It's this behavior that's destroying America as much as any party or policy.
Yup, and a major part of the problem is the way you implement Democracy.
Particularly that voting is optional, and then you have an election on a weekday. What kind of madness is that? Half your voting population DOESN'T PARTICIPATE in this Democracy thing the U.S. touts all over the place. Not only that, political parties now openly, actively discourage people from voting, if it benefits them. Please tell me how the U.S. could possibly exhibit less respect for the Democratic system than that?
Because of the above, U.S. candidates need to spent OBSCENE amounts of money to campaign. Jimmy Carter recently mentioned how he was able to campaign on a shoestring at the time. Do you realise how much money would be saved if voting was *compulsory* in the U.S.?
So now, because of the now vast quantities on cash required to campaign, politics ends up in the pocket of big business. Now we have Citizens United, so they can make even bigger deals. Mark my words, wait till the next election, you will see some truly obscene amounts of cash flying around, and all the related policy problems will only get worse.
Things won't change until the U.S. makes voting compulsory and/or puts limits on corporate donations. Neither of those are going to happen though, because one kind of depends on the other.
Call me an idealist, but I prefer to expect a lot more out of those who run a country, in terms of character, ethics and vision, than one would expect from the average person.
Let's all agree that [Obama will] lead America as best he can.
Can you define what you mean by "leading a nation" and how this relates to what a President actually does?
Basically the only people not buying AAPL are people who lack any vision.
Well it all comes down to whether there are any people of vision left in Apple.
Not sure if you remember, but Apple's stock only really started to rise in 2004, when they started to get a name as a funky consumer electronics company, instead of that company that makes those Mac computers that artists and designers use.
Jobs did have a vision or two, which came at the right time in PC and Internet history. Personal mobile devices that did really amazing stuff. Do you think it would have worked if everyone didn't have a Windows PC to run iTunes on, or have WiFi and reasonable mobile broadband? You know what they say about "an idea whose time has come". How often, exactly, do you think that happens in the life of a company?
Steam is one such idea, and it has been milked for a long time, because there were no competitors. Now there are, in the various "app store" models emerging. Facebook has been even luckier, they're in a very hard to break monopoly position.
But, like Steam, Apple's great ideas have competition now. Now Apple is, once again, just like any other I.T. company. If you think there's another guy at Apple with the next New Idea Whose Time Has Come, let me know and I'll buy stock.
For now, however, chances are Apple is in a slow slide back to that place from whence they came - a company with a niche product that doesn't do very well against competition.
They allow it because it works for them, because as a young IT worker you're going to change jobs more frequently, so all you want is experience and lots of it, so you can land a higher-level job when you're older.
Been there, done that. It works for younger people. So, let them have those jobs. There are lots of higher-level jobs (system design, analysis, etc) for older workers with the experience needed to make a project WORK.
Totally agree. But it's the way the market operates unfortunately. The system of share trading means companies have to always focus on shareholder value, and this doesn't necessarily mean value to customer or value in any other sense at all really. What matters most is the market's *perception* of the company. The rest is just a means to an end for those with controlling shares.
It's very sad, very corrupting and not at all in line with the fluffy stories we, as a species, like to tell ourselves.
I've long come to the conclusion that humans are neurotic by nature.:)
Sorry, but you're wrong, it's got nothing to do with having "power".
You can't beat one blanket assumption with another blanket assumption. Both are incorrect.
Yes, it was probably mostly about taboo. But it also becomes about power when you know you can freely invade someone's privacy, and/or control something of "value" that normally would not and should not be under your control. That *part* of it is entirely about power.
It's a power thing. Even if you don't intend to wield that power against that person.
I know what you mean, but it's not necessarily power. I'd say in most cases it's simply that it's a "real" person. The porn equivalent is "girl next door" or "concealed camera" - the fantasy of accessibility or presence. Sometimes there are less relatively "innocent" motivations, but it's usually just that I think.
founding a company around a cute idea with the aim of selling out in two years to become a millionaire
Totally agree. I was asked to work for a start-up which had this exact mentality. The idea was ok, but no market research had been done, none of that traditional work was done. Create something as quickly and cheaply as possible, and then "when" it becomes popular we'll worry about a V2.. yeah right, and V2 will just be a quick & cheap rewrite to build in the advertising engine, because the focus isn't a quality product for the user, the focus is making as much money as quickly as possible.
