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Some of the biggest names in tech and corporate America, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, have teamed up with governors and educators to ask Congress to provide $250 million in federal funding to school districts in order to give every single K-12 student in the nation an opportunity to learn how to code.

Cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet for US operations:
Apple $38 Billion
Facebook $18 Billion
Microsoft $105 Billion
Walmart $8 Billion

And they have the nerve to ask the taxpayers to pony up more for something they freely admit will benefit them? Here's an idea, they can fucking fund it themselves if they think it is so damn important. $250 million? Apple makes $70,000 in profit every 60 seconds. That means Apple could cover the entire amount with the profit they make in 2.5 days.

Not so much

And in most cases, we know why it happened

Actually, no, we do not. Some times an earthquake explains it, but not always.

Not an expert, not some expert, but the experts.

Appeal to authority. Fail. Today's experts may be right. But simply their being considered experts does not prove anything.

What can you and Mr. Nye say today in support of prosecuting opponents of the anthropogenic global warming, that couldn't have been said only 3 years ago to prosecute people feeding children butter?

The "experts' opinions" on the evils of fat were no less "settled" — and only the fraudsters in the pocket of Big Butter would argue against it.

The actual question is right now, today, given that the money is gone and isn't coming back

You are begging the question, when you claim "isn't coming back".

Disability does not mean insolvency, and the insolvent — whatever the reasons for their misfortune — should all be treated the same. Why are the disabled singled-out?

The borrowers identified by the Department won’t have to go through the typical application process for receiving a disability discharge, which requires sending in documented proof of their disability. Instead, the borrower will simply have to sign and return the completed application enclosed in the letter.

Unless, of course, you are trying to score political points for your "compassion" and "generosity" with other people's money...

But it is even worse, than I thought:

“Americans with disabilities have a right to student loan relief,” Ted Mitchell, the undersecretary of education, said in a statement. “And we need to make it easier, not harder, for them to receive the benefits they are due.”

See? It is their right to have the loans forgiven, just as it always has been their right to obtain the loans. Do the disabled have a right to free college education? They do now...

created long before he came in to office

Oh, no you don't. The nationalization of student loans is very recent — it happened during Obama's second term.

So why isn't the minimum amount of time that a yellow light must be shown fixed by law based on scientific reasons (e.g. current speed limit, expected reaction time of a worst-case, legal driver, etc.)?

Because then they cannot generate more revenue. These redlight camera outfits are not there to uphold the law. The are there to make a profit. When you are there to make a profit, at least in America, you have to make more profit this quarter than last quarter.

Apparently the results of the yellow light shortening has been after it is implemented, drivers hopon the sprags as soon as they see one, treating it as a red light. This has resulted in more rear ending accidents, as the number one sport in the US is tailgaiting so closely that you owe the person in front of you at least a dinner and a movie. http://time.com/3643077/red-li...

https://www.motorists.org/blog...

Red light cameras and for profit prisons are turning out to be birds of a feather. Institutionalized evil.

"What do you mean? We are talking about a spacecraft here."

It's a reference to Shirtstorm, one of the primary examples that we of the dark side cite in our war against SJWs:
http://time.com/3589392/comet-...

women’s harassment is more likely to be gender-based (...) (T)he harassment targeted at men is not because they are men, as is clearly more frequently the case with women. (...) a lot of harassment is an effort to put women, because they are women, back in their “place.”

I won't get into the end part there, not touching that with a ten foot pole. BUT - it's true; very few men are harassed just for being men. Relevant XCKD, perhaps?

Depends on how a person now or later a legal team with real experts requesting case details understands the term "help", "everything", "requests" Hundreds of requests to unlock phones flood FBI (April 6, 2016)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
"... the agency was being inundated with requests from state and local law enforcement seeking help accessing the contents of hundreds of encrypted or damaged cellphones linked to unrelated criminal investigations scattered across the country."
"Requests involving more than 500 such devices..."
FBI Offers to Help Local Law Enforcement With Locked iPhones (April 2, 2016)
http://time.com/4279841/fbi-un...
"Please know that we will continue to do everything we can to help you consistent with our legal and policy constraints.’’

At this very moment, my dad's computer is attempting to download Windows 10 in the background, automatically without asking permission.

He has Dialup internet.

Let that sink in.

Nope... It does not sink in. Dialup internet went extinct long before Windows 10 was even conceived.

You are quite wrong.

http://time.com/3856066/aol-ve...

2.1 million people in America using dialup as of last May.

It is well-known that most domestic terrorists are well educated, middle class to wealthy individuals.

Most Domestic 'Jihadists' Are Educated, Well-Off

However, many foreign terrorists are also very wealthy.

Osama Bin Laden Had $29 Million in Wealth, Requested it Mainly Be Used for âJihadâ(TM) in Personal Will

Whatâ(TM)s made the Islamic State one of the richest terrorist armies in history?

