Slashdot Mirror

So http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704630004576248600469362440.html and http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-646126.html and http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g_eEAC03XCJX2eCY9xSIDd4qDzdA just didn't happen?

Wow they really get pissed off when you block their access to Rotten tomato http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/07/19/the-dark-knight-rises-raises-ugly-debate-on-rotten-tomatoes

Google wants to keep their image clean amongst open source. But that doesn't mean they aren't using other people to sue over patents or giving them patents to do their dirty work.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/09/googles-already-using-their-motorola-patents-sue-apple/42196/

They're also helping HTC go up against Nokia and filing an antitrust complaint against Nokia in the EU.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304821304577438740232322350.html

I'd fully expect to see them start doing more now that they have Motorola. I suspect they didn't have any patents worth having in the mobile area but now they do and they're doing to use them.

1000 times this. They succeeded in getting a vaccine for a NON-COMMUNICABLE disease mandatory for girls in Texas (since partially reversed), but are still trying to get it to be mandatory for boys, too.

There are rumblings of money changing hands in California over the passage of the so-called "Gardasil Bill".

Even the Wall Street Journal says mandatory Gardasil injections are a bad idea.

By making sweeping statements like that, you're basically destroying whatever incentive there is in the banking industry for anyone to act honestly.

Are you fucking serious? What's really destroying the incentive to act honestly is the governments' refusal to prosecute bank fraud.

• Jon Corzine of MF Global somehow made $1.6B of customer money, which should have been segregated, "disappear", but no criminal charges.
• All rating agencies were stamping AAA on mortgage securities they knew were worthless. No criminal charges.
• Goldman Sachs sells some financial products they know are going bad to their clients, then secretly bets against them. Is this not illegal?
• And now LIBOR, which affects an $800 Trillion market.

And they get HUGE bonuses after getting bailed out by the tax payers, and then the Fed via money printing, which is a stealth tax on all of us (why did oil and all commodities increase in price despite a recession?). How can it be that 2009 is a year where the banks gave out huge bonuses, just after they were all about to collapse? There are many other examples out there of financial fraud, but very very little examples of bankers being prosecuted. Wake up people!

That is the best thing to happen to Yahoo in a long time. She's significantly more competent than the previous CEO, and has more knowledge of tech companies than the one before that. She has some serious challenges, but she could change the worst parts of culture at Yahoo (which is currently driving away top talent).

She did a couple interviews lately, if you want to know more about her.

Bio and more links here.

That is the best thing to happen to Yahoo in a long time. She's significantly more competent than the previous CEO, and has more knowledge of tech companies than the one before that. She has some serious challenges, but she could change the worst parts of culture at Yahoo (which is currently driving away top talent).

She did a couple interviews lately, if you want to know more about her.

Bio and more links here.

That is the best thing to happen to Yahoo in a long time. She's significantly more competent than the previous CEO, and has more knowledge of tech companies than the one before that. She has some serious challenges, but she could change the worst parts of culture at Yahoo (which is currently driving away top talent).

She did a couple interviews lately, if you want to know more about her.

Bio and more links here.

If you call someone 'grotesquely wrong" then you should have some support for your position. You don't. Try these, they only took 30 seconds to find. Let me know if you need more. http://democrats.financialservices.house.gov/FinancialSvcsDemMedia/file/key_issues/Predatory_Subprime_Mortgage_Lending/GSE_Subprime_timelineSHORT_091510.pdf http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/09/AR2008060902626.html http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/30/real_estate/congress_subprime.fortune/ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212948811465427.html

How much is enough? How much should be enough?

It just so happens that we have the answer to this question: $75,000 per year per person is "enough".

I suppose that number will need to be adjusted periodically to account for inflation, the introduction of new tchotchkes from Apple, etc.

Google wasn't the only one using this widely publicized bug in Safari? According to the original WSJ article:

The coding also has a role in some Facebook games and "apps"---particularly if the app wants to store a user's login information or game scores. In fact, a corporate Facebook page for app developers called "Best Practices" includes a link to Mr. Garg's blog post.

So, how large of a fine is Facebook going to pay?

The thing was, Google was already under an FCC settlement because of violating privacy policies in the past:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/03/google.shtm. This means that Google can get in trouble for doing things that other companies get away with. It's also why the "Oh, we didn't know that our tracking cookies were sticking where people didn't want them" excuse doesn't fly; they were subject to special rules and they were supposed to be making super extra double sure that they didn't do anything to impinge upon users' privacy.