They were not passionate about the *idea*. I prefer working with people who believe in what they're doing. The web app start-up culture is mostly about hype and money. But there are still many who want to do great things of real value. They're often started by people who have experience in a certain field and see a need there.
Capitalism may have it's flaws, but it is better than any previously tried system
Capitalism works well in times of easy access to natural resources, as the economics of Capitalism classes them as "externalities".
When resources are scarce, it does not work very well at all. We have the illusion of Capitalism being "the best system", because it has created the world we are familiar with. Hindsight is 20/20. Capitalism will not function effectively into a future of resource paucity.
Emperor is dead. Vader comes back from the Dark Side and also dies. Luke & Leia know they're siblings.
Seriously, what's the plot going to be?
Considering it won't have the original cast & characters anyway, it could be about anything. Prequels were their parents, so sequels will probably be Han & Leia's kid(s), with an old Luke taking the master/mentor role. There's a whole story around the rekindling of the Jedi, remnants of the Empire to fight, etc.
I'm pretty sure you don't need to believe in God to consider rape and murder unethical, immoral, and just wrong.
Correct, but keep in mind ethics/morality are simply human constructs that suit a particular context. During a war, mass murder is justified. Capital punishment has been justified for ages and still is. There is no consensus on the ethics of incarceration either. One can argue that many types of punishment, eg. incarceration, are simply designed to make victims and wider society "feel better", over any other concerns that may actually be more ethical but less emotionally satisfying.
Taking a wider view, you may observe that nature does not adhere to any sense of justice, ethics or morality, at least in any human definition of the term. In nature, rape, murder, genocide, infanticide, cannibalism and injecting your parasitic young into other unsuspecting creatures are all the "right" things to do. Morality is purely and only a function of human emotions and motivations.
Or, to be more accurate, morality is a function of any highly social species, whose individuals need to work together in structured ways to achieve common goals. Ethics and morality are frameworks for species survival, nothing more.
Ethics, therefore, is certainly independent of the concept of "gods", but that does not mean religion - for all its flaws - hasn't also been a very effective way to consolidate and enforce established ethical guidelines. That is, to give society a definite structure, which is essential for any socially cooperative species. However we now have a more "forgiving" (ironically) form of government these days, in Democracy and Rule of Law, which - again, for all its flaws - is effective at giving society the structure it needs so we can all die of old age instead of syphilis.
Society's rejection of morality and ethics leads to this. Atheism leads to this.
That is a ridiculously irrational statement. Someone committing a crime somehow indicates that "society rejects morality"? What "society" are you talking about exactly? Do you think crime never existed in the past and is somehow a result of modern times? Do you realise Atheists are a minority in most countries, and in the U.S. believing in God is practically a requirement to be President?
Extremists also make gross generalisations about "the failure of society". It's a childish way of looking at the world, to paint everything the same colour, by people who can't handle the world being a complex place full of many different lifestyles and beliefs.
just take a look at their stock price since iphone5 release
LOL! You either don't understand than a climb up Mt Everest involves going downhill occasionally, or you can't read graphs. Share price hit an all-time high of 700 just before the iPhone5 release. A peak before release is to be expected these days. It has since dropped to ~630 or something, which is still higher than *any time in Apple's entire history* - except when it was building up to 700 of course.
Apple's peak after the original iPhone was "only" 200. That was *after* release, because people didn't realise it would be so successful. Now we see pre-release rise, because people *assume* a release will be successful. The same pre-release build-up followed by a dip which you've noticed now, happened just the same after the 3G, 3GS and 4 models.
It simply signifies people frantically making money on trades in anticipation of another Apple success, then it calms down. That says quite a bit about confidence in the company, wouldn't you say? I assume you don't make much trading shares.
I don't own shit by Apple, by the way, I use Windows and Android, but just felt that needed explaining.
