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Ignoring the misuse of the term 'revenue'...

Your statement flies in the face of reality through reporting like this and this and this. Though it is true that some of the largest companies 'in the US paid anywhere between 25% and 50%' but it was not of revenue, or even profit, but of their expected payment to be allowed to exist in a civil society. There is nothing stopping them from moving to lawless places and doing as they please. If people want civilization, they should pay for it.

Or we could go with anarchy and let the guy with the biggest stick take over.

It's not anarchy if anybody 'takes over'. Well, okay, it is for the guy who took over, but for everyone else it's the same old shit. And by the way, the guy with the biggest stick is in charge, in case you haven't noticed. Either way, no bureaucracy should be given a license to kill...

I don't know where you are getting your information from, but I'd love to see your source.

How about the Japanese government? "The murasoi fish â" similar to a rockfish â" was contaminated with 254,000 becquerels (Bq) per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of radioactive cesium, according to a study released by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., the Daily Mail reports. "

Do you have a citation for a single dangerous fish being caught outside of that part of Japan?

a marine biologist from Stanford University found radioactive tuna chilling out in California. But I'm sure it was just an isolated case.

Oh, and you know, the disaster was awhile ago, so I'm sure radioactivity has dropped since then. Unless, you know, it increased 8 fold instead...

Well... 300 tons of radioactive death water a day probably isn't anything to be too concerned about... we can always remain skeptical and demand more citations, more proof, etc. Kinda like if I back into your car, we can sit and haggle about how badly your car was hit ("it's only a scratch!"), or that you have a really nice car and I don't, so you shouldn't be so upset... or you know, logic like that. Instead of, I don't know, say... taking responsibility.

Well, that and the fact that there are thermal problems with large Li Ion batteries (think Boeing Dreamliner battery fires). Elon Musk actually discussed this in an interview on the 787 fires a while back (http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/02/26/elon-musks-solution-to-boeings-battery-problem/

That's great, except that all of our phone calls are still being recorded. This is something the Stasi could only DREAM of.

Read a little closer. This is the metadata that everyone is so worried about. It's not the actual conversation that's recorded, but the number called, call duration, and locations the cell phone was in for the duration of the call. The only new thing added to this list since the last half century is location data.

The scary thing about this is AT&T never deletes your call data. EVER. There's a reason why some EU privacy directives have a retention limit. Which is ironically in direct contrast to the mandatory retention policies for law enforcement use in those very same countries.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/07/anthony-mitchell-lawsuit-third-amendment-_n_3557431.html
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/henderson.pdf - Case 2:13-cv-01154-APG-CWH United States District Court District of Nevada

19. After Plaintiff ANTHONY MITCHELL refused to allow the police to enter his home, the De-fendant police officers, including Defendants SERGEANT MICHAEL WALLER, OFFICER DAVID CAWTHORN and OFFICER CHRISTOPHER WORLEY, conspired among themselves to force AN-THONY MITCHELL out of his residence and to occupy his home for their own use. Defendant OFFICER DAVID CAWTHORN outlined the Defendants’ plan in his official report:

It was determined to move to 367 Evening Side and attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested.

That's a nice Catch-22 you've created there, Officer. Pity about that pesky Third Amendment (plaintiff is also suing under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments as well).

Pentagon Sets Stage for U.S. to Respond to Computer Sabotage With Military Force

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html

Ban Ki Moon's spokesperson explicitly said the UN inspectors would not be doing that. So whether the rebels have faked any attacks or have attacked themselves -- we may never know. At least not for a long time and certainly not before western forces attack. I think at this point even finding evidence of use doesn't really matter. Western politicians have been talking too tough for too long and the perception if we back down would be disastrous for them. They'd be seen as abetting Assad's war crimes through inaction. We're locked in to a course of attack by politics and public perception. Truth be damned. Well. The egg will be on all our faces once the rebels we put in power start committing genocide.

Oh boy, you're right! Quoting the Wall Street Journal:

After sifting through each trade, exchanges canceled or adjusted many of the trades.

Their actions stanched what would have been an even more costly mistake. People familiar with the matter last week estimated that Goldman's losses could have reached hundreds of millions of dollars.

...

