Slashdot Mirror

“The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process,” said Attorney-General Eric Holder... ( http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/holder-defends-obamas-view-of-due-process/article534036/ ) - granted this was in response to Obama's "Hit List" (i.e. the ability for the Executive Branch to execute American citizens who they deem to be a national threat without legal process).

However it pretty much shows the mindset you'll get on Pennsylvania Ave and the Robert Kennedy Building.

As long as there is a process - they feel they are within the constitution.

There is some reason to believe that Nokia may still recover.

I just read RIM has sold one of their corporate jets in order to stay afloat. That's pretty desperate.

Well I don't have to ask whether you look things up before you accuse others of lying or just fly off the handle immediately:

US:
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/411333-donald-ingram/98306-nearly-8-in-10-americans-now-living-paycheck-to-paycheck

Canada:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/six-in-10-live-pay-to-pay/article1705096/Can't

Can't find any numbers for Europe but I'm sure they're much better off.

To get into the trade "club", we have to give things up that we consider inalienable. Rock, meet hard place.

...

For an example of a seriously wise move, have look at Politicians need courage to dismantle supply management by Martha Hall Findlay

I had taken this argument by Ms. Findlay (a former Liberal Member of Parliament) as "permission" of sorts for the current governing Conservative party to use dairy supply management as a bargaining chip in trade talks. She has apparently expressed interest in becoming leader of the Liberal party, and if she tries and succeeds, she will be able to beat up the Conservatives on the details of trade concessions, but not on the broad concept.

To get into the trade "club", we have to give things up that we consider inalienable. Rock, meet hard place.

As the government of the day is more concerned with trade and less with issues of care/harm, they chose the rock.

A wise government would chose neither, but instead move the subject sideways to a place where both trade and rights are honoured. For example, they could honour DRM only if the company held a Canadian copyright, and agreed to make excerpts available, for a nominal fee, whenever the use was legal in Canada.

For an example of a seriously wise move, have look at Politicians need courage to dismantle supply management by Martha Hall Findlay

--dave
ps: Martha is my former MP

Was done in January and again in February:
http://liliputing.com/2012/02/blackberry-playbook-price-drops-to-199-permanently.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/247202/rim_selling_playbook_tablets_for_300_each.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/tech-news/rim-chops-all-playbook-prices-to-299/article4085706/
http://www.berryreview.com/2012/01/29/shop-blackberry-confusingly-returns-playbook-prices-to-199-16gb-299-64gb/

Yay slashdot!

He's realised he needs to take care of his public image if he wants to die a well liked man but that doesn't mean he's some awesome full-time charity hero. Yes, he's the co-chairman of his foundation but likewise he's still the chairman of Microsoft which happens to use the same questionable labour as Apple through Foxconn. Where's his caring for those people? It's probably because his primary job is still making money off of people. He's the CEO of Cascade Investment so my guess his primary concern is still making money not helping people.

But even if you focus on just his charity, it's arguably a very damaging charity. He's using his wealth to basically create another monopoly but this one's in the charitable sector rather than computers. The end result is all the talent and skill gets dumped into things he wants to fix and other areas suffer. There have already been numerous complaints about this.

His charity only gives away minimal amount of money to basically avoid taxes while investing the rest and they invest in companies that won't work with poor countries so they can buy needed drugs and oil companies that are destroying the same countries he claims to want to help. People in the niger delta have loads of vision issues, asthma and bronchitis because of the companies he invests in. How is curing measles for these people helping them? They get to die from something else which is probably worse? What a great guy. Oh and when he gets that malaria disease will poor countries even be able to get it or will it retain a high price and basically only help Gate's rich buddies?

I suggest more people need to take a critical look at his foundation. The information is out there and has been reported on like in the L.A> Times http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,2533850.story but for the most part he gets a pass because it's charity work and they think they can cure AIDS. But that doesn't excuse that actually most of the foundation's money actually goes to help rich awful companies through investment. With 48 of 100 be labeled as "transgressions against social responsibility".

On education, all they provide a racist scholarship which poor white families can't benefit from. They push privatization of education as a reform. They want standardised tests to rate teachers and schools and pay to be based on test scores. Sure that sounds like a good thing until you realise that standardised tests don't work and if a school's reputation and a teacher's pay is based on test scores then tests just get easier. How the hell does that help?

The UK does the same sort of crap and because of things like the League tables schools aren't giving kids the best education possible. They're giving them something they'll do well on to make themselves look good and get crap like students not getting zero marks for work they don't do at all. Only work they hand in which results in stories like this. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/teacher-who-gave-students-zero-marks-becomes-a-folk-hero/article4230726/

The guy, imo, is still a scumbag. But he's just become smarter at being a scumbag and realises he gets a free pass on whatever he does if starts a big foundation and claims they'll get rid of AIDS and other diseases.