Sort of like how some convicted drunk drivers have driving restrictions that the rest of us don't.

The coding also has a role in some Facebook games and "apps"---particularly if the app wants to store a user's login information or game scores. In fact, a corporate Facebook page for app developers called "Best Practices" includes a link to Mr. Garg's blog post.

So, how large of a fine is Facebook going to pay?

No. It wasn't any sort of active attempt at hacking. It wasn't breaking any encryption. Even the EFF admits it was probably unintended.

Saying Google "used a loophole" is just a loaded way of saying Safari had a bug. The technique had been known for at least two years, and was used by companies other than Google.

The gas station example is specifically not horseshit. The number of independent gas station owners dropped dramatically after a number of insane regulations that required $100K's of dollars of unnecessary retrofitting.

From the WSJ:

Until the past five years or so, many gas stations were owned by the big energy companies. But most have since sold off their portfolio of stations to focus on more profitable areas, such as wholesale fuel sales.

Since 2008, for instance, Exxon Mobil Corp has sold more than 95% of the roughly 2,000 stations it owned, and it plans to sell the rest by year-end. Chevron Corp had 491 company-owned stations at the end of 2011, down from 1,348 in 2001.

Most U.S. gas stations are owned by tens of thousands of individual operators, many of whom have one or more locations. These independent station owners typically buy their fuel from distributors for the major fuel wholesalers like Exxon Mobil and Chevron. The regional distributors own or hire tanker trucks that go from the so-called racks at gasoline terminals to storage tanks at the individual stations.

The station owners, in turn, set their gas prices for consumers so that the average markup, or gross margin, on gas is typically around 15 cents or 16 cents a gallon.

Because consumers these days use plastic even for spontaneous small purchases such as gas, snacks and smokes, the station owners say their margins are eroding.

Frank Reluzco, owner of an Exxon station, auto-repair business and convenience store in Frederick, Md., said that roughly 90% of his sales are paid by credit card today, compared with about 75% five years ago. "It costs so much to fill a tank right now; no one's going to carry around that much cash."

Increased competition from supermarkets and warehouse clubs is also a challenge. Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco Wholesale Corp added its first gas pumps alongside one of its stores in Tucson, Ariz., in 1995.

Pain at Pump Is Hitting Gas Stations [April 5]

I wonder how efficient a ground effect vehicle would be?

http://www.damninteresting.com/ground-effect-vehicles/

A regular jumbo jet is already pretty good in terms of mpg/passenger, and ground effect is supposed to be better.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704901104575423261677748380.html

The sweet spot for fuel economy is often the basic single-aisle jet, often producing mpg better than bigger planes and superior to smaller regional jets as well. Boeing says the champ in its current line-up is the 737-900 with 180 passengers flying 1,000 miles. It gets nearly 99 mpg. The plane with the best average mpg in Airbus's current line-up is the A320 family.

At the other extreme, once the engines become viable you could imagine skimming the surface of the atmosphere in a space plane at hypersonic speeds.

It's a shame the US Government is spending billions on 19th Century technology instead of spending millions on scramjets or whatever the most promising contender is.

Honestly, how did the Mayans make pyramids much like Egyptians? Some say Ancient Aliens, but perhaps there is a very real, extremely subtle connection between peoples on different continents?

And we wonder why it's so bad to work with the Chinese? China Venture Is Good for GE but Is It Good for U.S.?

I remember some big executive saying that "these are our patents. We own them" and I sat listening and said to myself, the Chinese are making it? Say goodbye to your patents; it's theirs now.

an increasing part of its product mix is made up of iPhones and iPads, which are not currently certifiable under EPEAT.

Somehow, this move reeks of opportunism - they have not shown any real understanding of Internet privacy, and certainly haven't "walked the walk."

It reeks of something, but it's not opportunism. Ron Paul had breakfast with Ben Bernanke in May. Shortly thereafter his son endorsed Mitt Romney, and now he's dropping his "end the fed" campaign which he's been on for 40 years or so.

That must have been some breakfast.

khipu laid out plenty of facts and 2 minutes crawling the net would confirm everything he says.