At NYSE Amex, the exchange will cancel trades in most cases of obvious error, unless the traders on both sides are market makers, or exchange members who facilitate the trading in a given stock's options to ensure fair and orderly markets. Goldman has a market-making unit, but in this case, NYSE Amex classified the orders as coming from a broker-dealer firm.

Looks like someone at GS read yesterday's news about the The Greatest Keyboard Shortcut Ever and did a CTRL+Z on the trades.

After sifting through each trade, exchanges canceled or adjusted many of the trades.

Their actions stanched what would have been an even more costly mistake. People familiar with the matter last week estimated that Goldman's losses could have reached hundreds of millions of dollars.

...

At NYSE Amex, the exchange will cancel trades in most cases of obvious error, unless the traders on both sides are market makers, or exchange members who facilitate the trading in a given stock's options to ensure fair and orderly markets. Goldman has a market-making unit, but in this case, NYSE Amex classified the orders as coming from a broker-dealer firm.

If you think there's a glut of contract IT workers now ...then you lack a basic understanding of labor markets.

Computer Programmers: 3.7%
DB Admins: 1.3%
Network and sysadmins: 3.9%
Network and data analysts: 3.9%
Software devs, application, and systems software: 4.0%

Those are the current unemployment rates for workers in those occupations. It's pretty much the same for all IT occupations; there are few enough workers that companies are having a tough time filling jobs, and even moderately skilled employees aren't having trouble finding jobs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323936804578229873392511426.html

Well, Shell is thinking about it. The big problem with Gas-To-Liquids is the upfront cost for the plant. At 10 billion a pop, you want long term assurances that the feedstock will be cheap. It's hard to line up long term contracts for that much natural gas.

That's why the Pearl project in Quatar went through. Quatar guaranteed a set price for decades.

The hope is that the Pearl plant will get the kinks worked out and they can bring other GTL projects in for considerably less. However, given the volubility of both supply and cost, this is going to be a big problem for the technology.

Don't blame the government. It''s just reality being annoying again.

China is heavily investing to reduce carbon output, as its technocratic leadership understands the issue. When they reduce their output to less than that of the US, the US will have to come up with some new avoidance excuse.

They talk a good game, but you're apparently willing to ignore the over 350 new large coal-fired power plants they're building over the next few years. China will reign supreme in CO2 generation (per-capita means nothing to the environment BTW) from here on out. India also plans to build over 450 new coal-fired plants.

As to a new "US avoidance excuse", US CO2 production is down to 1994 levels due to fracking and therefore increased use of natural gas, among other factors. Now all we need is a sane nuclear power policy, with nuclear plants replacing almost all coal-fired plants here, and CO2 production would be way down without harm to the economy. In fact, by exporting high-tech thorium generators, the US could make a ton of money.

Citation needed. Who said anything about them "deliberately" misusing Safari's broken features? Maybe you just pulled that part outta your ass?

Google was fined for tricking itself around "do not track" and "block third party cookies". The details are in the second url.

In the case of Roundup, a lot of studies have been done testing the danger to human health, and it seems to be no more dangerous than manure.

Well, there have been a lot of studies run by Monsanto that seem to show that. But then there are other studies that show links to Parkinson's and Autism, cancer, degradation of soil nutrients, as well as lethal effects in amphibians, and perhaps most alarming, a recent study found roundup in the urine of 44% of European Union citizens. Not only that, but it seems that it is actually many of the adjucts used in Roundup applications that are being shown to have the most toxicity, an issue most of the studies completely ignore by studying only the glyphosate, instead of the entirety of the compounds being used in such abundance.

Apparently they look for clues to organizations that have solved similar problems.

NSA Boosting Automation in Wake of Snowden Leaks

The agency has created a private cloud using OpenStack, a Web standard developed by NASA and Rackspace Hosting Inc. Analysts say this lets the NSA run its IT operations in a way that more closely mirrors that of Amazon.com Inc. or Google Inc. Previously, it took weeks or months for employees at NSA to get access to computing resources, said Nathanael Burton, a computer scientist speaking at the OpenStack Summit in Portland in June. The private cloud “let us grow to a scale that a very small team of 12 to 15 people could manage,” he said.

“We’ve transformed the NSA and over the next few months we’re going to be working with the larger intelligence community to roll out our OpenStack system across the entire intelligence community,” said Mr. Burton in a video of the conference. The NSA did not respond to requests for comment.