In a sci-fi sense, I've always been fond of the idea that an object (a ship) would somehow snap itself over into "hyperspace" (the other space these guys allude to), travel for a bit (faster than light), then snap back over into normal space. Except that, once back in normal space, their vector (direction and velocity) has not changed since they left.
Which would create problems of course, if you're travelling to another planet, as any two given planets would be moving at incredible speed difference, relative to each other. So you'd first have to adjust your normal-space vector so that it matches that of your destination planet, before you jump.
And... you're saying MS is like a... fish. A dead fish I assume, as live fish don't rot. Unless it has some rotting disease, which would more likely start in the gills, fins or skin.
Or perhaps you mean MS is like a person with trimethylaminuria, and only smells like rotting fish, in which case it would mostly come from the head, being usually the least clothed part of the body.
I'd also like to know what platforms Facebook is a leader in, besides the Facebook Platform. They're not the only massively-utilised service out there. As far as I'm aware, Facebook has one product, which is Facebook. If that one product fails, bye bye company. That doesn't sound particularly leader-y to me.
Also, I'm pretty sure someone will soon come up with a formula accurately mapping the relationship between the amount of data a person is exposed to, and attention span. I suspect that we're going to drive ourselves batshit insane chasing after some imaginary utopia of knowledge consumption.
For what ultimate reason or purpose we might want it, I don't think anyone really has a fucking clue.
Slashdot Mirror
It's this behavior that's destroying America as much as any party or policy.
Yup, and a major part of the problem is the way you implement Democracy.
Particularly that voting is optional, and then you have an election on a weekday. What kind of madness is that? Half your voting population DOESN'T PARTICIPATE in this Democracy thing the U.S. touts all over the place. Not only that, political parties now openly, actively discourage people from voting, if it benefits them. Please tell me how the U.S. could possibly exhibit less respect for the Democratic system than that?
Because of the above, U.S. candidates need to spent OBSCENE amounts of money to campaign. Jimmy Carter recently mentioned how he was able to campaign on a shoestring at the time. Do you realise how much money would be saved if voting was *compulsory* in the U.S.?
So now, because of the now vast quantities on cash required to campaign, politics ends up in the pocket of big business. Now we have Citizens United, so they can make even bigger deals. Mark my words, wait till the next election, you will see some truly obscene amounts of cash flying around, and all the related policy problems will only get worse.
Things won't change until the U.S. makes voting compulsory and/or puts limits on corporate donations. Neither of those are going to happen though, because one kind of depends on the other.
who the hell wouldn't in that position???
Call me an idealist, but I prefer to expect a lot more out of those who run a country, in terms of character, ethics and vision, than one would expect from the average person.
Let's all agree that [Obama will] lead America as best he can.
Can you define what you mean by "leading a nation" and how this relates to what a President actually does?
Basically the only people not buying AAPL are people who lack any vision.
Well it all comes down to whether there are any people of vision left in Apple.
Not sure if you remember, but Apple's stock only really started to rise in 2004, when they started to get a name as a funky consumer electronics company, instead of that company that makes those Mac computers that artists and designers use.
Jobs did have a vision or two, which came at the right time in PC and Internet history. Personal mobile devices that did really amazing stuff. Do you think it would have worked if everyone didn't have a Windows PC to run iTunes on, or have WiFi and reasonable mobile broadband? You know what they say about "an idea whose time has come". How often, exactly, do you think that happens in the life of a company?
Steam is one such idea, and it has been milked for a long time, because there were no competitors. Now there are, in the various "app store" models emerging. Facebook has been even luckier, they're in a very hard to break monopoly position.
But, like Steam, Apple's great ideas have competition now. Now Apple is, once again, just like any other I.T. company. If you think there's another guy at Apple with the next New Idea Whose Time Has Come, let me know and I'll buy stock.
For now, however, chances are Apple is in a slow slide back to that place from whence they came - a company with a niche product that doesn't do very well against competition.