How much data do you need? If you need everything referencing, here's about 5 minutes worth:

Healthcare cop-out:

Cut a secret deal to kill the public option, while campaigning on its behalf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/ny-times-reporter-confirm_b_500999.html

Cut a deal to exempt abortion services from health care reform
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/21/deal-struck-on-abortion-clears-path-for-health-care-passage/

Pushed for a 5 year prison term for Charles Lynch, the operator of a medical marijuana dispensary, legal under California law
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/21/BA1V175SB9.DTL

Granted waivers for 30 companies, including McDonald's, exempting them from health care reform
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

Warmonger:

Sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8389778.stm

Successfully protected Bush officials from prosecution for torture
http://washingtonindependent.com/33985/in-torture-cases-obama-toes-bush-line

Proposed a three year freeze on domestic spending, exempting cuts from the Pentagon and Homeland Security
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/obama-allies-struggle-to_n_436996.html

Argued that the widespread use of Predator drones is a justifiable form of self-defense
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/drone-attacks-legit-self-defense-says-administration-lawyer/

Revived "Prompt Global Strike" weapons system, considered too controversial by Bush Administration
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/obama-revives-rumsfeld-era-missile-scheme/

Backed off on his promise to close the prison at Guantanamo
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/us/politics/26gitmo.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Extended the Patriot Act without making any reforms
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0301/Obama-signs-Patriot-Act-extension-without-reforms

Cronyism:

Violated his own ban on lobbyists working for the administration
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/promise/240/tougher-rules-against-revolving-door-for-lobbyists/

Sided with utility companies in lawsuit to stop greenhouse gas emissions
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/26/obama-stance-on-climate-suit-stuns-allies/

Gave permits to BP and other oil companies, exempting them from environmental protection laws
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14agency.html

Appointed Lawrence Summers as his top economic advise

I don't know how many decibels the dollar rings in at, exactly, but this article adds to the growing pile of evidence that insists that Corporate America's money is louder than anything else in America. America's politicians, certainly, are unable to hear anything else over it...to include warnings from America's economic and defense experts.

Oh, well...Wal*Mart's share prices are doing well, and that's what counts...right?

In the spirit of Independence Day, there's an article on WSJ about what life was like in 1776, in case you want to see just how much has changed since Jefferson's times and why we no longer have Jeffersons.

Facebook was different and new, they had an easy time. Money growth was easy when you can count on double-digit monthly compounded userbase growth. It will be harder now that user growth has slowed. Facebook also now has a target on its back, with many people shooting arrows. I can't guarantee success or failure, but i can guarantee with certainty Zuck will not have as easy of a time the next 5 years as the previous 5.

If you want to START a company, you need to have a drive that doesn't mesh well with sitting at the knee of an authority figure and have him dump his views into your brain.

I suggest that you read Steve Jobs' biography. Though he differed in skills, he both literally and figuratively sat at the knee of his (adoptive) father, Paul, and learned a great deal. His drive for perfection, even perfecting the things you can't see, came directly from Paul. Just because you have drive (and Steve definitely did) doesn't mean you can't learn from others. You just have to be smart on what you pick up, and Steve generally chose lessons well.

RUNNING someone elses company, on the other hand... any retard can do that.

Sure, just ask Leo Apotheker, John Sculley, John Corzine, etc... Corzine probably had the best resume of my short list of examples, yet failed hardest.

Running a company is not trivial. There was a book, From Good To Great, that talked about companies run so well that should be examples on how companies should be run. It was required reading in some business courses. Many of the companies listed are now gone, mostly from really bad management. Circuit City was one of those companies, so was Fannie Mae (easy to be good with implicit government backing, but even that backing failed them).

You have a very simplified view of the world. Entrepreneurs are mavericks that need to say f*ck off to absolutely everything around them. People who run companies are silly button pushers that can easily be replaced. My guess is you've never started nor run a successful company, for those views would cause you to crash and burn rather quickly. There is a common fallacy that just keeping things running is trivial. It isn't. The world can change around you and bash you against the rocks very quickly. Ask Nokia or RIM. Or the IBM PC division.

Uh...they can probably expect more of this:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303649504577496991190742010.html

I submitted this story yesterday, but submissions seem to drag ass at Slashdot.

Bet they don't extradite Bob Diamond for overseeing the fraud of vast amounts of money that may actually have done real damage to US citizens, never mind the UK and the rest of the world.

I know a hot topic gets multiple selections, so do Slashdot editors pick the one with the single worst article? This news items is covered in several reputable places, yet, they selected a submission that looks like it was written by an 8th grader. They use AP's Tweet to make it look like an official AP story/headline. There's brilliantly nonsensical lines like "Proview is continuing their lawsuit in Santa Clara for $1.5 billion dollars while allging fraud and unfair competition. The case was soon after thrown out by a judge."