If the officer is present, then obviously either one parties consented to him being present or it's being conducted in public place.

See here: You Commit Three Felonies a Day.

So, we're going to have the POLICE record citizens going about their business. We all know, this shit WILL be saved indefinitely - "time limits" are hoseshit; just look at what states do with names of all of us criminals who buy cold medicine with pseudoephedrine in them. Those lists have become perpetual because of the meth "crisis" - more "war on drugs" bullshit.

With the recordings of our behavior, you just know some asshole prosecutor with political ambitions - OK, all prosecutors - will abuse this because we are all pretty much criminals thanks to assholes in our legislatures.

This will just increase our surveillance society.

A memory trick I once learned (for remember names or phone numbers, for example) is to write the item with your finger on a roughish surface like your pants 3 times. This often works for me.

There have been studies (like this one) that seem to show that writing something down by hand reinforces learning. I'm surprised the author didn't think this might be relevant.

I happen to know how Samsung builds products. And RSI is actually not an issue. This is a payoff fishing expedition from Brazil needing currency, now that they've closed down external bank transfers in US dollars, and shut down a large sector of their economy. Rather than admit their mistake and undo it, they are now looking to get their money a different way.

Strange, but Apple (contractors Pegatron and Honhai) have faced the same charges in other countries.
Could it be that Samsung manufactures phones so dramatically differently that all Brazil can do shake Samsung down for a couple hundred thousand?

I'm under NDA on the exact process; they consider it proprietary. It's very weird, but in the limit, it makes a lot of sense, even if it adds some overhead that a traditional RSI-prone process would not have.

It's either a fishing expedition on the payola, as I said earlier, or it's a fishing expedition on the assembly process. I think they could have just hired an independent auditor to ask about it, sign the same NDA, the auditor would have just said "Oh." and told them to drop the RSI claim.

They may still have claims on the ergonomic furniture and the breaks, assuming workers in other manufacturing plants in Brazil get more breaks and, say, Herman Miller or other highly ergonomic chairs. It looks like they've already agreed to a modification of the work hours, specifically regarding mandatory overtime.

Here's an article on the lawsuit not behind a pay-wall, since the original link in the summary is generally unreadable:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323455104579012712866922406.html
Note that they actually own up to the overtime policy and agree to change it.

PS: If you do a more than trivial look at the earlier China Labor Watch complaint, you'll see the same overtime issue, but that the basic labor rights issues were (eventually) admitted to be limited to the two third party suppliers, rather than the Samsung plants themselves.

I was struck the other day with the similarities between bitcoin and a savings account: Both are digital representations of a logical construct.

The most basic logical construct of the financial world is currency. Slips of paper to which people ascribe value. When stored in a savings account, they become digital representations of the currency logical construct.

Tractors in Farmville are digital representations of a logical construct.

Stocks (shares of ownership), bonds (promises to pay), synthetic CDO's (a bet which a US district court judge called "gibberish") are other logical constructs. These are typically represented digitally as well. But, at some point, these constructs can (hopefully) be converted into currency and exchanged for goods, services and financial products.

Gold, beanie babies, art are stores of value. Any store of value, even though it might have a physical representation, is a logical construct. The value is the logical construct. Typically, the value is measured by the amount of currency for which it can be exchanged. There can be other measures too, but currency is a common unit.

Whether people accept this logical construct (bitcoin) remains to be seen. If people directly accept it as currency - meaning they will accept it as payment - or value it for its convertibility into currency remains to be seen. If it's the former, it could become valuable. If it's the latter, it's going to have a lot of competition from other logical constructs to which people ascribe value.

Ultimately, a "thing" - physical or virtual - is valuable in that it helps people get what they want, whatever that want may be.

Wall Street Journal:Nearly 100 dead.
USA Today: Nearly 100 dead
CNN: 95-200 dead
NBC: At least 95 dead
Fox News: Nearly 100 dead

But don't let reality get in the way of your bizarre conspiracy theory.

You are aware that your link dates back to January, and that Obama only exempted Congress this past week, immediately before going on vacation, right?

Congress's ObamaCare Exemption - The President intervenes to give Members and staff a break.

...It's that users aren't bright enough or are too lazy to turn off wi-fi detection when they're not using it.

I think you're being a bit harsh here.

One, this is a moderately complex concept, that your phone is emitting uniquely identifying info when you're not even connected to a network.

