Normally I'm polite, but you are a socialist, so I'll forget that. USPS is a has-been, barely surviving by dumpster-diving for junk mail. The pension plans were based on wild optimism. You are clearly want taxpayers to be held responsible for everything, no matter how stupid.
Do you seriously think it's reasonable to require -any- organization to fully fund the pensions of people who haven't even been born yet? Does that make any sort of sense? The US Postal Service is one of the most efficient organizations in the country. There are a lot of wasteful, bloated, bureaucratic government departments out there, the USPS is not one of them.
If the USPS was a fully private organization it would be fine because it wouldn't have ridiculous congressional mandates like these. However, operation of the Post Service is a US Constitutional requirement, so it comes under congressional oversight, and Congress has made mandates that would be unconstitutional if they required them of any private organization.
I find it interesting that one of the "regulations gutting the USPS" is that it is being required to fund its pension plan with today's dollars.
My financial advisers tell me to put money into my 401k or IRA now. Pre-tax income, in a fund that generally keeps up with inflation.... mostly.
Ok, sounds fine. But what if you were required by law to put in enough money -today- to be able to fully fund the next 80 years of your life? The USPS is the victim of Congressmen who want to gut it, so they inserted a clause in a bill to ensure that the USPS funds the pensions today of future workers who are not yet born. No other business would have to put up with that.
Ah, I love slashdot, where people simultaneously advocate anarchy, libertarianism, and socialism.
Why can't they be different people? Slashdot, although some people sometimes like to try to make the argument, is not a hive-mind. I like the diversity of opinions. Discussion areas that have only one opinion suck.
Untrue the Government is forbidden from selecting a state religion, there are no laws that state that religious decorations can't be on public property,"In God We Trust" on money is the most obvious example.
In God We Trust should definitely be taken off money. For the obvious reason, and it's sacrilegious. Few things would have pissed off Jesus more.
What do you use for a front-end? Back when I was trying to record OTA HD streams the MythTV frontend was unusably bad for HD.
The big killer for me was that my HTPC wasn't going to be able to use the Cablecards required by the cable company. The Tivo could handle them, open-source solutions were not authorized.
Or 3) make a calm and reasonable post about Steam that gets called "screaming and pouting" by some lying troll who disagrees with it but knows he's too stupid to refute it
The anonymous coward trolls are definitely out in force. I see more of them in this article than I do in some MS vs Linux flamewar.
Just sell it for a fixed price like an honest person
I seem to be responding to all of your posts today!
This one I agree with you on, but this seems to be a trend towards selling things to people in general now, not just in gaming. A general trend for selling something "cheaply" up front, with necessary payments down the road to more than recoup costs, because if people had to pay up-front the costs of the product, they wouldn't buy it.
Hey, let's sell a game that is marginally playful for the regular price, then we'll nickel-and-dime them for things that making the experience actually pleasant.
Your airline ticket is $XYZ. Oh, but more checked bags will be $50/each at the minimum. And naturally, pillows are pricey on some flights too. Change fee? Might as well just buy another ticket for how expensive those are.
Here, you can get this new cell phone for just $150!! See how cheap that is? (Oh, and you will need to pay $60/month for two years to subsidize the actual cost of the phone).
They have number crunchers, who likely said that the console sales thanks to backwards compatibility did not outweigh the costs. I'm the first to excoriate Sony for something, but I would say that not having PS3 compatibility is fairly reasonable.
No one told Sony to switch to x86
Sony was losing the console wars -- the cell processor turns out to have been a mistake. Notoriously difficult to code for, it resulted in a slimming of the PS3 library. It's way too complex and subject to timing issues to emulate in the PS4 software and too expensive to include as hardware -- Sony learned from the mistakes (it makes me sad, but I have to admit it was a mistake) of including hardware emulation of PS2 in the PS3.
It's always a choice they make. But also, the choice of backwards compatibility WILL make the console more expensive. In the PS3's case, original models used decided PS2 hardware inside the PS3 case to play PS2 games. That pumped the console price up, and Sony had a lot of blow-back from consumers, the media, etc on how expensive the console was. Later versions dropped backwards compatibility for PS2 titles and lowered the price to be more competitive with the XBox and Wii.
