sold, and shove it.

I will NOT miss ANY site that has to charge for their content - because it's not worth paying for anyway.

There are no exceptions.

Ask yourself if you can ever be free in a world where 6 people have more money than 100 million others combined?

Easy. Be one of those 6 or near enough.

being abused by gov't. I don't think it really matters. Online is still just online, and I've said before and will say again that the Occupy Wall Street Movement showed that in the real world when the gov't wants something to go away it does.

Basically we don't really have the freedom he's saying we'll lose. Real freedom is economic freedom. You're not free as long as somebody controls your access to food, shelter and health care. Until then you'll do exactly what they say and so will everybody else.

If you want freedom stop bothering with all these surveillance scares and start asking what it takes to really be free. Ask yourself if you can ever be free in a world where 6 people have more money than 100 million others combined?

Are you making kiddie porn? Laundering money? Spreading hate? Do you want the terrorists to win?

Because I don't want every goddamn marketer out there trying to sell me their shit. I don't want to have to deal some horseshit like this because businesses feel entitled to stick their noses into my business.

No, you are NOT offering me "convenience" - you are prying.

As it is, I CAN create a dossier that would make an East German Stazi agent cream his pants by just hitting the credit bureaus, Google, ChoicePoint, ISPs, Cell phone companies, and every other business entity out there that has this need to collect consumer data.

Something to hide?

Well, just ask the atheist, gay or lesbian, peace protestor or Muslim who has their identity known what happens to them.

The uncle of the Marathon bombers who had his face plastered all over the place is headed for some serious shit. You just know that folks are going to vandalize his house, harass him, and give him a lot of shit just because he's related to those kids and a Muslim.

People are hateful, ignorant, cruel, shallow and just stupid - until proven otherwise. Therefore, it is imperative to keep one's secrets.

And since PC sales growth has stagnated

No, not just the rate of growth. PC *sales* are in rapid decline, as in, fewer devices are being sold year over year, and this trend is expected to accelerate.

Quarterly Shipments Drop 14% as Windows 8 Fails to Stem Advance of iPads PC Sales in Steep Decline Intel Corp said its current-quarter revenue would decline as much as 8 percent and trimmed its 2013 capital spending plans, as personal computer sales drop due to the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones.

And about a million others. Average consumers are sick of the PC, and most of their needs can be served well by smartphones and tablets, which are much easier for them to use. Thus, that is where the market now goes. Couple that with a general dislike for Windows 8, and there's very little chance of anything but the bottom falling out, as the world shifts to mobile.

The fingers-in-ears from some quarters reminds me very well of how the 68000-based workstation community reacted to the rise of PCs back in the day: utter refusal to recognize what was happening.

Windows 8 could be about Microsoft recognizing that this would happen anyway, and jump all-in on a tablet/touch-centric strategy.

And since PC sales growth has stagnated

No, not just the rate of growth. PC *sales* are in rapid decline, as in, fewer devices are being sold year over year, and this trend is expected to accelerate.

Quarterly Shipments Drop 14% as Windows 8 Fails to Stem Advance of iPads
PC Sales in Steep Decline
Intel Corp said its current-quarter revenue would decline as much as 8 percent and trimmed its 2013 capital spending plans, as personal computer sales drop due to the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones.

And about a million others. Average consumers are sick of the PC, and most of their needs can be served well by smartphones and tablets, which are much easier for them to use. Thus, that is where the market now goes. Couple that with a general dislike for Windows 8, and there's very little chance of anything but the bottom falling out, as the world shifts to mobile.

The fingers-in-ears from some quarters reminds me very well of how the 68000-based workstation community reacted to the rise of PCs back in the day: utter refusal to recognize what was happening.

Higher premiums. Check. Isn't some of the super high tax on tobacco usually justified by health care cost as well?
Further: this and this.

I'm sorry, but you;'re incorrect about the wage gap being debunked "time and time again." While the wage gap is not 70cents on the dollar anymore, there is a significant difference in women's pay. In Ontario, according to Stats Canada, the gap is currently 25%. It's also the same in the US according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is worse than it has been since 2005.

I'm very sorry you feel discriminated against, but this supposed attack on male rights is horse shit made up by bitter people who cannot tolerate the fact that 1000 years of cultural manipulation by us white men is being undone.

The numbers of male nurses has increased incredibly in the last 30 years, and male nurses are currently making significantly more money than women, and are in higher positions.

There are massive campaigns to get more men involved teaching, and early child development. There's also employment campaigns to get more women involved in trades, including the more dangerous ones, those campaigns are primarily ones which you complain about in your first paragraph (scholarships directed at women).

>> Can I prevent people from adding me to a new group?'

> If the answer is anything other than an unqualified yes, then Facebook
> is fatally flawed and no reasonable person should ever use it.