Two, we've conditioned people to keep WiFi on. Between capped bandwidth plans, video services restricted over Cell data, and even Apple asking you to keep it on (they use the GPS + SSID data to help their mapping efforts) having WiFi on 24/7 is normal to a lot of people.

We live in a complex world with a huge number of interactions. It's pretty normal to not think of them all. Ask Jon Corzine if there was any complexity that he missed. And he's a pretty smart guy.

we wouldn't have to "budget for inflation" if we weren't creating it in the first place....

The Fed's inflation target is 2%. Not their "upper limit" target. That's the point that they would like it to be. Ever year, someone is extracting 2% of the value of all the savings in the country, on purpose.

Also, 2% of $3 trillion is $60 billion, not $500 million..

Well, it was reported by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN, CBS, and others (ABC, Fox News, NPR, etc.).

As far as I can tell, all the major US news companies reported on the closings.

What you mean is actually "The Democrats couldn't even get a majority on board to support a public option". If the senate was all Democrats, they could have passed it easily

No, you're wrong. Stop lying and/or trying to rewrite history. The Democrats had between 58 and 60 seats (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress) and at best had about 41 people on board with a public option: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/10/public-option-support-now_n_493725.html

That's ~67% of the Democrats. That's not widespread appeal. It certainly isn't bipartisan appeal.

What ideas did the Republicans want again?

A smaller, more focused package for one: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443989204577601583402450826.html

Or malpractice reform?

Or cross-state insurance?

How about any cost controls? (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all).

But it's not necessarily what they wanted moreso than what they didn't want. Alot of the ideas in the bill had crossover appeal, but they were overshadowed by a mass of crap that no one liked, such as the pre-existing condition mandate and the individual mandate (which is NOT the same mandate Republicans once supported -- for just one example, the Heritage plan covered only catastrophic, NOT comprehensive expenses)

Here's the source, and I was wrong, it's $53k, not $57k.

Source is paywalled, which is good.
Fact 1 - wsj is an outspoken and trustworthy source to represent the situation and interests of every group in the US society
Fact 2 - Minimum wage is more than sufficient to provide ample income for all people in the US to live a happy and healthy life. Anyone can get it if somebody just wants to work - those "living wage" stories are just brain farts of some liberals.

More people in the U.S. are getting shot, but doctors have gotten better at patching them up. Improved medical care doesn't account for the entire decline in homicides but it is a major factor.

Aside from base assumptions, what makes you believe that Snowden entered employment with the NSA with the intent to release data he was exposed to?

Because he said that.

Snowden to newspaper: I took contractor job to gather evidence

Also, what gives you the impression that he has an interest backing him

He did manage to steal an enormous amount of wide ranging data in only 90 days of employment, don't you think?

Who Helped Snowden Steal State Secrets?

In my opinion, the fact that the US gov't has hunted him so furiously and has taken the exact opposite approach that they mandate regarding any other nation's political refugees ...

He isn't a political refuge. He stole national defense secrets and has revealed a few of them. Nobody really knows what he is doing with the rest of them.

Charles Moore: Snowden is a traitor - The beneficiaries of his betrayal are not civil liberties, but those who wish to embarrass us.

Snowden leaks give edge to U.S. rivals, officials say - Russia, China and terrorism suspects have altered how they communicate to evade U.S. detection, current and former U.S. intelligence officials say.

Snowden’s Nuclear War on Intelligence

Geoffrey Ingersoll: It's Now Clear That Russian Intelligence Speaks For Edward Snowden

According to all of the reports I've been able to find, it was handed over to the police following the death, and word soon came out via Chinese state media that the charger was "likely" a knock-off one, rather than the genuine article though they never actually confirmed that was the case. That may be the most we'll get out of them, however, given that the state media has already been caught using celebrities to astroturf in an attempt to try and paint Apple in a bad light.

Finance Minister Taro Aso has come under fire for comments that some listeners interpreted as suggesting Tokyo should look to Nazi Germany as a model in changing its pacifist constitution.