It's not "backwards compatibility vs no backwards compatibility" with no other considerations. There's always a trade-off of features vs price.
This might have been a built in security measure. I only say this because he was built to be human like, and he strove to be more human. Additionaly it may have been seen as a security measure, Data on the bridge and he gets hacked by the Romulans because of an insecure WifFi connection. though if he was originally WiFi or Bluetooth enabled, he very well may have disengaged it himself.
Interestingly, it turned out Data was very much a security risk without wi-fi. I remember one episode where his original creator activated a homing beacon which made Data's primary purpose (over all others) to return to his build site. So Data immediately locked out the controls to all bridge consoles other than his own, turned off life support systems to the bridge and started evacuating air from there to force the human bridge crew off. He sealed off the bridge, used a perfect imitation of Captain Picard's voice to lock out all main computer controls from non-bridge consoles, using force fields to allow him to move around the ship, and aborted attempts from the crew to retake control.
It wasn't until Data 'went ballistic' that you realized just the tricks he could pull and the security threat that could result. Although, being immune to mind control, other forms of psychic manipulation, most poisonings, and air loss make up for that.
Yeah, I always wondered how to get alt-text on a smart phone.
Also, I read tvtropes.org often, and entries with text that contains spoilers (like the Sixth Sense ending) are invisible, since it's white text on a white background. You can see text by selecting it with the mouse and that makes spoiler text readable. Problem was that I couldn't highlight text on my iphone. On my Android, it's kludgy but possible at least.
An owl signifies intelligence in most of Europe, evil in parts of latin America, and stupidity in much of Asia
And there are logical reasons for each, in fact!
An owl signifies intelligence in most of Europe
Because it was the symbol of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. We just.. inherited that somehow. This makes no sense, given the below. Great-Horned Owls have an expression that looks like wisdom (though I always thought it was more 'cool disdain').
evil in parts of latin America
It's theorized that many of our stories of white ghosts come from sightings of Barn Owls which are common throughout the world, have entirely silent flight, a pure-white underside, human-like faces, and the most god-awful ear-piercing scream you've ever heard.
and stupidity in much of Asia
Owls, for the most part, are rather dim-witted birds. Sad but true, as one who used to work with them often. Especially the aforementioned Barn Owl, who were nonsensically made Athena's symbol.
The obvious solution is that we need research into finding a glass-like material that can be switched between shiny ("sales mode") and matte ("use mode'").
In some ways we already have it: the Internet. IE, you don't actually look at the screen in a store, you go based on professional reviews. I found long ago that the image you see on demo boxes in a store cannot be relied upon, so looking at something in the store is the worst way to shop.
It never ceases to amaze me how self-proclaimed "intellectuals" have the exact same hangups about unpleasant but true speech as all the folks they like to pretend they outsmart.
It never ceases to amaze me that people complain about the moderation of a post when only half an hour has passed. That's an incredibly small sample size.
Over time, the moderation seems to work decently well, but not instantly.
The roads and schools are socialized too. And they work pretty well.
They do?
When road maintenance is funded instead of being gutted so legislators can give more "tax cuts," yes, the roads work pretty well. The schools are a whole mess of issues, only some of them related to actual education.
I disagree. The Republican Party has done an extremely good job of purging liberal-ish Republicans from their party by denying them party funding. It led to them being unified (for awhile... recently that's broken down) while Democrats were not. It's one reason why Obama wasn't just able to push anything through Congress in his first term (including a non-neutered Obamacare).. his own party was fractured and not on board.
while i agree the op went too far in his rant, the wording does imply govt regulations
Any action from on high preventing the company from doing whatever the hell it wants is a "government regulation." Some regulations are bad and pointless. Some regulations are *gasp* good.
How can the ISPs possibly make money without constant kickbacks from the MPAA/RIAA for things like cooperating with them on things like CAS?
I suspect they don't get kickbacks. They might get "we promise not to sue you" which are much harder to trace. A little more of the stick than the carrot.
This is fine too. If they are willing to spend millions for every thousand our side wastes, then they'll run out of money before we do (maybe). Just call it a war of attrition and we are golden.
Not as long as "we" (the general we) also give the opposition much more money at the same time. I'll bet that the OP spends more than 50 bucks in music and movie and TV and Internet (if he uses the Comcast/AT&T duopoly prevalent in much of the US). Hell I spend more than that on cable per month.