Your E-Book Is Reading You

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304.html
- http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WK-BC359_COVER__DV_20120628153540.jpg

"Digital-book publishers and retailers now know more about their readers than ever before. How that's changing the experience of reading."

Updated June 29, 2012, 1:39 p.m. ET | By ALEXANDRA ALTER

"It takes the average reader just seven hours to read the final book in Suzanne Collins's "Hunger Games" trilogy on the Kobo e-readerâ"about 57 pages an hour. Nearly 18,000 Kindle readers have highlighted the same line from the second book in the series: "Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them." And on Barnes & Noble's Nook, the first thing that most readers do upon finishing the first "Hunger Games" book is to download the next one.

In the past, publishers and authors had no way of knowing what happens when a reader sits down with a book. Does the reader quit after three pages, or finish it in a single sitting? Do most readers skip over the introduction, or read it closely, underlining passages and scrawling notes in the margins? Now, e-books are providing a glimpse into the story behind the sales figures, revealing not only how many people buy particular books, but how intensely they read them.

For centuries, reading has largely been a solitary and private act, an intimate exchange between the reader and the words on the page. But the rise of digital books has prompted a profound shift in the way we read, transforming the activity into something measurable and quasi-public.

The major new players in e-book publishingâ"Amazon, Apple and Googleâ"can easily track how far readers are getting in books, how long they spend reading them and which search terms they use to find books. Book apps for tablets like the iPad, Kindle Fire and Nook record how many times readers open the app and how much time they spend reading. Retailers and some publishers are beginning to sift through the data, gaining unprecedented insight into how people engage with books.

Publishing has lagged far behind the rest of the entertainment industry when it comes to measuring consumers' tastes and habits. TV producers relentlessly test new shows through focus groups; movie studios run films through a battery of tests and retool them based on viewers' reactions. But in publishing, reader satisfaction has largely been gauged by sales data and reviewsâ"metrics that offer a postmortem measure of success but can't shape or predict a hit. That's beginning to change as publishers and booksellers start to embrace big data, and more tech companies turn their sights on publishing.

Barnes & Noble, which accounts for 25% to 30% of the e-book market through its Nook e-reader, has recently started studying customers' digital reading behavior. Data collected from Nooks reveals, for example, how far readers get in particular books, how quickly they read and how readers of particular genres engage with books. Jim Hilt, the company's vice president of e-books, says the company is starting to share their insights with publishers to help them create books that better hold people's attention.

The stakes are high for the company as it seeks a greater share of the e-book market. Sales of Nook devices rose 45% this past fiscal year, and e-book sales for the Nook rose 119%. Overall, Nook devices and e-books generated $1.3 billion, compared to $880 million the previous year. Microsoft recently invested $300 million for a 17.6% stake of the Nook.

Mr. Hilt says that the company is still in "the earliest stages of deep analytics" and is sifting through "more data than we can use." But the dataâ"which focuses on groups of readers, not individualsâ"has already yielded som

Yeah, see my reply to sibling post.

My reading of irs.gov is that if you pay off your primary residence (or have a mortgage less than $1m), you can buy a "second home," say a condo in Hawaii for example, and stay there 1 month a year. Then you can rent it out the rest of the year, but still claim the interest deduction on that mortgage, up to a total mortgage value of $1m across both homes.

My memory of various tax jurisdictions may be off, but in general it doesn't really matter whether you take the deduction against rental income as part of the business expense or as a "homeowner", since they both end up as a deduction from your total income. The business expense can be used in more situations since you can use it even if you chose to use the "standard deduction" rather than itemize via Schedule A.

If you are not reporting your rental income on your second home, then of course you won't be declaring any rental business income so the business expense of the mortgage could not be used, and it would be "better" to declare it on Schedule A. But discussing the best way to break the tax laws and unethically, immorally, and illegally avoid taxes seems a bit slimy to talk about. And maybe a bit foolish in a not-completely anonymous forum, particularly in a country that gives financial rewards to people who turn in tax cheaters via Form 3949-A.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903352704576540840395329676.html
http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/dont_mess_with_taxes/2007/01/ratting_out_tax.html

The sooner we decouple from the Muslim extremists the better

Citation please. All the published data says the opposite.