If they helped get your plain text http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data and
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57593339-38/nsa-docs-boast-now-we-can-wiretap-skype-video-calls/
to Android software and..."remotely activate the microphones in phones"..
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323997004578641993388259674-lMyQjAxMTAzMDAwMTEwNDEyWj.html
The tame, low cost, US OS are they way in.
Tor exit nodes and colluding fun back in the day:
http://themostboringblogintheworld.wordpress.com/2007/04/14/what-the-invisible-wahington-dc-tor-nodes-mean-to-you/

Sapient hired about 2,000 staff in India last year too. The Boston-based company has 65% of its total workforce of more than 10,100 based in India.

"About 35% of our people are hired locally [in markets the company operates]," Mr. Endow said. "That's a very healthy mix."

However: Sapient has only about 1,500 US employees, and at least one-third to one-half of those are here b/c of visa sponsorship. (Consider that an H1-B lasts for 3 years -- extendable up to 6 -- and 2013 isn't even over, yet.) So:

1. Are companies like Sapient just going through the motions to make it *look* like they're trying to fill some position with a U.S. worker -- as some sort of legal workaround? -- when their actual goal is to import yet another H1-B, all along?
2. Does any U.S. government agency keep an accurate, publicly-accessible record of all accepted/denied H1B requests? ...including the name of the company, with the date, location, and public-job posting for the position they were allegedly trying to fill?

A member of my family has expressed the following concern: If a citizen of the United States is not committing a crime, what's wrong with the United States Government knowing the full text of everything that he reads and writes on the Internet?

They haven't been keeping up with current events, have they.

Have them google (if they know how), "IRS abuses".

You see, when the typical person on average commits 3 crimes per day, the State now has an unlimited supply of criminals - EVERYONE.

Mix it in with a For Profit prison system, politicians with agendas, and the increasing polarization of politics in the US, you WILL see abuses that we would have never thought could happen in the US.

EVERYONE has something to hide!

Here's the source, and I was wrong, it's $53k, not $57k.

4. they are trying to justify the massive amount of money that has been put into pointless SWAT teams.

Here is a recent article in the WSJ that discusses this.

How about we get Linus to bury some code in there so we can spy on the NSA? See how they like it?

The Chinese, Russians, and no doubt other countries are way ahead of you. They love spying on the NSA. They seem to be getting volunteer help these days too. What do you think Linus will bring to the game?

Do you think Linus will be interested in doing anything about people trying to set off car bombs at public ceremonies? Or will we still be stuck with the FBI and NSA? If Linus isn't interested in doing anything, do you think the NSA should be crippled?

FBI: alleged Christmas tree bomber thought 9/11 'was awesome'
Report: Canadian Terrorists Planned Truck Bomb Attack
Suicide truck bomb kills 14 in Russia
3 sought after 2nd car bomb found in London

I know, you're frustrated. There is plenty to be frustrated about from just about every perspective on this. The sad part is that the only people likely to really benefit are the people that want to set of the bombs to kill innocents.

> and I suspect pilot salaries probably aren't exactly
> the same as retail employee salaries

Not exactly, but closer than you might think. A look at the numbers: http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2009/06/16/pilot-pay-want-to-know-how-much-your-captain-earns/

The upshot is that variability is high, but for junior pilots pay is between about $20k (for regional airlines) and $50k (highest starting pay at a major ariline). Average major airline starting pay is $36k. Of course pilots fresh out of school don't get those major airline jobs.

Retail salaries also vary widely. Minimum wage is 7.25/hr, which comes out to $14,500/yr if we assume 40-hour weeks and 2 weeks unpaid vacation. On the other hand, Costco pays $11.50 an hour for a starting salary: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/03/06/of-course-costco-supports-a-higher-minimum-wage-it-already-pays-above-it/ and average pay for Costco employees is around $45k (see ), which is admittedly rather high for retail.

This is what I was going to say. I'd pay for well researched news on major events instead of the speculation and opinion sites put out in the first 30 seconds of hearing about something.

If you're looking for well researched articles etc. try The Economist.
Or if you want a daily newspaper, try The Wall Street Journal.
*shrug* I find them worth paying for.

otoh, if this thread is just a rant-fest about how most news sources are lame...
*shrug* while I don't disagree, that observation isn't newsworthy.

Its all bundled into the last sentence:

It looks like Mansfield has been held accountable for the TSMC production glitches and the persistence of Apple’s dependency on arch competitor Samsung for its most strategic components - the SoC heart and brains of its mobile devices.

I agree its pretty thin.