No, you cannot prevent yourself from being added to groups. One of Zuckerbergs's friends was so pissed off at this, that he created a NAMBLA group and added Zuck. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/10/07/mark-zuckerberg-joins-the-north-american-man-boy-love-association-and-other-adventures-in-facebook-groups/

> Blogger Michael Arrington seems to have already performed a helpful
> proof-of-concept by adding Mark Zuckerberg to a group supposedly
> representing NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association.

But wait... there's more more...

> Zuckerbergâ(TM)s addition to the group is broadcast to all of his friends,
> as shown in the image above.

That's right. Not only can be added to groups you don't like, but each addition is broadcast to everyone on your friends list. Imagine the following scenario...
* gay university student hides sexual orientation from parents
* joins the university "Queer Chorus" (yes, that's what they called themselves)
* the president of the "Queer Chorus" adds them to the "Queer Chorus" Facebook group
* this addition *IS BROADCAST TO EVERYBODY ON THE PERSON'S FRIENDS LIST*
* since parents usually demand to be on their kids friends list, they were recipients of the broadcast message of their child being added to the group

See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444165804578008740578200224.html

So far I do not think google has sued anyone, but who knows how long that record will last.

Really? A quick search with Google (ha!) finds:

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-02/15/google-patent-suit-bt
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/08/18/the-empire-strike-back-googles-motorola-files-patent-suit-against-apple-to-block-u-s-imports/

"Steve Forbes is an idiot, and he simply does not understand how money functions in an advanced economy."

His self made net worth of $430 million dollars is evidence that your hypothesis is incorrect.

You are correct in that he probably has an IQ which would not make him a literal idiot. He is a metaphorical idiot, a rich legacy who was born on third base and then stole second to the cheers of his hired hands.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2012/11/06/steve-forbes-romney-will-win-decisively/

"Self made"??? He inherited a publishing empire. Nice bootstraps to have around.

Except this is just what happened in real life in a deal between IBM and SUN back in the 1980's

http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

here how it ended "An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?" "

Considering that one of their freelance journalists (Tim Lee) on forbes.com is one of the biggest supporters of Bitcoin.

Check out all of the articles he's written about how great Bitcoin is:

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

I find it amusing that they let this one freelance writer attempt to pump up his personal Bitcoin stash on such a popular financial site.

Of course, this is Forbes... They'll post anything for page views and ad impressions. I still remember the crap they posted about the merits of SCO's pathetic Linux patent infringement case against IBM back in the day, mostly because they loved the negative attention from the Microsoft and Linux fanboys.

They might want to abbreviate the name differently. The Bank of Tokyo ceased to exist as independent entity in 1996, whereas Mitsubishi UFJ is--ranked by assets--the fifth largest publicly traded company in the world.

Most of the big US corporations don't make sound business decisions. They are good at shenanigans and not much else. Shady accounting, corruption, price fixing, wage theft, etc.

Besides, for Zuckerberg, Gates and company, this isn't a business strategy, it's ideology. It's like the use of stack ranking at Microsoft or always online single player games at Electronic Arts.

A group of peasants (workers, consumers, etc) who must be "kept in their place" is designated, the policies designed to keep them in their place are followed. If they can get government enforcement, so much the better, but if not they can use cartel or monopoly behaviour to try to enforce it. The idea that this is based on rational behavior is nonsense. It's not even naked self-interest. it's as dumb as the old Soviet "inheritance of acquired characteristics" nonsense and possibly even more destructive.

Qu'un sang impur, Abreuve nos sillons!

It looks like the party might be over for S-corps. You might want to sock a little extra away for penalties, fines, and legal fees.

Spoken like a true Keynesian. Spending only "works" to get out of a recession because it creates inflation. And it doesn't even do that well.

Water can not be radioactive. It's actually an incredibly good radiation insulator and that's exactly why they use it. The problem is the radioactive particulates in it.

Depending on particle size, Reverse Osmosis, Activated Charcoal, and Ion exchange are all somewhat successful, and using all three together does a very good job of removing even very small particles. Distillation also works well.

And so what? Before we can evaluate how bad this is, we need to know how bad the radioactivity is. Are we talking "enough to kill everybody" or "enough to detect"? Given that this is water that has already been cleaned, I suspect the latter. The only radionuclide they couldn't get out is tritium, and that at a relatively low concentration. Until there are actual numbers, I won't get excited.
And when you read "highly contaminated water", remember that bananas are too radioactive to meet Japanese food regulations. A little radioactivity goes a long way, as does a little hysteria.

Show me how you pin all that on the FDA, and not the ridiculous marketing costs that pharma seems to think tie into their "R&D" budgets.

So the drug industry markets drugs that don't even make it to the market? Note the discussion of failure rates:

But as Bernard Munos of the InnoThink Center for Research In Biomedical Innovation has noted, just adjusting that estimate for current failure rates results in an estimate of $4 billion in research dollars spent for every drug that is approved. But Munos showed me another figure, where he divided each drug companyâ(TM)s R&D budget by the average number of drugs approved. This was far more dramatic.