"The average household income for adult owners of Mac computers is $98,560, compared with $74,452 for a PC owner, according to technology market data firm Forrester."

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/06/26/why-the-apple-demographic-is-so-important-to-orbitz-and-retailers/

Too bad the US made a statement that it would consider such actions an act of war.

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

Anyway, your definition is stupid. If no one dies, it's not a war? There is so much grey area. What if people are maimed? Bleeding? What if country A bombs a warehouse and the only injuries are blindness, deafness, or bruised people? What if you destroy enough food to cause a famine? Nobody directly died. And does that make all assassinations war? What if the US just parked 400 tanks in the capital of some tiny country with no military in order to get unconditional surrender, or bloodlessly threatened the leader of a nation?

How about you think about the real sense of the word war, where it's one nation's making major moves against another nation in an area where they have no jurisdiction to do so, in a way that greatly harms and threatens that other nation? And considering the powder keg that is the Middle East and Iran-US relations, don't you think both nations will basically consider Stuxnet something serious. Even if it's not the same as dropping bombs on a city, it's at least on the level of running live exercises on your border. Nobody is casually throwing around words by using "war."

And these security holes and certs were hardly any more insecure than any other OS. Stop MS bashing when you have no idea what you are talking about.

You're telling me you have a PhD in molecular bio and you aren't near that top 1% of income?

Cutoff for top 1%: about $380,000.

Average salary of PhD in molecular biology: $76,000.

Scientists are not, generally, 1%ers.

Chuck Schumer is one of the biggest pro-government control-freak assholes in congress. He has no qualms bending logic, twisting and lying to spin whatever propoganda he needs to in order to advance his agenda. He has never met a law he didn't like, and works to restrict freedom with his every move.

This is only latest in a decades long series of moves by him.

See:
Chuck Schumer vs. Free Speech

Schumer Among Biggest Supporters of Anti-Piracy Laws (He was a co-sponsor of SOPA and PIPA)

Schumer's racket: Lobbyists and hedge funds

Schumer proposes new federal regulations on grill brushes

And since the above links are all pretty recent, here's some Schumer history:

On the eve of the first anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing in April, 1996, Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The Democrats were very disappointed, however, because the bill passed without proposed expansions of wiretapping authority. In May 1996, Reps. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and John Conyers (D-MI) introduced H.R. 3409 "to combat domestic terrorism."

The bill, titled the "Effective Anti-Terrorism Tools for Law Enforcement Act of 1996," would expand the powers granted to the FBI to engage in multi- point (roving) wiretaps and emergency wiretaps without court orders, and to access an individual's hotel and vehicle and storage facility rental records. It also relaxed the requirements for obtaining pen register and trap and trace orders in foreign intelligence investigations.

A) Minimum wage in the US is NOT hovering around $10, it's $7.25.

Federal. Some states have higher (aka California, New York, Oregon, Connecticut, Illinois). Still not $10, so you're point is valid, just not entirely accurate.

B) You cannot live on minimum wage in the US anymore.

Many people don't

Interestingly enough, the poverty level is ~$11/hr so parent is semantically incorrect, but the point may still be valid. I tried to look up minimum wages versus cost of living around the world to see if there is any kind of correlation and did not find much information. There are a number of cost of living surveys showing European and Asian cities being the most expensive (and surprisingly, three metro areas in Africa), but there is a dearth of minimum wage information for any of those locations, so I can't point to data.

Since there's no easily citeable data for or against this hypothesis, I guess it gets put in the /. "fuck you, I know more about this than anyone else based on my personal anecdotal evidence" category. Have fun.

They hate the US because of Lady Gaga, because she is immoral and sinful. Not because of her fashion choices, but because they are opposed to music. American culture is corrupt, and it is spreading to the Middle East. (Note that Western Europe at one time had huge fights over whether music was moral or immoral as well, so this is not something unique to Islam).

Sayyid Qutb was an important proponent of this way of thinking, and had a lot of influence in the formation of Al Qaeda. Some people suggest cultural immorality is more important to global jihadism than what the US did in Iran 50 years ago (remember Iran is not Arab anyway), but who knows if they are right. Certainly American 'immorality' is an important aspect.

The way I see it for Bin Laden, he was a rich powerful guy, wanted to get into politics (ambitious people often do), but the only way to do that in Saudi Arabia where he lived was to have a revolution. There was absolutely no way to have a revolution with the US supporting the Saudi government. So the obvious first step is to remove the US from the situation. The simple way to do it is to hit Americans hard somewhere, then they run. Americans don't stick around, they run, just like after the Beirut hotel bombings. After America was gone, it would leave Bin Laden free to start a revolution, and it would also make him look very powerful. Middle Easterners are drawn to power, much like in the European middle ages (or really for most of history).