Erm.. who is also over 40. :) Been freelance for the past 8 years, starting to look at 9-5 with fresh eyes. :)
Aussie here, what company is that and where do I send my resume? :)
They allow it because it works for them, because as a young IT worker you're going to change jobs more frequently, so all you want is experience and lots of it, so you can land a higher-level job when you're older.
Been there, done that. It works for younger people. So, let them have those jobs. There are lots of higher-level jobs (system design, analysis, etc) for older workers with the experience needed to make a project WORK.
Totally agree. But it's the way the market operates unfortunately. The system of share trading means companies have to always focus on shareholder value, and this doesn't necessarily mean value to customer or value in any other sense at all really. What matters most is the market's *perception* of the company. The rest is just a means to an end for those with controlling shares.
It's very sad, very corrupting and not at all in line with the fluffy stories we, as a species, like to tell ourselves.
I've long come to the conclusion that humans are neurotic by nature. :)
Sorry, but you're wrong, it's got nothing to do with having "power".
You can't beat one blanket assumption with another blanket assumption. Both are incorrect.
Yes, it was probably mostly about taboo. But it also becomes about power when you know you can freely invade someone's privacy, and/or control something of "value" that normally would not and should not be under your control. That *part* of it is entirely about power.
It's a power thing. Even if you don't intend to wield that power against that person.
I know what you mean, but it's not necessarily power. I'd say in most cases it's simply that it's a "real" person. The porn equivalent is "girl next door" or "concealed camera" - the fantasy of accessibility or presence. Sometimes there are less relatively "innocent" motivations, but it's usually just that I think.
founding a company around a cute idea with the aim of selling out in two years to become a millionaire
Totally agree. I was asked to work for a start-up which had this exact mentality. The idea was ok, but no market research had been done, none of that traditional work was done. Create something as quickly and cheaply as possible, and then "when" it becomes popular we'll worry about a V2.. yeah right, and V2 will just be a quick & cheap rewrite to build in the advertising engine, because the focus isn't a quality product for the user, the focus is making as much money as quickly as possible.
They were not passionate about the *idea*. I prefer working with people who believe in what they're doing. The web app start-up culture is mostly about hype and money. But there are still many who want to do great things of real value. They're often started by people who have experience in a certain field and see a need there.
Capitalism may have it's flaws, but it is better than any previously tried system
Capitalism works well in times of easy access to natural resources, as the economics of Capitalism classes them as "externalities".
When resources are scarce, it does not work very well at all. We have the illusion of Capitalism being "the best system", because it has created the world we are familiar with. Hindsight is 20/20. Capitalism will not function effectively into a future of resource paucity.
I recall a heavy emphasis on silverlight only to mothball it not long after.
Silverlight 5 was released just a few months ago. That's mothballed?
Emperor is dead. Vader comes back from the Dark Side and also dies. Luke & Leia know they're siblings.
Seriously, what's the plot going to be?
Considering it won't have the original cast & characters anyway, it could be about anything. Prequels were their parents, so sequels will probably be Han & Leia's kid(s), with an old Luke taking the master/mentor role. There's a whole story around the rekindling of the Jedi, remnants of the Empire to fight, etc.
I'm pretty sure you don't need to believe in God to consider rape and murder unethical, immoral, and just wrong.
Correct, but keep in mind ethics/morality are simply human constructs that suit a particular context. During a war, mass murder is justified. Capital punishment has been justified for ages and still is. There is no consensus on the ethics of incarceration either. One can argue that many types of punishment, eg. incarceration, are simply designed to make victims and wider society "feel better", over any other concerns that may actually be more ethical but less emotionally satisfying.
Taking a wider view, you may observe that nature does not adhere to any sense of justice, ethics or morality, at least in any human definition of the term. In nature, rape, murder, genocide, infanticide, cannibalism and injecting your parasitic young into other unsuspecting creatures are all the "right" things to do. Morality is purely and only a function of human emotions and motivations.
Or, to be more accurate, morality is a function of any highly social species, whose individuals need to work together in structured ways to achieve common goals. Ethics and morality are frameworks for species survival, nothing more.