South Korea is smaller Geographically than 39 United states and has a population of close to 50 million. Kentucky, which is slightly larger geographically has a population less than a 10th of that.

Population dictates cost. Economically South Korea can support that. because for every mile of network they build they potentially support 10x more people than in Kentucky. The cost to bring that speed to all area's of Kentucky then would increase 10 fold. There is a reason that we don't have high speed in our rural areas - it costs too damn much.

He got a year probation and 75 hours of community service.

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/appeals-court-upholds-ruling-that-spares-g20-protester-from-jail-time/article2418653/

-- Terry

If you want to get a point across, lobby peacefully for it through the proper channels.

And when proper channels don't work because the government in question (in the case of the student protests in Quebec) has lost all legitimacy through its' exposed ties to organized crime?

After all, how credible is Quebec's Education Minister when she has to publicly admit that this story about how she takes campaign contributions from the mafia is true? And that the RCMP wanted to protect mobsters from a government inquiry that the Quebec government first refused to hold, then tried to water down? Quebec is the most corrupt place in North America.

Good hearted sports where, in the riots following the game, people are killed, cars are burned, and storefronts are destroyed - even if your team wins.

Welcome to Kanuckistan, where the only thing worse than a hockey riot when the team wins is a hockey riot when the team loses. Hockey riots have been a fact of life for almost 60 years.

Where daily massive student demonstrations have been going on for more than 3 months, complete with riot squads getting their own tear gas kicked back at them, rubber bullets, simultaneous smoke bombs in the subways, and where the education minister has no credibility after being caught taking campaign donations from the mafia.

So it's not just the Europeans and Asians.

In the US, on the other hand, riots are more of a race thing - see the Rodney King beating video, etc.

We have the second-largest province by population basically run by the Mafia, and the RCMP wanting to keep the evidence away from an official inquiry.

While we have students rioting in the streets because the government refuses to sit down and talk, we fine out the Education Minister took Mafia money.

The mob skims 5% off the top of all large construction projects, decides who will be "allowed" to bid, and how the contracts will be divied up. This has been going on for at least 40 years.

And of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm completely unbiased on the male vs female front

I think if you don't realize your bias then you are unwittingly probably part of the problem.

There was some excellent research showing that when researchers submitted resumes with identical credentials to firms, but one with a white sounding name and one with an Asian sounding name, the white sounding names had a significantly hire success rate in getting calls. I doubt this discrepancy is from a conscious policy.
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090522/resume_english_090523/20090523/?hub=TorontoNewHome
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/work/right-rsum-wrong-name/article1145212/
http://aascpress.metapress.com/content/662555ttv6344365/

On a personal and anecdotal note, unrelated to hiring, there is a family that frequents my business. They are Muslim, and the mother has a thick Arabic accent. I just discovered the other day that she also speaks French (I am fluent). Being from Morocco, her French is flawless and better than mine. After talking with her for some time in French, I just realized that I had been implicitly thinking of her as less educated, due to her Arabic accent when speaking English. Upon hearing her flawless French, I saw my implicit attitude change entirely.

I work really hard to be aware of bias and to not let it get in the way of my interactions with people. But it's there for all of us, despite the effort we put in. It does no good to pretend otherwise.

Electric cars new? Ha. See this article from the Toronto Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/tom-hawthorn/100-year-old-electric-car-offers-trip-back-in-time/article2391288/

itâ(TM)s easy to buy âoefriendsâ and âoefollowers,â by the thousands, and âoelikesâ by the tens of thousands, for a low fee. This can jumpstart a marketing campaign if it makes it onto a top trending list. Buying such services will also help contractors meet performance goals set by clients and trigger payments. It can be a lucrative arbitrage.

The result however, is considerable inflation in the numbers of users of all the major social networks and platforms.

The operators of the networks: Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc, must know who is real and who isnâ(TM)t. They have usage data that shows telltale signs of a fake account. They also know how much information a user has disclosed, and how many user profiles are empty.

Whatâ(TM)s not known is how they count the many types of users, how rigorous is their analysis? There is no transparency on the single most important pool of information for their commercial customers.

So really, who cares? Facebook users are narcissists, insecure, asocial, or bogus "marketing accounts".

The user agreement doesn't trump local law. Facebook can go do a Faceplant in a pile of FaceCrap.

Why don't facebook users walk away? Because they are too insecure to:

Facebook a big hit with narcissists: study

A new study of Canadian university students suggests Facebook is a magnet for narcissists and people with low self-esteem.