However when you look at what Mansfield was actually brought back for: (From tfa quoting Apple)

"Bob Mansfield will lead a new group, Technologies, which combines all of Apple’s wireless teams across the company in one organization, fostering innovation in this area at an even higher level. This organization will also include the semiconductor teams, who have ambitious plans for the future."

It looks like it was semiconductors, Wireless, and other sources say the list includes the speculated Apple Smartwatch project as well.

Well, the all of those projects are in trouble. Apple has had yet another in their long line of wifi disasters and had to issue emergency patches to the Air.

I suppose its not too hard to pick the biggest of these projects and pin it on that.

But other sources suggest TSMC was starting to push back on Apple's plans to have it manufacture all SOCs for them.

Apple asked to invest in TSMC, or to have TSMC set aside factory space dedicated to Apple chips, the executives say. TSMC Chairman Morris Chang rejected both requests because the company wanted to maintain its independence and manufacturing flexibility, the executives say.

It sounds to me like TSMC has other suitors knocking on their door.

At the same time, Samsung purchased a significant portion of Sharp, and upped its orders from them, which gives them just enough control of Sharp to prevent Apple being to leverage demands for price reductions from Sharp.

You quickly get the impression that Apple is getting the rope-a-dope treatment in the far east, and Samsung is one step ahead of them at every turn.

It was a stupid decision to tie themselves to Microsoft.

Not really. Did you read the infamous Burning Platform memo? Elop explained quite well how Nokia had sat on their haunches while Apple and Google and the Chinese all hustled. Apple dominated the smartphones, Android came in a close second, while Symbian had delivered nothing of competitive value for years. And their core profitable product, simple phones, was suddenly taken away by the Chinese who had developed a basic phone design that could be made for about $10 per copy.

The market had forked, and Nokia, who had previously dominated a nice, safe middle ground, had no presence in the high end market, and simultaneously found they couldn't afford to compete in the low end market. When Microsoft came around wanting to do this Windows Phone deal, nobody else was breaking down their doors offering them wheelbarrows full of cash. Had they not taken the money, the best case scenario would have placed Nokia as an "also-ran" in the Android marketplace; perhaps they'd be tied in a death spiral with RIM/Blackberry; or they could simply have closed the doors. Taking the Microsoft deal was a decision that didn't have a rational alternative.

Recent articles likes this one suggest Tor is still 80% funded by the US government, but I can only track the sources as far as The Wall Street Journal last December . I guess this might not be true anymore, its hard to tell. I'm pretty sure I saw claims of ~70% funding from the NSA on the Tor Project site just a couple months ago, but maybe it was out of date and removed. Thanks for the update!

Got any sources that detail their funding breakdown? I'd like to know what it currently is.

And as far as his lawyer, your claims are ridiculous. In his case he needed to hire a lawyer with connections. In Russia than means that he would likely have contacts with the FSB. If he hired someone unconnected, he would be fucked.

Snowden claimed he wanted asylum, even if only temporary. Asylum in Russia is under the control of the Russian Federal Migration Service, not the FSB/KGB. So why is he talking to the head of public relations for the FSB/KGB intelligence service? Why is the KGB speaking on his behalf?

The Federal Migration Service

The competence of the FMS includes the implementation of legislation regarding refugees, granting political asylum to foreign citizens and persons without citizenship. (According to Russian law, the forms of protection granted are: refugee status; temporary asylum, and political asylum. Political asylum is granted by a personal Decree of the President of Russia).

--------

But that does not mean that Snowden is giving information to the FSB.

The FSB/KGB has already received information that originated from Snowden, the same as anyone else that reads the newspapers and visits the Guardian web site. That information was Top Secret. Now he is in regular direct contact with the head of public relations for the FSB/KGB when he claims to want asylum that should be going through another government agency. Why? You can't deny that he still has much highly secret information that he hasn't revealed. Glen Greenwald describes it as a "worst nightmare" if it were revealed. Trust the man that has violated so many trusts already? Trust the man that has lied so much?

That poll is bullshit. If a third of people don't know who he was, then the number was larger when the propaganda campaign started. All that this poll shows is that most people are ignorant and influenced by propaganda.

There is more than one poll showing essentially the same thing.

