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It's not bureucracy gone wild, just common citizen doing things

So you're quite happy to live in a world where every time you want to "do things" you have to go scouring through law books and beg the government for permission?

http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/14/world-happiest-countries-lifestyle-realestate-gallup-table.html

I guess s/he probably is. And since his/her gouvernment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index is considered pretty decent, Kickstarter might rethink some of the terms and conditions. They could be misinterpreted, after all.

I must admit, that I know absolutely nothing about working conditions in labor camps. However, I feel that the situations aren't directly comparable. At Foxconn, people are coming from the countryside, in their OWN country, from what I can imagine to be largely agricultural labor conditions. They're going to get a higher income. Nobody forced them to go there, there was an economic incentive to propel them to go there.

Not only that, Foxconn is DOUBLING the salary again.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/05/28/apples-foxconn-to-double-wages-again/

This would put the average Foxconn worker's salary at a very high level, in terms of living expenses and local prices this would probably be equivalent to a US auto factory worker, and about equal to what my mother is getting at her full time university position.

Even if labor conditions are poor, and overtime is rampant, they're still getting a before overtime salary double the agree'd minimum wage in the province, and will soon be getting quadruple it. Thus, most of your analogy (being 'stuck' somewhere, unable to finance moving to another job) is largely irrelevant to this discussion, and a poor parallel.

Take a look at this article about Germany's electricity situation. This is a country where greens have had good success with getting rid of nuclear power, and riding the Fukushima wave. They are starting 25 new coal power plants that are even hyped as "clean" (because they have "high" electrical energy efficiency of 43%). http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/08/31/germany-insane-or-just-plain-stupid/

Oh dear, that article is so full of obvious bias ... just one small fact, that article happens to happily ignore: you don't apply for, plan and build a (coal) power plant within a couple of month, as the article implies by stating "Germany is building about 25 clean coal-fired power plants to offset the loss of nuclear". All those coal plants were scheduled to be build a long time ago and have nothing to do with Germany trying to utilized 100% renewable energy.

Forbes as a reliable source for ecological ... you tell me.

I'm geeky enough to read slashdot, and even I don't understand the real use-case of "decentralized social networking".

Here's one: Facebook takes your data and sells it to corporations. As someone put it here a while ago, you are the product; Facebook's real customers are the companies targeting you with ads, selling you apps, or mining your data for other purposes. They control the landscape here. If you, or someone you can actually trust, is running your node, that's not happening. When it's your node, you are in control.

Here's another Facebook's use of terms of service to create disenfranchised classes.

These are people who have completed their legally imposed punishments; who have extremely low rates of recidivism; who can't talk to their families, can't monitor who is talking to their kids, can't make comments on various sites that incorporate Facebook's commenting system, etc.

Personally, I shoot a lot of photos, and I don't want anyone to have control over deleting them but me; If I'm going to take the time to write a blog, or a history, or post on a wall, I don't want it going away because some faceless executive decides I used a bad word or am saying things that they find otherwise objectionable.

We're becoming a cruel society of lists. The no-fly, no-buy, no-live-here, you-might-be-a-terrist, felon, offender (not the same as felon), etc. Suppose you're pissing behind a bush one night, dumping your beer in a happy haze of snow-name-writing, and some cop objects, and you end up with society's version of the Jewish star. Guess whose terms of service say you can't have an account already? That's right: Facebook. You probably just lost touch with your family's preferred means of keeping each other up to date. Just as Pastor Martin Niemöller warned, first, they locked out one class of people, but I wasn't one of those, so I didn't care...

From http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2012/07/30/why-i-dont-believe-that-anonymous-hacked-the-irs-for-romneys-returns/ :

(Author's note: Apparently, some folks are upset that I didn't explicitly state that this original story appeared on a satirical site - though I clearly linked to it in the piece. The point of my piece was to point out that it couldn't possibly be true - not to "debunk" a satire. It was meant to remind folks not to simply share without reading - also in the original story - and not to merely rely on a headline or a sentence in an email for your news. Those of you who stop by the blog regularly get that and I appreciate it. I'm not going to change the original piece but I am going to clarify this in big red letters at the top so that the rest of you can sleep a little better.)

I was going to mod you up, then I tried the link... "Page Not Found The page you requested could not be found."