Participants who were deemed narcissistic, and others shown to have low self-esteem, spent more time on the massively popular social-networking website, the York University research found.

Researcher Soraya Mehdizadeh also found that these people use Facebook as a means of self-promotion.

Just get the email addresses of the people you really want to stay in contact with, then disable your account.

"A former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper says last year’s election day robo-calls are of a scale he’s never seen before and warrant a “huge investigation.”

Globe & Mail article about former chief of staff to Harper calling for investigation.

Don't forget, write the Governor General and demand Parliament be dissolved until new election has been held.

Soon, every aspiring American entrepreneur running a server farm can get busted for growing pot, and every Canadian's with hot tubs and pools can get charged massive fees.

Maybe you're getting confused with Cryos? I guess that's an anonymous date of sorts :-)

Have you noticed that EVERYTHING seems to cause cancer?

It is a wonder that not everyone has cancer, with so many things causing it. (*)

I really doubt all the different classes of sleep meds are carcinogenic.

*

Too much sun
http://www.webmd.com/healthy-beauty/guide/sun-exposure-skin-cancer

Not enough sun
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2004179538_vitamind13m.html

Being overweight
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/obesity

Being underweight
http://foodforbreastcancer.com/news/underweight-women-have-higher-risks-of-breast-cancer-recurrence-and-metastasis

Too little exercise
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-nutrition/leslie-beck/prolonged-bouts-of-sitting-increase-cancer-risk/article2229466/?service=mobile

Too much exercise
http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2006/12/too-much-exercise-causes-cancer.html

Too little vegetables
http://www.cancer.org/Healthy/EatHealthyGetActive/EatHealthy/fruits-and-vegetables-do-you-get-enough

Too many vegetables
http://www.keytobeing.com/2009/pesticides-in-fruits-veggies-linked-to-cancer-parkinsons-more

Even chemo"therapy"
http://www.cancer-free-for-life.com/articles/chemotherapy.php

I've always felt the Harper was one of the only things keeping the Conservatives in check, and the reason for his somewhat authoritarian style is that a lot of his MPs are pretty far off the deep end so he needs to keep them under reign.

I agree and I disagree. Harper certainly had to keep his MPs in check, but that seemed to matter more when he was running a minority government than now. You didn't hear a peep out of the fringe MPs up until the Conservatives had a majority. Without the need to appeal to Canadian moderates who would have voted for the Liberals otherwise, Harper is showing less interest in holding back the fringe MPs, and more interested in ramming his legislation down our throats. It was practical intra-party authoritarianism.

As for who might be responsible, I started writing up things and realized that I was probably sounding paranoid. I think that the Nixon comparisons being made in the Globe & Mail are warranted, but I admit I could be wrong, too.

This should not be a surprise to anyone in the know. After all, it's coming from the man who wanted to rename the Government of Canada after himself in all official communications.

"L'état, c'est moi" indeed. Just in a bit of a Quebecois accent.

And, as we all know, doctors are always 100% honest, and never, ever fuck up.

Having unquestionable faith in another human being, just because they have a certain collection of letters after their name, is just as stupid as the total lack thereof.

I DO NOT consent to searches and spying by the government, CSIS, the RCMP, or any other police force in or out of Canada without a proper warrant.

I have nothing to hide, but it is a matter of principal. I have a right to private communications unless someone can explain to a judge why I should be investigated and convince them to sign a warrant.

This bill is useless in reality anyhow, because anyone but the most technically illiterate criminal will use an anonymizer and encryption, so the spying will net no proof of a crime, even if someone is surfing child porn like a psychotic fiend.

This is nothing more than a fishing expedition and an attempt to violate Canadians fundamental right to privacy.

Just say "NO" to politicians who stoop to claiming you support Evil Horrible Unimaginable Thing just because you value your own rights.

Even the Nazi's "Stazi" had to report to someone.

Tories on e-snooping: 'Stand with us or with the child pornographers'

I spoke too soon. Now you're either with the Tories, or you're with the child pornographers. There couldn't possibly be any other reason to oppose this.

Found it

The Globe and Mail is also running this story and they included a picture of the device, just like every other site that ran the Reuters story. But thank you slashdot for continuing to link to shitty IBT stories, because I had never seen a crab before.

May I humbly suggest you go and look at the laws signed by Obama extending US jurisdiction to the whole planet.
Then look at the law that allows thwe US to hold people without charge, trial or legal representation. This is Gitmo++. You are gone, lost. It is as if you never existed.