Because lets be honest, with all the mistakes and problems the US has caused in the Middle East, we are still much nicer and better than their own dictators.

They hate the US because of Lady Gaga, because she is immoral and sinful. Not because of her fashion choices, but because they are opposed to music. American culture is corrupt, and it is spreading to the Middle East. (Note that Western Europe at one time had huge fights over whether music was moral or immoral as well, so this is not something unique to Islam).

Sayyid Qutb was an important proponent of this way of thinking, and had a lot of influence in the formation of Al Qaeda. Some people suggest cultural immorality is more important to global jihadism than what the US did in Iran 50 years ago (remember Iran is not Arab anyway), but who knows if they are right. Certainly American 'immorality' is an important aspect.

The way I see it for Bin Laden, he was a rich powerful guy, wanted to get into politics (ambitious people often do), but the only way to do that in Saudi Arabia where he lived was to have a revolution. There was absolutely no way to have a revolution with the US supporting the Saudi government. So the obvious first step is to remove the US from the situation. The simple way to do it is to hit Americans hard somewhere, then they run. Americans don't stick around, they run, just like after the Beirut hotel bombings. After America was gone, it would leave Bin Laden free to start a revolution, and it would also make him look very powerful. Middle Easterners are drawn to power, much like in the European middle ages (or really for most of history).

Because lets be honest, with all the mistakes and problems the US has caused in the Middle East, we are still much nicer and better than their own dictators.

It isn't corporate greed that is bankrupting California, it is Union greed. Corporations and unions are no different in their self-interest at the expense of everyone else.

office parks the size of the city of Fremont

Do they have a Sierra Club that funds battalions of lawyers to preclude such development by abusing the legal system? I'll bet they don't.

No, instead they keep their tax burden low and rely on industrial productivity for their growth.

Oh, they also use tariffs and taxes on imports to protect their domestic industry.

Amazing what you can do when you run your nation properly.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704462704575591490726929572.html thry here

Actually, our plan was to plant some cocaine on him and have him research from jail

I think he messed up by comparing NASA's budget to social safety net and education budgets in the video though, the implication that one should grow at a cost to the others is not going to sit well with many. He carefully stepped around mentioning the bloated military budget for some reason.

In fact, I thought about including a comment about this in my post —

He realizes that our military infrastructure is one of the things that also drives and protects our society, and while war isn't preferable to other motivations for technical progress and scientific research, it is one of the chief motivations throughout our history. He also realizes that exploration can reinvigorate the human spirit, even stoking industry and the economy, which actually would help the people served by the "government safety net" more in the long term by creating a robust economic environment instead of having an environment where half of US households are on the government dole.

There was an interesting part of his UW-Madison speech where he reflected on how many Americans assume that NASA's budget is a lot larger than it actually is. He then went on to (jokingly) propose a new model for government budgets, wherein each agency would get the amount of money that the public thinks they get.

I was amused because if that were true, even among this informed and educated audience, that would mean that DOD would get something like "50%" or "over half" of the federal budget — as many people erroneously assume — when in reality, all of "national defense, veterans, and foreign affairs" is closer to 20%, while "Social programs" and "Social Security, Medicare, and other retirement" are what accounts for "over half" (55%) of our spending.

And some people will still say it's too much; to that I say that China exceeded US space launches for the first time in 2011, has increased their military spending 12% every year for the last decade, and is on track to exceed US military spending by 2025. Hint: that's not all for "peaceful regional defense". In sum, Neil deGrasse Tyson isn't anti-military, and recognizes its necessity and the significant scientific and research contributions it has brought to our society. He also talks about the broader historical context for war. You should really listen to his speech.

Hooters is free to only hire younger women with certain attributes.
Get over it.

No they're not.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/05/24/hooters-sued-for-weight-discrimination/

It doesn't help that Obama has basically done at best nothing to curb the excesses and crimes of the financial sector. Only Madoff has been imprisoned.