Then I googled it and guess what was the first hit? That missing page.

Then I noticed that all of the links on the first page of results were rougly identical... except one: a Forbes article that included:

(Author's note: Apparently, some folks are upset that I didn't explicitly state that this original story appeared on a satirical site - though I clearly linked to it in the piece. The point of my piece was to point out that it couldn't possibly be true - not to "debunk" a satire. It was meant to remind folks not to simply share without reading - also in the original story - and not to merely rely on a headline or a sentence in an email for your news. Those of you who stop by the blog regularly get that and I appreciate it. I'm not going to change the original piece but I am going to clarify this in big red letters at the top so that the rest of you can sleep a little better.)

So it looks like Snopes needs to add this one.

I consider myself somewhat of an authority on socialism, having been born in the USSR and having read much about socialist and free market economic theories. My verdict on the word "socialism" is that it's not an attainable state of being, but a relative ranking on a continuum of to what degree individual Rights (including Property Rights, Parents' Rights, etc) are being violated.

I think in numbers; words are just the primitive glue that ties numbers together. What politicians call themselves and what slogans they use doesn't matter - what matters are the results. A so-called "Economic Freedom Index" (which should be adjusted a bit from the "Tax Misery Index") can be used as a crude estimate of degrees of socialism - except of course you wouldn't find a ranking for Bill Clinton's dream policies, as they would have been if he had zero opposition in all three branches of the U.S. government. Bill Clinton is a fairly balanced politician (compared to Obama), but I think his ideal America would be closer in economic freedom to France (#67). As someone who thinks that even Hong Kong and Singapore (#1-2) have much room for improvement in the pro-capitalist direction, I can very easily call Clinton a socialist. Everything is relative.

More to the point, my comment about Clinton falling into the "Let's Build A Pyramid" pattern is very much valid. The idea of interstellar flight has that same effect of stimulating the "wow impulse" of the populace, while actually being quite low in the ranked decision-matrix of where capital ought to be allocated for optimal civilizational growth. The real world isn't StarTrek, and in the foreseeable centuries we'll remain very much tied to this one solar system. The free market, which operates within a framework of reality-based economic signals and intensives, would probably rather use space for vast long-term projects to bringing down the price of energy (taking pollution liabilities into consideration) and rare metals, which human industry so desperately needs. This would lead to ever-cheaper electronics bringing down the Digital Divide, cheaper electric cars (and someday flying cars), cheaper water filtering / desalination plants to irrigate the deserts, cheaper greenhouse agricultural robots to feed the world, etc, etc, etc.

Politicians have no intensive to actually solve problems - especially if those problems create the fear (ex. environmentalism) that helps keep them in power. They have to advertise themselves as solutions to those problems, while keeping the problems alive perpetually. Their incentive is to provide "bread and circuses", like the subject of this article. Of course public funding of this particular project hasn't been discussed yet, but it's rather obvious that Bill Clinton is no champion of insisting on 100% voluntary funding - he's a politician down to his core. The same phenomenon already applies to smaller research projects currently in existence - planting flags and mapping the far reaches of the universe gets priority, while more practical and timely research involving orbit-to-surface energy transmission and near-earth asteroids is largely ignored...

The Hawaiian island Larry bought cost $500 million. $1 million is petty cash for this guy.

I'm not sure that buying a $500M island makes $1M "petty cash". I may own a $500K house (really own it, not bank owned), but I wouldn't count $1K as "petty cash".

Of course, his $28B net worth does make $1M petty cash, that's more like $2 to someone earning $60K/year.

Not that it matters anyway, it's not like Ellison is going to write a check from his personal account to pay a debt owed by Oracle.

The Hawaiian island Larry bought cost $500 million. $1 million is petty cash for this guy.

Yes, its amazing just how many bloggers are running away from their predictions:

It's all but said and done that Oracle is going to have some kind of pay day. During a court hearing last July, Judge Alsup admitted that Google is definitely going to pay up "probably in the millions, maybe in the billions" at some point.

Rachel King April 16, 2012.