Try this one for starters...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/worldview/even-us-citizens-face-indefinite-detention-in-new-anti-terror-law/article2297240/

If you are a well connected US Citizen you might be able to challenge this as being unconstituional but that would take years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_jurisdiction_over_international_defendants_in_the_United_States
In particular, look at the 'Raju Case' section.

Then perhaps you might like to think again.
Laws like this make the US a pariah IMHO.

One thing any long-time follower of Shuttleworth et al has learned is to take anything they say and not believe it until it ships. Shuttleworth is the linux worlds #1 vapro-ware producer.

Those same blogs talked so much about the Android Execution Environment, but it was abandoned. Why? Because they don't have access to programmers with the ability to do it, despite putting a year into it (unlike these guys who did it from scratch, along with designing and building the tablet it runs on, in just a few months).

We were promised shipping Ubuntu tablets and smartphones over a year ago. They never delivered. We were promised "Ubuntu TV" this time, to be shipped by the end of the year (without android) - already obsoleted by Lenovo's Ice Cream Sandwich Android TV. And unlike Canonical, Lenovo isn't looking around for an OEM to ship ... they *are* the OEM.

They can promise all they want, plan all they want, discuss all they want - history says they can't ship (except for miserable failures like the Ubuntu Wallyworld PC), so what's your point? Shuttleworth has "cried wolf" too many times.

It's called throwing good money after bad. His (well-known large ego) won't let him admit that the goofed, repeatedly.

It's the same reason that he keeps focusing on marketing props instead of adding real value, and why Canonical doesn't really even have much in the way of software expertise (they couldn't get Android to run properly in 3 years, while a small company does it in a couple of months?

It also explains why they concentrate on the UI - its the easiest thing to change. Same as Ubuntu TV was just taking someone else's code and slapping it on a rooted Samsung TV because more than a year after promising to ship tablets, they have NOTHING!. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Rien.

Same as Ubuntu Cloud was just re-selling Amazon EC2, and Ubuntu Music Store was just re-selling someone else's music store, and ... oh, what the heck, you get the picture. Remember when he appointed Matt Asay as COO, big showy announcement, and Asay making a fool of himself by saying how he's actually now using linux for the first time, and he's soooo excited (you appoint someone with no real knowledge of your product to help sell your product???) ... and how Asay didn't even last the year, walked away with his tail between his legs, oh so quietly?

Same with the Android Execution Environment - announced with lots of hype, a ship date, then quietly abandoned. This last is now a crucial mistake, since nobody wants a linux tablet w/o android, and Lenovo is shipping Android TVs.

Ubuntu is like the Costa Concordia, and Shuttleworth is its' captain.

One thing needs to be said here - The captain was probably qualified to manage and navigate a boat.

Really? I thought "not running aground" was kinda like the most important rule of navigating. Also, part of "managing" a boat includes during a disaster (self-inflicted or not).

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/cruise-ship-captain-admits-to-navigational-error/article2307524/

This rumor has already been dashed:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/which-idiots-bought-rim-shares-on-one-shaky-rumour/article2306353/

In the REAL world, India is already selling tablets that run both linux and android for $35 each to all their students. (cost is ~$55, but there's a subsidy if you're a student, the goal being to get one into every students' hands). So, like everything, the market has changed since OLPC started. 2 years ago, a touch-screen tablet was a non-starter. The iPad didn't even exist. Now? Why would they order laptops when they can get touch-screen tablets for a lot less than $100?

Published Thursday, Dec. 29, 2011 6:40PM EST

In the morning, Suneet and the remaining three bidders return to the same room. At the front, a 12-person committee shows off the submitted tenders, time-stamped and sealed with wax, before reading off each companyâ(TM)s bidâ"including the lowest estimate of what it would cost to make the Indian governmentâ(TM)s dream: the cheapest tablet in the world.

When the presentation is finished, Datawindâ(TM)s price tagâ"$52â"is the lowest. The next cheapest bid is for $64. âoeI went white,â Suneet says now. âoeI thought, âWeâ(TM)ve missed something.â(TM)â

Feeling nauseous, he staggers out into the antechamber, where rival bidders lob wisecracks in his direction. âoeAt that price, weâ(TM)ll buy some,â one businessman says, laughing. Frantic, Suneet calls Montreal, where it is nearly 3 a.m., knowing heâ(TM)ll wake up Raja. But his elder brother, who at times forgets how many patents he has to his name (more than 50) but never forgets product specs, reassures him that the final price accounts for every single component in the device. Thatâ(TM)s when it sinks in: Theyâ(TM)ve nailed this.