Wanting to make this even more rigorous, Forbes (that would be Scott DeCarlo and me) took Munosâ(TM) count of drug approvals for the major pharmas and combined it with their research and development spending as reported in annual earnings filings going back fifteen years, pulled from a Thomson Reuters database using FactSet. We adjusted all the figures for inflation. Using both drug approvals and research budgets since 1997 keeps the estimates being skewed by short-term periods when R&D budgets or drug approvals changed dramatically.

The range of money spent is stunning. AstraZeneca has spent $12 billion in research money for every new drug approved, as much as the top-selling medicine ever generated in annual sales; Amgen spent just $3.7 billion. At $12 billion per drug, inventing medicines is a pretty unsustainable business. At $3.7 billion, you might just be able to make money (a new medicine can probably keep generating revenue for ten years; invent one a year at that rate and youâ(TM)ll do well).

Please stop being an idiot. You do realize that when it costs billions of dollars just to bring new drugs to market, that will delay new medical technologies? From that link:

During the Super Bowl, a representative of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly posted the on the company's corporate blog that the average cost of bringing a new drug to market is $1.3 billion, [...] This is, of course, ludicrous.

The average drug developed by a major pharmaceutical company costs at least $4 billion, and it can be as much as $11 billion.

Go ahead, tell me how that helps us all be healthier. My view on this is that every bad health consequence that happens to us will eventually be preventable. But the profound ignorance of creating huge economic obstructions to medical innovation will delay that day for a long time to come. We are not saving lives.

Oh please, you first. Show me how you pin all that on the FDA, and not the ridiculous marketing costs that pharma seems to think tie into their "R&D" budgets.

During the Super Bowl, a representative of the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly posted the on the company's corporate blog that the average cost of bringing a new drug to market is $1.3 billion, [...] This is, of course, ludicrous.

The average drug developed by a major pharmaceutical company costs at least $4 billion, and it can be as much as $11 billion.

Go ahead, tell me how that helps us all be healthier. My view on this is that every bad health consequence that happens to us will eventually be preventable. But the profound ignorance of creating huge economic obstructions to medical innovation will delay that day for a long time to come. We are not saving lives.

The files contain information on over 120,000 offshore entities — including shell corporations and legal structures known as trusts — involving people in over 170 countries.

Oh, no no no, tax evasion for the ultra rich that can play international games isn't the reason the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. No! From Forbes' response to the viral video "Wealth Inequality in America" they say:

Look — we’re moving into the opening years of an economic revolution. The floods of Big Data pouring from the Internet and related technologies are washing away the foundational reasons for the existence of several of our most critical – and comforting – societal structures, potentially changing forever the very notion of what a company is, what a job is, what a brand is, what an educational degree means, and how we’ll work and govern and care for ourselves while attempting to live long and prosper. Almost every part of our existence is being restructured, and quickly, by the stunning power of nearly infinite information.

Don't you see? It's not tax evasion or unfair taxation, it's just the magical power of the internet. Stop asking questions and demanding an equal opportunity to skirt income laws! It's "Big Data" that's changing things rapidly and excitingly. Stop fighting the Economic Revolution!

What an absolute crock of shit.

If you think about the residual value of "the iconic Mercedes S Class", it sounds great, doesn't it? Mercedes is a great brand, and the S Class is their best luxury sedan!

But here's the thing about luxury cars (and this applies even more to higher end luxury cars, like the S Class): no one buys them used. If you're rich enough to buy an S Class, you buy it new. If you can't afford a new one, you probably can't afford the maintenance costs, and so used ones have to be heavily discounted to make up for this.

A Corolla or a Civic on the other hand, is something that the used car market goes after. These cars have strong resale value because they are cheap to run and maintain.

The S Class has one of the worst resale values of any car. Tesla claiming that their Model S will have the same residual value percentage is at best an admission that the resale value will be terrible. I wouldn't call that "standing behind" a product.

Here is a good article that covers mortality rate by power source. The comment section is also insightful. The numbers that are included in the survey do include TMI, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. Part of what keeps the death rate so low is how heavily regulated the industry is. Just to use a ladder to change a light bulb you have to go through training and be a certified ladder operator.

Nobody with a soul and any understanding whatsoever denies the devastation that caustic drugs (EG: Meth, Krocodil) can cause. What should be vigorously debated is the actual effectiveness of making drugs illegal.

Hey, the point is to reduce deleterious use of drugs, not just to make them illegal, which doesn't necessarily solve the problem.

Portugal has given us an example that holds our current strategy out in sharp relief. The New York Times weighs in, as well as Forbes Magazine and Wikipedia

Do you care to show me the studies that show how criminalizing drugs consistently cause a reduction in abuse?