SF Gate, on the other hand pretty much predicted this outcome just 9 days later on April 25, 2012:

The remarkable thing is that, when the dust settles, five of the seven patents Oracle claimed that Google violated will likely be overturned because Google forced the patent office to take a second look. ...
If only two of Oracle's patents hold up on review, that means the patent office got it right less than 30 percent of the time, an average we have every reason to believe is representative of the entire sector's patents. In fact, software patent holders lose nearly 90 percent of the time in litigation, Stanford law Professor Mark Lemley found in a research paper published last year.

The courts would do best if they just struck down software patents again, as they have done three times in the past.

Even the output from software should not be patentable (slide to unlock).

"False equivalence. The Democrats have never focused so single-mindedly on the destruction of a president. You're just telling yourself that the Dems are just as bad as a defense mechanism."

You wrote that? Nixon resigned. Despite being guilty, the Democratic Party focused so single-mindedly on Nixon that he left office. Rightly or not, this was the beginning of the politics of public personal destruction. Nixon was guilty. The Democrats destroyed him.

"Only one party threatened to cut off unemployment benefits for millions if they didn't get a tax cut extension for the rich."
So quickly forgotten.

"Only one party forced the country to default on its debts in order to force major budget cuts to both military and domestic program, and then even had the gall to try to renege on the military cuts."

Not that the Democrats are above the same tactic if it suits them.

"Only one party proposed cap and trade as a capitalist alternative to environmental regulations, and then called it socialism when the other guys tried to implement it."

Crony Capitalism serves both sides. The Obama Administration is engaged in it as every other Administration since, what, Reagan?

"Only one party proposed an individual mandate as a capitalist alternative to single-payer health care, and then screamed about "death panels" when the other guys tried to implement it."

No quote here. You are wrong, in that this was never a Republican Party platform plank. But the party is a big tent, and some in it have tried to compromise on this issue of healthcare. Republicans tend to compromise. Democrats tend not to. I'm not at all sure this is a good thing for Republicans to do.

"Only one party proposed giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship through military service or college, and then screamed "amnesty!" when the other guys tried to implement it."

I entered the USAF in 1972, and while in basic training I stood for a wonderful young man from Columbia who was sworn in as a citizen of the US while he was in basic training also. Gaining citizenship via military service is not new. Sadly, neither is illegal immigration into the US. But Alberto came legally. More to the point, I gather you think giving a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is ok, even as we fail to stop the flow. That's what 'changed' the Republicans stand. When they could not get Democrat agreement on taking actual measures to reduce illegal immigration. When the deal changes, do you stick with your initial agreement, or do you change your mind?

"The Republicans today are nothing like those of the 90s or 80s or 70s or any other point in time. They're nothing like this country has ever seen. They've realized that politics is just a game, and they can break the game by refusing to negotiate on anything. Our country cannot survive that sort of game-breaking exploit. If people like you don't wise up and punish them for it, we're through."

You are absolutely right. The Democrats have spent the last 40 years refusing to negotiate on anything of substance. Examples? I want to punish the Democrats also, but I can vote for only one candidate per office. Do your part.

- Reagan's budgets were declared 'dead on arrival'.
- I'm bored with any other examples. Your premise is that the Republicans are 'worse'. You are deluded.

We have one goverment, and anything other than compromise and mutual accomplishment is wrong. The Republican Party is now playing the game like the Democratic Party has been, and now it's wrong? Keep your blinders on. Much easier than dealing with the problem. Just keep focused on the other guys.

I am getting ready to write a letter to my state and federal representatives over the current state of publishing in the US. This is clearly the same crap that game publishers are doing to inhibit the second hand game market. The most disgusting thing of all is what I am going to relate to you now about how the digital world is screwing over libraries:

I just found out from a friend that you can check out eBooks from the county library. I was insanely excited. I hadn't gotten my library card renewed after it had last expired so I filled out an application and was excited to go to the library the next day. Well in my excitement I decided to look at all the interesting eBooks I was looking forward to checking out. Their entire collection consists of 30 books. All of them books I had never heard of, and had no interest in. I was disappointed.

After a moment's consideration, I decided I would go to the library and offer to donate one of the following A) eBooks for them to lend out B) A few hundred dollars for them to buy new books. I talked to librarian about the donation. She wasn't sure that I could donate specifically for eBooks, so she grabbed the county employee responsible for eBook lending. I talked to her for about an hour and I am thoroughly disgusted with the publishing industry. Even more so than I was as a college student. Here is what I learned:

• eBooks cost the library $800 per book.
• Only 2 out of the 6 major publishers will sell libraries eBooks.
• One of those two publishers only allows the library to check out an eBook 26 times before they must purchase the book again.
• Every time a patron checks out an eBook, the library pays the publisher $5.