Most think NSA is violating privacy rights but want Snowden charged with a crime
WSJ/NBC Poll: Most Americans View Snowden Negatively
Attitudes Shift Against Snowden; Fewer than Half Say NSA Unjustified

As to the rest of your nonsense.... Snowden chose his actions and picked his associations, not me. It's not my fault he stole an enormous amount of highly damaging top secret information, it is his fault. I didn't force him to work with the head FSB/KGB public affairs instead of the Federal Migration Service to get asylum, he chose that. Not acknowledging that fact is dangerously naïve. My views don't change anything he did. You are just trying to divert from that fact, trying to confuse people.

Your views are far outside the mainstream. You applaud a man that damages American security, for what purpose I can only guess. Your views are from the fringe.

Here are some things we do know.

The Russian lawyer that has been speaking for Snowden for some time now is Anatoly Kucherena. Kucherena is head of public relations for the FSB, the successor to the KGB. So the KGB running interference for Snowden and his laptops full of stolen American secrets. John Walker must be jealous.*

Snowden's Choice For Russian Asylum Reveals His 'Mind-Boggling Naiveté'

David Francis' Fiscal Times write-up digs into Snowden for his "mind boggling naiveté":

He is asking for asylum in a country that continues to openly squash dissent, often using violent tactics. Putin runs the country with an iron fist, has jailed people who oppose him, and has chased others out of the country. Opponents have been known to meet early deaths, often under suspicious circumstances.

Francis notes the untimely, often gruesome deaths of several political opponents to Putin over the years...

To make matters worse, the person seemingly speaking for Snowden now — Russian attorney Anatoly Kucherena — also happens to be the head of public relations for the FSB.

Freelance reporter and intelligence expert Joshua Foust writes: "The involvement of known FSB operatives at his asylum acceptance ... suggests this was a textbook intelligence operation, and not a brave plea for asylum from political persecution."

"The Russians are very good at what they do," wrote Foust, referring to their simultaneous control of the "principal" — Snowden — and the public message.

WSJ/NBC Poll: Most Americans View Snowden Negatively - July 24, 2013

In the poll, only 11% of respondents said they viewed Mr. Snowden in a positive light, while 34% said they viewed him negatively. Nearly a third said they didn’t know who he was.

All in all, another impressive triumph for the KGB.

* John Walker so damaged American security by providing the Soviets stolen American cryptographic material that if an actual shooting war with the Soviet Union had occurred, the US Navy may have been defeated at sea. The Soviets would have been able to read their transmissions, know the locations of ships, and their orders. Snowden's damage may be as bad or worse.

Most folks go see movies and watch TV as part of a shared an experience (either physically with other people, or virtually so they can talk about it at parties). Although many folks talk about only seeing "good" stuff on recommendations (either from friends, or trusted reviewers), the demographics that blockbusters target will often just as likely go see a "bad" movie, just because other folks want to go, or have indicated that they saw and was "okay". Have you noticed that in a group of friends, there are a few that exercise veto-power such that the least common denominator activity was chosen? This has little to do with plot-formulas or cult status of films which generally don't affect the box-office bottom line very much.

Simple things: like you put it out there and people will come, just don't work the way they used to. Although perhaps many of the /. audience perhaps research/hyperplan their lives, many ordinary folks used to just say, lets go to the movies this Saturday, and watch *whatever* was on the big screen. Or, they heard some movie was being advertized as part of a cross promotion and want to see it simply to be able to say they saw it. Or even, they'd go down to the rental store and get the just released Video. Nowdays, the demographic targetted by blockbusters have social networks that are more fragmented and the choice of entertainment options more varied (even movie theaters are ridiculously multiplexed). This reduces the ability of hollywood to leverage any effciencies of the shared experience to the box-office bottom lines.

Although you might argue that if they made better films that garner support via word-of-mouth instead of in-your-face blockbuster releases, that would improve things. It might make better movies, but it wouldn't make for the efficiencies the studios required. Right now the movie industry makes a bulk of the money up front (first few weeks of release), where they can concentrate the people into sold-out theaters on a limited number of reels supported by a short push of high cost advertising and marketing. They make the rest of the money spread out over a longer period of time over slower distribution (dvd, foreign release, etc) w/ limited advertising and marketing (basically mostly by inertia and signing big stars, etc).