So far, Datawind has manufactured about 10,000 of its ultracheap devices, and has subcontracted more factories in India to gradually churn out a volume of tablets that still seems unbelievable to the founders. The Indian state plans to subsidize the tablets down to between $20 and $35 (U.S.), to be sold to college and university students, and wants to roll the devices out to around 12 million users over the next 12 months. After that, the goal is to place one of these tablets in the hands of each of the countryâ(TM)s 80 to 100 million high school students. The process, despite the hype, is still in a nascent stage, unfolding slowly.

But things got stranger. Shortly after the announcement, Suneet was invited to meet with Thailandâ(TM)s Minister for Information Communications Technology (who was so interested in purchasing 10 million tablets that he attended their meeting even as flood waters descended on Bangkok). Calls arrived from Turkey (which wants 15 million tablets), Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, Panama and Egypt. At one point, the Swedish embassy in Canada called: Would Suneet possibly have time to meet the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt? And would it be possible to send out a press release to announce that the meeting was happening?

Another story: from pcworld

And for an extra $10, you get a much better cpu, a better touch screen, more battery life, etc.

So, forget Canonicals' secret plans to unveil a cheap tablet running linux next week - these run both linux and android, and they're already being sold.

Now, we're fighting the fear that Chinese could become global players with these thinly-veiled outrage stories.

The fear is legit. Huawei for one is sneaking up while nobody is paying attention.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-magazine/huawei-will-china-conquer-the-world/article2243928/

Dunno. But only half the problem in countries like Greece is due to bloated government/high benefits. The other half is due to widespread tax evasion by people who could afford to pay taxes. Then the discrepancy between spending and revenue wouldn't be so wide.

Here in Canada our taxes are relatively high, but our finances aren't all that bad considering that our biggest trading partner completely screwed up their banking system and has run continual deficits for more than 10 years, whereas we ran a deficit only since 2008. Apparently higher taxes do not preclude some degree of financial sanity or economic stability despite dramatic global economic events beyond a country's control. That's not to say things here are perfect -- we are currently running a deficit and will for years to come, and the high dollar makes exports less competitive -- but compared to the US or to Europe things aren't so bad here. At least no banks have collapsed, most household mortgages are okay, and our credit rating is still AAA.

Maybe if the US had used its budget surplus to pay down some of the pre-existing debt in the 2000s, as some economists have suggested might have been a good idea, instead of blowing it all on an unaffordable tax cut and wars (tax cut + increase in spending = BIG deficit), you wouldn't have maxed out your credit card and you'd have a little more flexibility. Here in Canada we kept paying our relatively high taxes in the 2000s, with surpluses devoted about 50-50 to tax cuts and paying down the debt. As politically attractive as it might have been to do so, we didn't cut taxes so much that budgets went into deficit. It was probably going to be a "soft landing" for the budget versus taxes until the economic crisis hit.

Anyway, high taxes do not necessary have to correspond to economic disaster. I'd suggest that not letting the financial sector do whatever the hell they wanted to do even if it endangered the economy is more important than taxation level; and it is rather important to ensure that whatever the size of your government, revenues more-or-less balance expenditures over the long term. Lower taxes are better in many ways, but if you want to maintain a very low tax rate, then you'll have to cut government to the bare minimum necessary. Cutting taxes but not cutting government spending correspondingly, as happened in the Bush era, was insane. It didn't stop people at the time from saying "deficits don't matter". I guess they do matter when you keep hitting your credit limit.

On October 25, 2011 MF Global reported a $191.6 million quarterly loss as a result of trading on European government bonds. On October 31, 2011 MF Global filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Depositors lost money, not 'investors' or traders - depositors.

Do you even bother to read your link? MF Global was not a bank. Further, MF Global broke the law on keeping customer money separate from its own trading accounts. It remains to be seen (probably unlikely) if any of the principals are convicted and sent to prison.

The bankers are now stealing deposits as I said they would, so stay clear of banks.

MF Global wasn't a bank, therefore they aren't bankers. Given the many real cases of wrongdoing by acutal bankers, it's odd that you're focusing on a fictional case.

As a broker, MF Global's customer accounts are protected by SIPC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securities_Investor_Protection_Corporation from collapse of the broker. However, it turns out that the SIPC doesn't cover futures accounts. If you were trading commodity or financial futures through MF Global (the vast majority were) and you have funds that are missing, the SIPC won't give you a cent to make up the difference.

Oddly enough, if you were a Canadian customer of MF Global, you have far stronger protection from broker collapse:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/david-parkinson/canadas-cipf-the-surprise-winner-in-protecting-investors/article2258970/

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2464050&cid=37638428

Oh please.