I understand the importance of copyright, but this is ridiculous. The people who get their eBooks from libraries do so because they can't afford the books, or they want to try before they buy. If they want to limit the number of times an eBook can be loaned out, then they should charge a reasonable rate for the books. Forbes even had an article a few months ago about this: What Is Going On With Library E-Book Lending? and again just a few weeks ago. It just makes me so angry that corporations are able to pull this kind of nonsense. I was born in the wrong generation, I think. I miss the days of customer service, and fostering loyalty amongst your consumers.

To which I simply reiterate:

NEVER, EVER, EVER.

And Apple could care less about making money offa OS X. That's why it is $20. They obviously don't wan't to LOSE money, either; but it is NOT considered anything more than a way to sell Macs.

And boy, is it doing that , now at around 12% marketshare, even though "PC" sales in general are down in this shitty economy. And, more relevant to this discussion, increasingly so to (former) Windows users.

WHICH employers require (!) a webcam at home for employment?

Any company whose HR department uses HireVue, for one thing.

Possibly worse: liposuction!

Although the article looks legit, I'm having a hard time finding actual proof that this works. Still, after an article like this I want to to break out the brain bleach.

What do you expect? /. is all about trashing iOS these days.

Android is SWARMING in malware but you don't see those stories on /.

It's sad to see Slashdot lose its credibility so fast. /. has become an Android fan site and has ZERO credibility. Thank hacks like Timothy and Soulskill for that.

Android malware families nearly quadruple from 2011 to 2012

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/android-malware-families-nearly-quadruple-from-2011-to-2012/12171

Summary: F-Secure has found that between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012, the number of Android malware families has increased from 10 to 37, and the number of malicious Android APKs has increased from 139 to 3,069.

Almost Every Android Device Compromised With "Some Kind Of Malware"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/07/27/bt-almost-every-android-device-compromis
ed-with-some-kind-of-malware/

Summary: British Telecom says that one third of Android apps are compromised with some form of active or dormant malware, and that almost every Android device is infected.

âoeWe analyzed more than 1,000 Android applications and found a third compromised with some form of active or dormant malware,â said Jill Knesek, head of the global security practice at BT and former cybersecurity expert for the FBI. But if you think that is bad, it gets worse, reports EETimes.

âoeAlmost every device is compromised with some kind of malware, although often itâ(TM)s not clear if that code is active or what it is doing,â she said in a panel discussion at the NetEvents Americas conference.

instead of making better database analytics they will use this new found power to get laws passed that makes it criminal to not conform to their crappy results. Even if you opt out you will still be punished for nonconformity of quarterly outlook expectations.

The intelligence services will be able to use this to screen for terrorists. If someone has different food-buying habits in Ramadan then buys suspicious chemicals or components then they should be checked. No more surprises when some "ordinary white guy" turns out to be a muzzie terrorist.

Natural gas prices have fallen so low that manufacturers are relocating to the US

Except that because of low prices, the producers are trying to get export rules eased so they can export the stuff to foreign markets because they aren't making enough money here.

On one hand, that is the free market working. Overproduction = lower prices. But then, instead of the U.S. relying on these cheap resources to fuel itself, we're now trying to send the stuff overseas.

So much for cutting our dependence on foreign suppliers, as promised by the natural gas industry.

Wake me up when anonymous actually produced something non-trivial.

I'm not sure what you mean by "produced", obviously the goal of anonymous is not to manufacture a physical product. However, they have produced useful, non-trivial information. For example, the HBGary hack exposed immoral and possibly illegal behavior by significant government contractors. The media, at least, seemed to agree that this information was valuable.

Obama has deficit spent at twice the rate of GWB

Simply not true.

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

Gotta cite for that?

"Question 5: For each of the following products, has Apple proven by a preponderance of the evidence that Samsung Electronics Co. (SEC) and/or Samsung Telecommunications America (STA) has infringed the D’677 Patent?
The answer is yes for all but one of the devices. The no is Galaxy Ace."

And see voiceofworldcontrol's answer below.