The World's Richest Terrorists

No problem! We can just create a cell phone that looks like a gun, so the cops can tell the difference!

Recently the TSA stopped a woman from wearing gun themed shoes throug Baltimore airport.

TSA Stops Passenger With Gun-Shaped Shoes at Baltimore Airport

At least the anti-vaxxers can take credit for resurrecting diseases we thought had been eradicated.

That's right, thanks to the anti-vaxxer idiots, Measles, Mumps, Whooping Cough, and Chicken Pox are showing up once again.

Thanks, anti-vaxxer fuckheads, thanks a lot for your stupid anti-science delusions which now put everyone's children at risk.

But lots of nukes are being built in the Mid-East. http://time.com/3751676/iran-t...

There's a great Salon article

Now that I find hard to believe. All magazines have their "heroes and villains" however Salon hates white people first and men second, with the ever popular punching bag of white males as the top of the villain hierarchy. Not unlike a melodrama where the boo and hiss whenever the "bad guy" comes on screen. Salon is the magazine for people who at best are passive aggressive against white people and at worst just about ready for white only concentration camps. Along the same lines, at best passive aggressive against men and at worst ready to lock them all up. I have no doubt that the $.78 is a myth. However you need to find a better source. Here's a couple to help out: http://time.com/3222543/5-femi... http://www.wsj.com/articles/th... http://www.washingtonexaminer.... Google "gender pay gap myth" and you can find dozens more. Heck, I'd love to see a study that included the child support that the average woman gets as most seem to. That subsidy ought to put them over the top since it's tax free.

Except there's not a clearly defined boundary line that a person crosses at a certain income level.

http://content.time.com/time/m...

The study doesn't say why $75,000 is the benchmark, but "it does seem to me a plausible number at which people would think money is not an issue," says Deaton. At that level, people probably have enough expendable cash to do things that make them feel good, like going out with friends. (The federal poverty level for a family of four, by the way, is $22,050.)

It's linked by others above, but in case you don't see those posts:
http://healthland.time.com/201...

I wonder if the half conversations via cell-phones are inherently louder due to less than perfect transmission. I witness people communicating effectively in person while whispering, but I can't imagine being able to be heard while whispering over a cell connection.

However, if you want to see what researchers found, I located an article:

http://healthland.time.com/201...

and people having loud animated conversations on their cell phones in crowded public spaces are rude.

I never got this. If two people are sat on the bus/train whatever and having a chat, no one gives a shit, remove one of the people and half the conversation and people are suddenly put out by it.

And yet, it is a tested and documented phenomenon. Google will find many reports of this, see for example this paper (PDF) or this webpage, this webpage, or this webpage.

Obama brought down the price of gasoline with CAFE standards, just as promised.

BULLSHIT!!!!

The price of gasoline has dropped IN SPITE of Obama's efforts, not because of them.

Chu: DOE working to wean U.S. off oil

The Energy Department is working to decrease U.S. dependence on oil, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.

DOE is working to promote alternatives such as biofuels and electric vehicles, Chu told House appropriators during a hearing on DOE’s budget.

...

  He also touted natural gas as “great” and said DOE is researching how to reduce the cost of compressed natural gas tanks for vehicles.

High gasoline prices will make research into such alternatives more urgent, Chu said.

“But is the overall goal to get our price —”, asked Nunnelee, who didn’t finish the sentence.

“No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy,” Chu replied.

Seems as if HIGHER gas prices are Obama's goal.

Too bad such higher prices the US became the world's largest producer of oil, and the resulting addition to world production capacity combined with a[n other "unexpected" Obama] economic downturn to result in an oil glut that drove prices down.

Oh, I bet you've been fooled by the "pretty picture" Obama's been painting of the US economy.

Bill Clinton hasn't been

Bill Clinton Says Obama Painted a ‘Pretty Picture’ of the U.S.

“Why is it such a wacky election? Because millions and millions and millions and millions of people look at that pretty picture of America he painted and they cannot find themselves in it to save their lives,” Clinton said.

How about when Trump said on air in a Fox "interview" that we should attack terrorist's families, which would constitute a war crime.

http://time.com/4132368/donald...

Then we win.

One of my favorites!

It's just a shame there are so many buggy whippers on Slashdot.

Meanwhile, the solar panels and wind turbines go up. Meanwhile they go on line. Meanwhile the EV's roll out. And if you dont like them, its okay to lie: http://techland.time.com/2013/...

I think this pretty much sums up the state of the altenergy deniers:

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

That should be an obligitory link on all of these threads.

* He is not stupid. Its almost impossible to be stupid and a successful business owner the same time.

You said it yourself, almost impossible. And is he truly a successful business owner? It seems several of his business ventures have failed, so he is perhaps not the golden boy so many seems to think. Although he is extremely good at boosting his own brand and inflating it's worth if that means anything to you.