The 'creative class', the 'innovation economy' was a hail Mary pass created by people to try and keep anything going. We've created a system dependent on growth (pensions, public debt...)

Do you what the key component of the 'innovation' age is? It doesn't need a lot of people to service the world.

A few thousands engineers/marketting/sales people can handle all the digital distribution for the entire world. Contrast that against all the jobs in local communities that used to be there when each neighborhood had its own blockbuster.

Computing, automation, and globalization mean there really aren't that many jobs to do. Especially with software, once something is built, that's it. There's no manufacturing cost or labor for additional people serviced.

Oh I'm sure there will be huge advancements in technology. The problem... they won't create that many jobs.

The 'creative class' and its advocates are ignorant progressives who live in a bubble. They live in silicon valley or at university campuses. It doesn't occur to them that there are 300 million Americans. Over 6 billion people in the world. There aren't enough innovative 'good' jobs available because design oriented jobs DO NOT SCALE with the population.

The innovation economy bares a good resemblance to Hollywood. And it pulls in plenty of suckers it seems. You might laugh at young people wanting to become actors or musicians... thinking their chances of making it big are 1 in a million. Yet, looking at it in scale, that one movie or big musicians services a large population and gets very wealthy. That's what makes it such a dynamic field.

Yet, that is exactly what the innovation economy is... and they've managed to actually pull the drapes over the entire American population... if not the world.

It's a world where innovation ensures rapid change, few jobs. It has nothing to do with patents or copyright.

As a matter of reality, in the eyes of politicians and economists, these are probably one of the few tools to create jobs. Whether or not you agree with it or not, it is what they think.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/intellectual-property-a-new-kind-of-arms-race-with-patents-as-ammo/article2190761/

Anyone who thinks innovation will 'power' the American economy is an idiot who doesn't understand scale. Innovation might be enough for a really small country... of a few million. Maybe Singapore or Sweden... think if Silicon Valley was its own country. We'd all be in awe. Yet they only make it rich by being a small population with massive exports. Not every country can be an exporter.

So next time someone talks about the innovation economy... try and think of the 300 million Americans and 6 billion people on Earth... and see how they fit into your 'innovation economy'. The reality is this

1. There will be a few innovative creative class jobs as there have always been.
2. Most people will be in regular jobs doing regular things

madness. He should *charge* the restaurant a small amount to take it away for recycling.

he could... but unfortunately it's apparently valuable enough that people think it's worth stealing. Something that restaurants use to pay to have removed is now worth going to jail for, I imagine restaurants across the country will be looking at their oil grease in a different light now.

My question was what was the value of what was stolen? Since inedible kitchen grease (IKG) is usually disposed of, what value is placed on it? According to the article it's worth 40 cents a pound and a gallon of grease weights 7.68 lbs which means it's worth $3.07 a gallon. That seems incredibly high considering diesel fuel isn't much higher than that and this grease still requires a lot of filtering to remove the impurities and processing with chemicals to make it ready for a diesel engine to use. Filtering might remove some of the weight since many things fall in grease traps that isn't grease so 10 lbs of IKG might be closer to about 9 lbs of useable oil, making the price per gallon even higher. 100% biodiesel also gets 10% less mpg

If biodiesel costs almost the same as diesel fuel but gets worse mpg then whats the point?

Oh please.

The 'creative class', the 'innovation economy' was a hail Mary pass created by people to try and keep anything going. We've created a system dependent on growth (pensions, public debt...)

Do you what the key component of the 'innovation' age is? It doesn't need a lot of people to service the world.

A few thousands engineers/marketting/sales people can handle all the digital distribution for the entire world. Contrast that against all the jobs in local communities that used to be there when each neighborhood had its own blockbuster.

Computing, automation, and globalization mean there really aren't that many jobs to do. Especially with software, once something is built, that's it. There's no manufacturing cost or labor for additional people serviced.

Oh I'm sure there will be huge advancements in technology. The problem... they won't create that many jobs.

The 'creative class' and its advocates are ignorant progressives who live in a bubble. They live in silicon valley or at university campuses. It doesn't occur to them that there are 300 million Americans. Over 6 billion people in the world. There aren't enough innovative 'good' jobs available because design oriented jobs DO NOT SCALE with the population.

The innovation economy bares a good resemblance to Hollywood. And it pulls in plenty of suckers it seems. You might laugh at young people wanting to become actors or musicians... thinking their chances of making it big are 1 in a million. Yet, looking at it in scale, that one movie or big musicians services a large population and gets very wealthy. That's what makes it such a dynamic field.

Yet, that is exactly what the innovation economy is... and they've managed to actually pull the drapes over the entire American population... if not the world.