How was it that they were found not to be infringing? Under what argument? Just because they were not Android or something?

Because it's not about friggin' rectangles but about copying a very specific design presumably.

Yet according to Forbes they also found that the Galaxy Ace didn't infringe.

YOU read the verdict. The '677 patent was upheld. It is about Apple patenting the rectangle. Anybody arguing otherwise is an Apple shill or misinformed fanboy, and that's the truth.

It is true that there are other aspects that were ruled to be infringing, but the patented rectangle now stands strong and on it's own.

According to Forbes :
"Question 5: For each of the following products, has Apple proven by a preponderance of the evidence that Samsung Electronics Co. (SEC) and/or Samsung Telecommunications America (STA) has infringed the D’677 Patent?
The answer is yes for all but one of the devices. The no is Galaxy Ace."

The Galaxy Ace, unequivocally a rectangle.

Pure marketting demographics research, for which they were willing to 'pay' me in discounts on food and gas purchases at the supermarket-owned gas station at the end of their parking lot. That's what those bonus cards are for

That's what you think. But the amount of data and how they can mine it is scary.
See the embarrassing anecdote about Target, and the 'statistically pregnant daughter' as an example. (And remember: all this was done with completely legally acquired data. No snooping involved. Just the power of statistics).

And what did Target learn from this story? That they should stop mining data in such a way that provide embarrassing insight in the private life of individuals? No.
They learned that next time they have to hide the relevant targeted add among innocuous looking ads. So that the "victim" doesn't freak out, realising that their private life doesn't have any secret for them.

And as said, this was done by a company which completely abides to the various privacy law. No violation in data gathering laws, only maths tricks.
Now imagine what could a company like Facebook do, which was caught red handed changing the default privacy settings without user consent, just because they updated their policies.

Especially since purposely coding security vulnerabilities into your product can be a lucrative enterprise:

The Vulnerabilities Market and the Future of Security

This is why the new market for vulnerabilities is so dangerous; it results in vulnerabilities remaining secret and unpatched. That it’s even more lucrative than the public vulnerabilities market means that more hackers will choose this path. And unlike the previous reward of notoriety and consulting gigs, it gives software programmers within a company the incentive to deliberately create vulnerabilities in the products they’re working on — and then secretly sell them to some government agency.

If fact, criminal sanctions maybe needed in order to protect the public.

Good points.

Theoretically, there is a separation of interests (and risks) between the issuing bank and the clearing/processing company (i.e., Mastercard, in this case). However, processors have already shown themselves vulnerable to pressure to not process certain types of transactions. And, in that particular case (Visa blockade of Wikileaks donations), I notice that Bitcoin is explicitly cited as an existing end-run of this kind of financial embargo, so it's already in the awareness of the processors, and not in a good way.

Good points.

Theoretically, there is a separation of interests (and risks) between the issuing bank and the clearing/processing company (i.e., Mastercard, in this case). However, processors have already shown themselves vulnerable to pressure to not process certain types of transactions. And, in that particular case (Visa blockade of Wikileaks donations), I notice that Bitcoin is explicitly cited as an existing end-run of this kind of financial embargo, so it's already in the awareness of the processors, and not in a good way.

government reimbursement rate is today about 30% of the billed cost

I am nitpicking I guess...but that is a little low. When you say gov't payers I assume you are only talking about Medicaid, and there are only a few states that hover around or below 30% of what they would have been paid by a non-gov't payer for the same service. Most are well above 30%

I don't disagree with your point, just that 30% figure.

More info here http://www.forbes.com/sites/gracemarieturner/2012/08/21/the-real-tragedy-of-obamacare-has-yet-to-be-felt-by-the-poor/

I've read somewhere that out of a regular 8-hour working day, people are at the peak of their productivity for about 4.5 hours.

This is related to the amount of intense focus required to become an expert and improve your performance. A random reference to this figure is here. I can't remember the original reference. It applies to non-sports environments as well. Many tasks don't require that level of focus but if you want to actually get something out of your work then you need to do the 4.5 hours of intense work per day. And 4.5 hours is a maximum not an average. It appears to be a hard limit. Of course we work so we can live, otherwise we would all work for free, or not at all. So we have to clock up the hours in a competent capacity but not necessarily excelling.