Yes.

"Hillary Backs Strongest Net Neutrality Rules"
http://time.com/3721452/hillar...

I quit shopping at Home Depot after the time I ran into a cashier who insisted that I could not buy what was in my cart unless I supplied my zip code as part of the credit card transaction, despite having it explained to her that it is a violation of their merchant agreement, and in many states is also illegal. I left my shit in the shopping cart and left.

I was utterly unsurprised to see that Home Depot got breached. I hope they have to pay out big.

Surely you don't mean Winston Churchill, The Ugly Briton?

He wants to have america have a "spiritual rebirth" and he's making Bushlike pronouncements from aircraft carriers.

Are you sure you're not confusing Rand Paul with Ted Cruz? Sure, Paul gave a campaign speech on an aircraft carrier to make himself look tough, but Cruz is the Dominionist here talking about spiritual rebirths.

Glad you called me on that, because I completely misquoted the spiritual rebirth bit. So to correct myself I did a little research. http://time.com/3433033/values...

It was Cruz who spoke of a rebirth.

At the Values Voters Conference where both Cruz and Paul spoke, Paul instead noted “What America needs is not just another politician or promises,” he said. “What America really needs is a revival.” and

“Where the spirit of the lord is there is liberty,” Paul said in conclusion, quoting from Corinthians 3:17. Then he said the opposite was also true. “Where there is liberty, there is always space for God.”

Which is also has not been subjected to any enrichment by nuclear industry processes. I specifically referred to artificially made elements.

Fission power plant fuel has minor enrichments to the level of 3-4% U-235. Artificially made elements that occur through the transmutation of U-238 and other transuranics in the fuel material are also contained within the cladding. What "artificially made" elements are you referencing? Humans do not come into contact with "artificially made" transuranic elements that are of concern for internal exposure in their daily lives.

Yes I can, I just don't know how much of them Fukushima, Chernobyl or other accidents have released.

Sorry but

Yes: http://science.time.com/2013/0...

You: http://www.world-nuclear.org/i...

Can: http://www.who.int/ionizing_ra...

You literally get more radiation living next to a coal power than you would living next to Three Mile Island at the time of the disaster, or presently.

Coal source 1: http://www.scientificamerican....

Coal source 2: http://www.reboundhealth.com/c...

Do you life next to the damaged Fukushima reactor? You have a problem. Do you live 15km away from the Fukushima reactor? You are getting less radiation exposure than living in Colorado. Were you exposed to radionuclides after the Chernobyl disaster in Belarus, Ukraine, or Russia? Take the iodine pills the Soviet Union gave you immediately; after that your biggest health risk is the stress of living in what you "perceive" to be a toxic environment (though it was later proved not!).

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's irrational. What you're doing is how social proof spreads ignorance.

Not that I should make an appeal to authority or that you should trust me solely based on my credentials, but since you "called me out" for not understanding it I will inform you that I am a trained nuclear engineer working in the nuclear industry, wasting my time posting on the internet fighting someone like you because the level of misinformation out there is too much to bear. Please listen to experts and stop your conspiracy theories and stop spreading true ignorance of the basic reality.

So at best he is working from a flawed data set that has to make a load of assumptions and guesses.

I'm not sure the study was even necessary, as it is stating the obvious. I've always known that certain conspiracies theories are completely ridiculous just based on the number of people that would have to be involved. Of course, there are those prone to believe in conspiracies, to whom simple logical analysis doesn't apply.

http://time.com/3997033/conspi...

No - not if you've been following the twists and turns of businesses trying to work in India, where if you don't grease every palm you run into exponentially increasing bureaucratic delays. It has nothing to do with racism and everything to do with a country with an ingrained culture of corruption. Add in that the caste system is still alive and well (just ask any of the 160 million "untouchables") and nobody should be surprised. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean anything - law in India is in many cases not worth the paper it's written on.

Then again, what do you expect from a country where it is perfectly legal to rape your wife and where female genital mutilation is an open secret?

What if Sanders wins in Iowa? The most recent poll shows he's pulled ahead (and I believe it's beyond the margin of error).

As for me, I'm still holding hope for O'Malley. Go Martin! Move those tortoise legs!!

[...] we would still be in the 1960s with separate water fountains, separate entrances, and lynchings [...]

We have all these things. They are called "safe-space" today. Women, ethnic minority and peoples of colors all have their respective safe-space on campus, which include water fountain and separate entrance (obviously, it's a separate location). We also got lynchings of white men because of gang rape rumor supported by a general misandrist sentiment promoted by the state.

Nothing really change, in fact nothing really matter. I don't even care about the future any more, I just want to get high and watch the western civilisations burn.

And apparently he's not smart enough to know they've been doing this already for two years.

http://techland.time.com/2013/...