It's a world where innovation ensures rapid change, few jobs. It has nothing to do with patents or copyright.

As a matter of reality, in the eyes of politicians and economists, these are probably one of the few tools to create jobs. Whether or not you agree with it or not, it is what they think.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/intellectual-property-a-new-kind-of-arms-race-with-patents-as-ammo/article2190761/

Anyone who thinks innovation will 'power' the American economy is an idiot who doesn't understand scale. Innovation might be enough for a really small country... of a few million. Maybe Singapore or Sweden... think if Silicon Valley was its own country. We'd all be in awe. Yet they only make it rich by being a small population with massive exports. Not every country can be an exporter.

So next time someone talks about the innovation economy... try and think of the 300 million Americans and 6 billion people on Earth... and see how they fit into your 'innovation economy'. The reality is this

1. There will be a few innovative creative class jobs as there have always been.
2. Most people will be in regular jobs doing regular things

Video: Wozniak remembers friend Steve Jobs:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/technology-video/video-wozniak-remembers-friend-steve-jobs/article2192817/

* It put him to tears supposedly (no, I haven't watched it, I've got no desire to see others' pain is all)...

( & the headline over @ DIGG today is "Video: Wozniak cries remembering friend Steve Jobs ;(". Understandable...)

APK

P.S.=> It happens but I've got no desire to see it is all on my not watching that - "been there, done that" & as I am sure have you all, part of life, is death... apk

This is the same Maxime Bernier who left his then-girlfriend (a , among others) secret documents.. He was forced to resign

Wow, this is not a topic which brings out the best thinking skills.

There was a time in a galaxy near you when homosexuals were regarded as inherently criminal, due to the prominence of newspaper headlines that read "Homosexual man slays ..." compared to the shocking dearth of headlines reading "Straight man slays ..."

Some of the headlines read "Hell's Angel slays ..." but somehow our bucket brains don't make the daring inference to file this headline also under the bucket "straight man slays ..." leading to the conclusion that there are a lot of gay killers prowling the neighbourhood.

But wait, just in, the human bucket brain sometimes makes errors of judgement:
Murder charges may unfairly tarnish military's reputation

We all know about the Streisand effect, I suppose because it's the simplest effect to understand, and takes the least effort to invoke: the fact of its mention in loud conversation makes it true--can't get any less risky than that.

How about the Turing effect? Now pay attention, this one is more difficult. Take a society that is so hung up on mother nature connecting positive to negative (and not any other way) that it conducts criminal proceedings against a war hero for what I would describe as a victimless crime (as compared to drinking and driving, or failing to abide by food safety regulations). Where was Winston Tippler Churchill when Turing needed a strong character reference? There's a crime for you, in my opinion. As a result of the criminal proceeding--in which no one mentions that Turing contributed more to the war effect than any ace fighter pilot--Turing is forced to undergo therapy which causes him to grow breasts (not cruel, not unusual) and then he kills himself. Why does no one who knows anything come to his defense? Well, we've got these secrets, you see, and it's better if no one knows anything. In fact, it's policy. Makes the world a better place.

I would venture to guess this did not bring out the best side of human nature in the homosexual population who skulked around feeling paranoid, ostracized, and excluded lest they become the unwitting center of attention in a pagan ritual of social uptightness. And furthermore, the morally uptight consist entirely of law-abiding do-gooders who would never threaten pagan outcomes in acts of social extortion.

If you're inside the intelligence establishment, this is all pretty cool. By applying the right kind of pressure, your target might just self-destruct in a puddle of stress and paranoia and improbable denials. Even by that standard, I'm coming around to the opinion that Assange is an asshole. He was assisted in arriving at this place by other assholes, who will forever remain dark shadows where the secrets lurk.

Turing took the honorable way out. He was persecuted by the state, none of his friends showed up to defend him, he grew breasts, then killed himself. He never passed a single secret to Julian Assange. Just like the witch tossed into the river who drowns in a way that proves she wasn't a witch in the first place.

But what if some future Alan Turing takes the growing of breasts the wrong way and slips an embarrassing state secret or two to the likes of Julian Assange?

Two options for the intelligence establishment:
A) Admit that persecuting a war hero for a victimless deviancy was pretty fucking stupid.
B) Double down on the need for secrecy and the portrayal of anyone who favours a system of checks and balances as suffering from moral turpitude (coming right up, on the silver platter of the bell hop of dirty tricks).