Rob Enderle -- has written a fairly long explication of his involvement. His reputation is permanently damaged.
Maureen O'Gara -- didn't have much of a reputation to start with but there are now many articles that insinuate she fabricated information for pay, which is likely about the worst she did.
Dan Lyons -- The link to his apology is easy to find http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/19/software-linux-lawsuits-tech-oped-cx_dl_0919lyons.html

But I still thought it would be foolish to predict how this lawsuit (or any lawsuit) would play out. I even wrote an article called "Revenge of the Nerds," which poked fun at the pack of amateur sleuths who were following the case on a Web site called Groklaw and who claimed to know for sure that SCO was going to lose.

Turns out those amateur sleuths were right. Now some of them are writing to me asking how I'd like my crow cooked, and where I'd like it delivered.

Others in that highly partisan crowd have suggested that I wanted SCO to win, and even that I was paid off by SCO or Microsoft. Of course that's not true. I've told these folks it's not true. Hasn't stopped them.

The truth, as is often the case, is far less exciting than the conspiracy theorists would like to believe. It is simply this: I got it wrong. The nerds got it right.

Also, what kind of elitist prick wishes people would "dress up" to go on a goddamn airplane? How about I wear whatever I want and you shut up?

Yes, indeed. Although, I try not to look as neat as I can: shaved, button down shirt, and no flip-flops. Because when you're traveling, you never know who you will sit next to and it helps if you don't look like a slob - especially when you are trying to get a business of the ground.

When yo hit it big, then you can walk around dressed like a slob. As Felix Dennis says: Later on they can walk around in negligees in the office, when they're hugely successful.

Aside from looking slobish, flip-flops are damn uncomfortable! I walk fast and those things are dangerous unless you walk slow like you just got out of bed - which is what folks look like when they wear those things.

Wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops will not attract many opportunities unless your face has been on the cover of Forbes, Fortune, Inc. and all over the Web.

But if you don't give a shit; it's none of my business.

Shutting up now.

WSJ probably got it from We're too lazy to write our own story dot com. What could possibly go wrong?

[Knight Capital CEO] Joyce reportedly asked SEC chief Mary Schapiro to let his firm cancel many of the unintended trades but she shot down his request, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Facebook posts that receive 125,000+ likes and 11,000 comments laugh at those hundreds of responses.

You obviously weren't living the same life as the majority of Americans during Reagan's administration. Even left leaning CNN and MSN give Reagan some credit here.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/06/news/economy/obama_reagan_recovery/index.htm
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/05/05/reaganomics-vs-obamanomics-facts-and-figures/
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/276826/obama-vs-reagan-deroy-murdock
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904875404576530412322260784.html
http://money.msn.com/investing/election-12-obama-vs-reagan-bloomberg.aspx

He's probably referring to what's mentioned below. Last two paragraphs. GM paid back the cash portion of the bailout with the cash that was held in escrow. I think this piece is a little shaky, it appears they just gave the cash part of the loan back unspent. Regardless, it doesn't matter, since most of the true bailout was with a stock purchase. I am not a fan of the GM bailout. The idea that 1,000,000 automaker related jobs were at risk is absurd. If a GM dealership shuts down, they aren't going to sit, worthless for the foreseeable future; they are going to turn into Honda dealerships. This is the case with aftermarket parts manufacturers, domestic-only auto shops (a rarity these days), and other "automaker related jobs." The bailout was made for emotional, overly-nationalistic reasons. A large number of "foreign" cars aren't made in poorer countries like China and Mexico, they are made in poorer states like Mississippi and Alabama.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/23/general-motors-economy-bailout-opinions-columnists-shikha-dalmia.html

Sorry. Here it is: http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2012/02/22/after-bush-tax-cuts-payments-by-wealthy-actually-increased/

For which I'm sure all the people without jobs, homes & healthcare are very grateful.

Anyway that brings the people that care to maybe some of 27% Americans + whoever is from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Uganda, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Georgia, Lebanon, Haiti, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, Grenada, El Salvador & whatever 3rd world country is lucky enough to be next on the list.

http://www.forbes.com/2011/05/25/decline-and-fall-of-the-american-empire.html

"Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning themselves out." We sense the "consummation" of the American Empire occurred with the leadership handoff from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush.