While I appreciate the rest of your point, this claim bugs me. It's not accurate, but it gets self-reinforcing echo chamber treatment. Compare the # of successful DOJ financial fraud prosecutions during W's administration with those of O's. http://www.stopfraud.gov/news-index.html While a fairly recent report points out that the raw number of financial fraud prosecutions has continued to decrease over the past 20 years, that study fails to distinguish between a $15,000 credit card scam and a $60 million dollar conspiracy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Rajaratnam#Conviction_and_imprisonment_for_insider_trading (Can you name one big financial fraud or insider trading prosecution from 2000-2008?)

From what I've seen, high-profile financial fraud prosecutions --going after the big players-- has increased. The most recent big-fish on trial is Rajat Gupta, ex-Goldman Sachs guy. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/05/22/a-guide-to-the-gupta-trial/

While it may be unlikely that you will catch fire while swimming, you should always be prepared to catch fire while water-skiing. As proof, the latest ICD-10 codes are ready for just such an event:

V9107XA = "Burn due to water-skis on fire, initial encounter"

I kid you not. http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/MEDICALCODES0911/#term=Water-skis

Additionally, this problem has already been solved for a group of people more likely to truly "need" it, and who do use it. You can find it at http://roadid.com/

The US might even consider leaving such "features" in for their co-partners on the Joint Strike Fighter program to not know about. http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/24/us-lockheed-fighter-exclusive-idUSTRE5AN4JX20091124 Is that a good thing? Well, not when others have the source code too. Then it become a liability. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html

Nope its not a stereotype, its well established that the Audi A6 is the semi official car of choice of the Chinese Communist party official.

The mistresses and princelings apparently favor Ferrari's.

If you aren't familiar with the term princeling they are the children and grandchildren of the giants of the Communist party, the comrades of Mao back in the day, the marchers of the Long March, champions of the worker, who have now suddenly all become staggeringly rich, are driving around in Italian sports cars, and have lost touch with the prolateriat.

What do you mean "where to put ads"? The same place as before - as top result in the search. In case of location search it may be "there's closer pizzeria, but this one is much better (and paid us)"

Where to place ads is not the question, the only question is balance between profit and pissing off users.

Another point to consider is that ads on tablets are potentially more effective.

I think we'll yet see increase in ad obnoxiousness wrt smart devices - right now they are small market for ad placement when compared to PCs, but let them grow and ad vendors will want to have their slice of the pie too.

Your facts are not in order.

Pakistan is blockading NATO due to an air strike that kill two dozen Pakistani soldiers at a border outpost. The Pakistanis reportedly made the unfortunate "mistake" of firing at US and Afghan commandos which they sometimes do when they forget which side they are supporting. Pakistan is demanding an apology for the incident, and is also using it as an excuse to try to jack up the transit fee from $200 to $5,000 per truck.

The overwhelming majority of non-combatants being killed in Afghanistan are being killed by road-side bombs placed by . . . guess who. . . the Taliban. The Taliban also visit murder and massacre on the various tribes and villages. Unlike NATO, the Taliban deliberately targets innocent non-combatants.

As to drone strikes . . .
Pakistan Says Drone Strikes Have Been Effective

Major-General Ghayur Mehmood spoke to a group of Pakistani reporters on a rare trip to Miran Shah, the administrative center of North Waziristan.

The Pakistani general says that information the military has gathered from its sources suggest most of those killed in drone attacks are hardcore militants, and the number of innocent people being killed is relatively low.

The official paper distributed among reporters says that there have been 164 drone strikes in the militant-dominated region of North Waziristan since 2007, killing 964 "terrorists". There were 171 al-Qaida fighters among those killed, mostly belonging to central Asian and Arab countries.

"When it is more profitable to build an electric car than to invest in a credit card, we will know that the crisis is over,"

America has a resource allocation problem, but it isn't a problem between biotech and cloud tech, it's a problem between mortgage backed securities and ALL tech. People are investing capital in meaningless loans, instead of building new things. That's a real drag on innovation in the country.

This, after the US has slapped a 31 percent import tariff on photovoltaic cells from China, which happened just the other day.

The protests from the PRC came in yesterday.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303360504577411693605403040.html

My take on it is that China has been dumping and this protesting is pro-forma but it sucks if you're an end-user of pv cells.

--
BMO

Funny,

This is the most prominent link, on what I supplied:
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303448404577411903118364314.html?mod=wsj_streaming_facebook-ipo&mg=reno64-wsj
Subtitle? "Underwriters Stepped In to Support Social Network's Shares at Offering Price"

Next time they want to build a bubble, they'll have to blow us a little harder...