The original investors and key players generally get the money up-front, and the residuals pay the bills for rest of the supporting cast (not just actors, but the other mouths as well). W/o the initial return, there's nobody to fund a big-budget movie and the economics of movies suddenly changes. It may be the case that the big-budget movie in a movie house is a dying breed. This means the rest of the industry that rides its coattails (e.g., the movie theaters, the indy pictures, the equipment manufactuers, etc), will need a new model to survive the change. The long tail model is kind of wishful thinking from a business efficiency point of view, so maybe Mr. Spielberg is right, a big change is coming to the studio biz near you...

If you get to it through Google News, it's not paywalled.

I found out about that from this alternative article in Forbes.

There is, I believe, an open question on its effects on our gut bacteria (warning, maybe slightly overambitious conclusions), which could affect nutrient absorption. This, of course, assumes enough of it is getting onto the plate, which is another question for which you can find plenty of unscientific mudslinging (on both sides, really). I guess there's some evidence that it might.

My post fails to answer the original question, so here's an actual answer.

Call up the advertizing departments of the major online magazines which have a subscription model, such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Tell them who you are and what you want to do, and ask if someone could discuss their situation with you and give some recommendations.

Surprisingly, many people are willing to spend time helping others, giving advice, and outlining their experiences with a problem. Talking to someone with first-hand knowledge is the most valuable information you can get.

If you do this, please write up your conclusions somewhere and submit it as a followup article. Many Slashdot readers aspire to have online businesses, and would be interested in your results.

From what I've read, I strongly suspect that the online magazines aren't making enough money from online subscriptions to warrant the hassles of the infrastructure. NYT, for example, had to implement their own subscription interface... is your small shop willing to bear that expense? It will take manpower, money, and time away from adding value to your product, and I suspect that the return on your subscription won't be worth the tradeoff.

You'll be putting a lot of effort into the subscription mechanism, while at the same time reducing your readership. It's better to ditch subscription altogether, put your efforts into adding value, and get money from advertizing.

In other news Fukushima daiichi plant chief at the time of the accident died of cancer a few days ago. What a coincidence, maybe it has something to do with radiation.

Link to WSJ article

I find it very hard to believe that anywhere in the world is any better than NYC. Now granted, I haven't been to London or Paris. But I have been to Amsterdam, Bonn, Berlin, Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Taipei. Many of those cities had excellent transit with little need for a private vehicle or taxi, but the same can be said for NYC. You don't "need" a taxi or ZipCar in NYC, but there are times when it is fun to exit the city and visit friends in Jersey. You can save some money and time by renting a ZipCar and heading to Brooklyn to stock up at Target. Sometimes my wife didn't want to walk far in heels or in the rain if we were going out. Or maybe you got a little too drunk and the taxi will whisk you home quickly and safely. :) I dare say my total carbon use due to cabs and ZipCars for my entire 5 years in NYC was probably so low that you wouldn't bother measuring it. And I lived "way out" on the Upper East Side, where it was a 10-15 minute walk to the subway. I don't think I was atypical... the only people I knew with a personal car were either so rich that you could safely ignore them as anomalous, were migrants from somewhere that not having a car was unthinkable, or had some legitimate business purpose. Incidentally, the couple I knew from the midwest with the car had to keep it about half-an-hour away just to afford the parking! So not worth it.

The rest of the US has relatively poor public transit. There just isn't the density to warrant it. Nevertheless, I know people who live in downtown Philadelphia, Boston, DC, and Chicago who do not have cars. My wife had no car when she lived downtown in Philadelphia. I _technically_ owned a car when I lived there, but it was parked 2 hours away at my parents in New Jersey most of the time. According to news reports, this is becoming much more common as young people flood the city centers. Gasoline demand is down to 2001 levels, almost entirely due to the East Coast. This article explains the phenomenon in some detail.

By the way, I personally suck and have two cars that are larger than what I need. I partially make up for it by living a short commute from both my wife's work (5 miles) and mine (10 miles). Combined we put maybe 10,000 miles on our cars each year. My wife could technically take public transit, but she works odd hours and it would be very dangerous for her. Since my office is in the 'burbs, the only public transit option is a single train which leaves before my kids go to school. There is a single return train that would force me to leave work far earlier than I would like (I'm paid hourly). I could do a 10 mile bike ride (we have a shower at work), but frankly I think I'd probably get seriously hurt on the narrow, twisty, shoulder-less suburban streets and rain or snow would cramp my style.