These geniuses of deceit have trouble with option A. Funny that. But think about it from their side: the Soviets might try to extort Turing into cooperation by threatening to spill his deviant acts to a socie

Not to burst your bubble, but law enforcement in Canada has been trying to get the same:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/need-a-warrant-to-unmask-internet-users-not-if-canada-gets-its-way.ars

and

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/pushing-the-limits-of-state-surveillance/article2130692/

Really?
http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/news/story/2011/08/09/pol-internet-privacy.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/pm-vows-to-rush-comprehensive-slate-of-crime-bills-into-law/article2046544/

These links are a tad newer than the election

People make all sorts of wonderful justifications but most never stick with it. Many also don't have the opportunity to ride to work.

The average person rigs the outcome far worse than that by favouring modes of urban development and taxation that create a warm, fuzzy, happy place until someone mutters "peak oil" under their breath.

Peak oil is a stupid phrase. It doesn't exist to describe the world, where the situation resembles more of a plateau, but it is useful to poke pins into the psyches of people who purchase a luxury three car garage in outer suburbia then complain about the facts of life as if no-one ever told them. Who knew that with rising global population, the price of gas would go up?

Vancouver mayor may pay the political price for bike lanes

This is playing out practically on the level of the banking system bail-out. An speedy commute to work in a guzzling single-passenger automobile is effectively a political entitlement because in a democracy, the lemmings are always right. Reward the people who made living choices consistent with a lower carbon footprint (by granting them a bike lane), feel the wrath of everyone who didn't (by taking away a car lane).

I'm not convinced a bicycle saves a huge amount of carbon when I look at my food bill. There are health benefits, though, to offset the food cost. In our household where we really succeed in reducing our carbon footprint is by using bus+bicycles to combine multiple car trips into a single car trip. Essentially our occupancy ratio goes up when we do use the vehicle, so we transfer some but not all of the miles onto the food budget.

Real savings come from long term planning and good logistics. If the term "peak oil" makes you toss in your sleep, you're not ready to understand this. Peak oil makes the problem sound like an earthquake: you know it's coming, but you don't know when, so your planning obligations are minimal.

For a plateau, one could reasonably plan a decade ahead by advocating good urban development policy and other such responsible and unpopular activities.

Science fair gold medalist, 17, invents better way to search Internet

Watch out, Google: When it comes to Internet search, there's a new competitor in town.

Seventeen-year-old Nicholas Schiefer has found a better way to search small documents, such as tweets and Facebook statuses - all for his Grade 11 science fair project.

The Pickering resident created an algorithm to filter through, and find relevant information. Created using linear algebra and discrete math, his algorithm is named "Apodora" after a python species with extraordinary search capabilities.

Not only did Mr. Schiefer win a gold medal at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, but he also earned the attention of students who dubbed him the "next Mark Zuckerberg," said science and mathematics teacher Nina Dolgovykh.

When did THEY ever do that for real civil disobedience? Now days the worst you are likely to suffer from civil disobedience in the West is a few years in jail.

You sound like somebody who can afford to drive a car. You've obviously never spent a few years in an American jail before nor have you been subject to the type of torture and abuse that goes on in those places. People should not be expected to suffer for civil rights or human rights just because some Right Wing zealot thinks it is appropriate for them to suffer. People like Bradley Manning should never need to be tortured for months (even before trial or sentencing) just because Right Wing extremists think it is proper.

Modern activists are generally a bunch of pussies that scream about the injustice of The System but don't actually want to suffer the losses that an actual fight requires.

If a person goes to jail, then they already lost. And if a person gets martyred they don't go to heaven to have sex with virgins. Your arguments are based on mythology. You can trash talk all you want, and use logical fallacies to support your arguments, but the extreme Right Wing will always be too fanatical to realize they are wrong, no matter how ludicrous they sound or how many Moderation points they receive. Playing to populous Right Wing causes may help your self esteem, but still makes arguments based on logical fallacies fallacious. No amount of populist arguments will make you correct, and no amount of Karma will make you moral or intelligent.

Just to re-iterate your Flaimbait (that is so far at +5 Insightful!!!!!):

Modern activists are generally a bunch of pussies that scream...

This, of course, is a lie. The people who complain about Human Rights Activists are generally the ones doing the screaming, the beating, the killing, and the jailing. It is people like Bill Oreily who tell people to "shut up!" when they try to present a balanced argument during an "interview". And it is people like Conservative mayor Rob Ford of Toronto who talk loud and complain and who told news paper journalists that more (peaceful) protesters (in the designated protest area) should have been beaten up by police (instead of merely a few hundred... some of them woman and children).

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Ford
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/rob-ford-and-a-decade-of-controversy/article1678543/

Obviously these idiots didn't learn from what happened when New Brunswick government had tried to bail out a poorly run company that could only produce one of the worst cars ever built. What a total Pricklin.