Ethics, therefore, is certainly independent of the concept of "gods", but that does not mean religion - for all its flaws - hasn't also been a very effective way to consolidate and enforce established ethical guidelines. That is, to give society a definite structure, which is essential for any socially cooperative species. However we now have a more "forgiving" (ironically) form of government these days, in Democracy and Rule of Law, which - again, for all its flaws - is effective at giving society the structure it needs so we can all die of old age instead of syphilis.
Society's rejection of morality and ethics leads to this. Atheism leads to this.
That is a ridiculously irrational statement. Someone committing a crime somehow indicates that "society rejects morality"? What "society" are you talking about exactly? Do you think crime never existed in the past and is somehow a result of modern times? Do you realise Atheists are a minority in most countries, and in the U.S. believing in God is practically a requirement to be President?
Extremists also make gross generalisations about "the failure of society". It's a childish way of looking at the world, to paint everything the same colour, by people who can't handle the world being a complex place full of many different lifestyles and beliefs.
to set their privacy controls correctly.
Actually it's worth bearing in mind that the Apple product is also substantially from Samsung.
Which makes me wonder why Samsung just don't cancel the contracts and stop supplying their competitor - in fact arch rival - with great technology.
And why then does Apple go and bite the hand that feeds?
It makes no sense. Samsung may lose less money terminating all their contracts with Apple than what is going on now.
just take a look at their stock price since iphone5 release
LOL! You either don't understand than a climb up Mt Everest involves going downhill occasionally, or you can't read graphs. Share price hit an all-time high of 700 just before the iPhone5 release. A peak before release is to be expected these days. It has since dropped to ~630 or something, which is still higher than *any time in Apple's entire history* - except when it was building up to 700 of course.
Apple's peak after the original iPhone was "only" 200. That was *after* release, because people didn't realise it would be so successful. Now we see pre-release rise, because people *assume* a release will be successful. The same pre-release build-up followed by a dip which you've noticed now, happened just the same after the 3G, 3GS and 4 models.
It simply signifies people frantically making money on trades in anticipation of another Apple success, then it calms down. That says quite a bit about confidence in the company, wouldn't you say? I assume you don't make much trading shares.
I don't own shit by Apple, by the way, I use Windows and Android, but just felt that needed explaining.
it's to make sure they don't have 500 whackjobs on stage preaching about all manner of insanity
Indeed. You definitely don't want whackjobs in politics, saying things like vaginas reject rape sperm and evolution is a lie from the pit of hell.
Considering the behaviour of the existing crowd, do you really think these measures are working?
In a sci-fi sense, I've always been fond of the idea that an object (a ship) would somehow snap itself over into "hyperspace" (the other space these guys allude to), travel for a bit (faster than light), then snap back over into normal space. Except that, once back in normal space, their vector (direction and velocity) has not changed since they left.
Which would create problems of course, if you're travelling to another planet, as any two given planets would be moving at incredible speed difference, relative to each other. So you'd first have to adjust your normal-space vector so that it matches that of your destination planet, before you jump.
And... you're saying MS is like a... fish. A dead fish I assume, as live fish don't rot. Unless it has some rotting disease, which would more likely start in the gills, fins or skin.
Or perhaps you mean MS is like a person with trimethylaminuria, and only smells like rotting fish, in which case it would mostly come from the head, being usually the least clothed part of the body.
Otherwise, I'm not sure I get your analogy.
I'd also like to know what platforms Facebook is a leader in, besides the Facebook Platform. They're not the only massively-utilised service out there. As far as I'm aware, Facebook has one product, which is Facebook. If that one product fails, bye bye company. That doesn't sound particularly leader-y to me.
Also, I'm pretty sure someone will soon come up with a formula accurately mapping the relationship between the amount of data a person is exposed to, and attention span. I suspect that we're going to drive ourselves batshit insane chasing after some imaginary utopia of knowledge consumption.
For what ultimate reason or purpose we might want it, I don't think anyone really has a fucking clue.
Yes but is it from this rover, or a parallel universe rover?
In science, you don't just jump to easy conclusions.
Oh that's right - find something that looks vaguely alien and the first thing we do is zap it with a laser.
No wonder we never get visited.