Unfortunately that peak is behind us: Clinton, Bush, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and all future American leaders are merely playing their parts in the greatest of all historical dramas, repeating but never fully grasping the lessons of history in their insatiable drive for "economic progress," to recapture former glory ... while unwittingly pushing our empire to the edge, into collapse.

As you sow so shall you reap !!

No. Abstaining from social networking makes you suspicious.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/08/06/beware-tech-abandoners-people-without-facebook-accounts-are-suspicious/

They do have some benefits... http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/08/08/heres-what-happens-to-google-employees-when-they-die/

This has been long forgotten by the people who oversee the court system, but the purpose of the law is "to moderate human behaviour."

Such a petty fine against such an incredibly wealthy company will do nothing to moderate their behaviour. To make it worse, Google is openly engaged in large scale tax evasion/avoidance. In the UK last year out of £224 million in taxes they only paid a pitfull £6 million. A fine of £14 million is pocket money to them - just operating overhead. If the government wants to moderate Google's behaviour (besides just pretending to want to) then they would fine them far, far more.

PS. In the words of Willard Mitt Romney, "Corporations are people too, my friend!"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2125883/Amazon-Google-sordid-reality-tax-avoidance.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/08/09/is-google-avoiding-or-evading-taxes-in-the-uk/

Well I think we all know that a making the cover of a business magazine is pretty much the guaranteed path to a bright future in the internet startup world.

It just means the people actually using that data, marketers, FBI, underpants gnomes, have to buy it from more than one source and then merge it.

I already said that.

And what are you going to do, run your own search engine? Run your own mail system for throwaway accounts? Run your own "facebook" with nobody else but you on it? Run your own "Amazon", "newegg", "ebay" with nobody buying or selling stuff on them?

So use them but don't put all your eggs in one basket, or go live in the wilderness (even if you don't use the Internet at all, the hypermarkets etc are also gathering data on your buying habits - Target figured out a girl was pregnant before her dad found out: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ ).

Investors don't care about the providers upgrading their infrastructure. They care about profits.

Not just wireless carriers either, Pepco comes to mind here.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2012/07/30/david-and-the-goliath-of-the-mid-atlantics-power-grid-the-end-of-business-as-usual/

"another article from The Economist goes into greater detail about the steps Huawei has taken to mitigate some of these concerns in England â" including co-operating with the GCHQ in Britain, the UK's signals-intelligence agency, to ensure equipment built by Huawei is not back-doored".

Shouldn't that be the steps Huawei has taken to ensure equipment built by Huawei can be back-doored by GCHQ as easily as the spooks can back-door western companies.

"Internet Security Systems researcher Tom Cross unveiled research on how easily the "lawful intercept" function in Cisco's IOS operating system can be exploited" Feb 2010

But they do get massive financial stimulus - from other countries in aid. Of course, most of that goes in someone's pocket and not to the rural poor who need it. This is the great scandal of India, corruption is so rife its untrue.

$80m is peanuts to them, when a leading industrialist is currently building a 27-story house for himself, his wife and 3 kids, so I guess 2 stories for the servants, and 5 each. How will they cope?!

Is it that hard to search?

So why do [tablets] cost so much more?

Because Apple enjoys making a 40% margin on tablets, and Apple's customers don't mind paying it. Then Android competitors have (I think) set their prices using iPad prices as a guide.

The iPad is still selling for about three reasons: Apple has been milking their first-mover advantage, Apple has done a great job on the user experience, and the iPad hardware is excellent quality. This has been enough, especially given the problems in the Android tablets until about this year or so.

But now, with Jellybean, Android is a great tablet experience. Some folks will say it still doesn't match the iPad, but it's way better than before. Now, quality tablets are here, at attractive price points.

I love my Nexus 7 tablet. It's everything I want in a tablet. (Well, I guess I'd like HDMI and a card reader, but I really haven't needed them.) Do I wish I had spent twice as much for an iPad 2? No, I really don't.

I can see the day coming when more Android tablets are sold than Apple tablets, in a replay of what happened in the smartphone market.

steveha

I'm not sure your cynicism is warranted. Skepticism, sure. But given that there's already a AAA title available (Doom 3) and that what's promised is only a "dev kit" I think the chances for success are high.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/08/02/why-the-oculus-rift-kickstarter-is-a-better-bet-than-ouya/