Well, probably not... http://time.com/4178517/cancer...

It's tangential to the core issue here, but interesting to read. Aliens and ghosts, claims of levitation and healing powers. http://content.time.com/time/w...

None of this is relevant. The point is that nobody has made billions secretly hacking AWS and Azure. This is just FUD with no basis in reality.

How many businesses do you think run on AWS and Azure? Considering revenue for AWS is at $2.1 billion dollars. AWS also offers a cloud computing aimed at the Feds, which certainly wouldn't be of interest to anyone else out there.

So what? That's like saying: there's billions of people driving cars out there so a brand new electric car that cost $500 and that goes 100,000 miles per charge would interest a lot of people. Doesn't mean someone has done it.

None of this is relevant. The point is that nobody has made billions secretly hacking AWS and Azure. This is just FUD with no basis in reality.

How many businesses do you think run on AWS and Azure? Considering revenue for AWS is at $2.1 billion dollars. AWS also offers a cloud computing aimed at the Feds, which certainly wouldn't be of interest to anyone else out there.

The North Korean test produced results similar in size to a past test they did of a fission bomb. Other than their claims, which have been known to be exaggerated (unicorns, anyone?) there's nothing to indicate that the latest was in fact a thermonuclear bomb.

So what about the part where the supposed unicorn story was proved to be Western propaganda?

The North Korean test produced results similar in size to a past test they did of a fission bomb. Other than their claims, which have been known to be exaggerated (unicorns, anyone?) there's nothing to indicate that the latest was in fact a thermonuclear bomb.

The IRS didn't audit a single millionaire last year.

They didn't audit a single millionaire because they audited tens of thousands of millionaires. Unless of course you are referring to marital status. Unfortunately I can't find out whether they audited a single millionaire or if they were all married.

That's why websites are so anxious to sell whatever piece of your attention span they can muster to advertisers. That's why web page advertisements constantly try to hook and reel in your attention.

And that's how we get Honey Boo, Little people who own pawnshops and cut logs in swamps, and in their spare time hunt alligators.

Because as time has moved on, the stupid people have gained access to technology that only smart people once used, and lo and behold.....Twitter!

People such as myself still have the attention span we used to, and the interent becomes a treasure trove for our personal research

The stupid, or those who have a shorter attention span than a goldfish http://time.com/3858309/attent... are there to consume facebook and twitter, and all the other internet venues that cater to this sort.

The pity is that the pruveyors of this utter shit seem to think that the condition is universal, hence the death of intelligent entertainment.

It has to be a combination of the OS and specific apps that these people have. Time magazine says 8.3 % of a total 75 million phones so that's still over 622,500 4S's worldwide. If this really was a significant issue there would be far more people in this suit. So it can't JUST be the OS, there must be some apps that are auto-upgrading too that are killing these devices.

Also...

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv......
http://www.forbes.com/sites/in......
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/......
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bro......

In any case, glad this abusive, corrupting program was shut down.

A time article on John Oliver's influence including noting his show on civil forfeiture. Here's an article where you could read that he had an effect on CF...

http://time.com/3674807/john-o......

Quote:
After the increased exposure given to the issue by the (Washington) Post and Oliver, Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week that he would enact major limitations on the law.

"[G]etting a little dirty does the immune system some good. That thinking is known as the “hygiene hypothesis,” which speculates that the reason kids develop so many allergies today is because their environments are just too clean."

Also, who gets to decide what's disparaging or not?

That right there is the problem. That's the road that ends with forty years in jail for insulting the king's dog.

and she no longer consents to him jerking to her private parts today.

What about his memories? Is he no longer allowed to think about her?

Apparently there is an experimental way to erase memories with a laser. Hopefully something like that will never become a court-ordered procedure.

When it comes to your political stance of privacy issues, be very careful what wish for...

This just in: according to sources there is strong evidence that one of these travellers had links with a terrorist network in Agrabah:

http://time.com/4155228/amierc...

Millions of tube wells were drilled to provide villagers with clean water, but many of them were dug into shallow layers of ground that had naturally occurring arsenic, contaminating the water.

Not really sure where you got $200B in cash.

5 Seconds on google would have answered your question. The only place you really need to look is their financial statements. Yes they really have that much. Much of it is parked overseas or in various investments.

For the record, Apple has more cash on hand than Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook COMBINED.

Haven't heard about that one, but I have head a few.

Streaming music platforms like Spotify are extremely popular, but they also pay next to nothing to creators and even the labels are not getting nearly as much as they wanted.

As best as I can tell, it's the other way around. The base royalty rate for purchased music is 9.1 cents per song. Spotify pays 0.6 to 0.84 cents per play. In other words, if a Spotify user hears a song more than 11-15 times (irrespective of time period), the creators have gotten more royalties from Spotify than if the listener had purchased the song directly.