Slashdot Mirror
Normally I'm polite, but you are a socialist, so I'll forget that. USPS is a has-been, barely surviving by dumpster-diving for junk mail. The pension plans were based on wild optimism. You are clearly want taxpayers to be held responsible for everything, no matter how stupid.
Do you seriously think it's reasonable to require -any- organization to fully fund the pensions of people who haven't even been born yet? Does that make any sort of sense? The US Postal Service is one of the most efficient organizations in the country. There are a lot of wasteful, bloated, bureaucratic government departments out there, the USPS is not one of them.
If the USPS was a fully private organization it would be fine because it wouldn't have ridiculous congressional mandates like these. However, operation of the Post Service is a US Constitutional requirement, so it comes under congressional oversight, and Congress has made mandates that would be unconstitutional if they required them of any private organization.
Is this aimed at all emails? I would argue this would be aimed at large web mail providers, gmail, yahoo mail, hotmail and such.
Yeah, and they tend not to be the problem.
In general, the people who are going to be paying the tax are not the people who are sending spam.
I find it interesting that one of the "regulations gutting the USPS" is that it is being required to fund its pension plan with today's dollars.
My financial advisers tell me to put money into my 401k or IRA now. Pre-tax income, in a fund that generally keeps up with inflation. ... mostly.
Ok, sounds fine. But what if you were required by law to put in enough money -today- to be able to fully fund the next 80 years of your life?
The USPS is the victim of Congressmen who want to gut it, so they inserted a clause in a bill to ensure that the USPS funds the pensions today of future workers who are not yet born. No other business would have to put up with that.
Ah, I love slashdot, where people simultaneously advocate anarchy, libertarianism, and socialism.
Why can't they be different people? Slashdot, although some people sometimes like to try to make the argument, is not a hive-mind.
I like the diversity of opinions. Discussion areas that have only one opinion suck.
Untrue the Government is forbidden from selecting a state religion, there are no laws that state that religious decorations can't be on public property ,"In God We Trust" on money is the most obvious example.
In God We Trust should definitely be taken off money. For the obvious reason, and it's sacrilegious. Few things would have pissed off Jesus more.
That just means you don't see the warnings. They're there for information, it doesn't mean you escaped culpability.
What do you use for a front-end? Back when I was trying to record OTA HD streams the MythTV frontend was unusably bad for HD.
The big killer for me was that my HTPC wasn't going to be able to use the Cablecards required by the cable company. The Tivo could handle them, open-source solutions were not authorized.
Or 3) make a calm and reasonable post about Steam that gets called "screaming and pouting" by some lying troll who disagrees with it but knows he's too stupid to refute it
The anonymous coward trolls are definitely out in force. I see more of them in this article than I do in some MS vs Linux flamewar.
Just sell it for a fixed price like an honest person
I seem to be responding to all of your posts today!
This one I agree with you on, but this seems to be a trend towards selling things to people in general now, not just in gaming. A general trend for selling something "cheaply" up front, with necessary payments down the road to more than recoup costs, because if people had to pay up-front the costs of the product, they wouldn't buy it.
The list goes on. It's a depressing trend.
Sure that costs money, but it also sells consoles
They have number crunchers, who likely said that the console sales thanks to backwards compatibility did not outweigh the costs. I'm the first to excoriate Sony for something, but I would say that not having PS3 compatibility is fairly reasonable.
No one told Sony to switch to x86
Sony was losing the console wars -- the cell processor turns out to have been a mistake. Notoriously difficult to code for, it resulted in a slimming of the PS3 library. It's way too complex and subject to timing issues to emulate in the PS4 software and too expensive to include as hardware -- Sony learned from the mistakes (it makes me sad, but I have to admit it was a mistake) of including hardware emulation of PS2 in the PS3.
It's always a choice they make. But also, the choice of backwards compatibility WILL make the console more expensive. In the PS3's case, original models used decided PS2 hardware inside the PS3 case to play PS2 games. That pumped the console price up, and Sony had a lot of blow-back from consumers, the media, etc on how expensive the console was. Later versions dropped backwards compatibility for PS2 titles and lowered the price to be more competitive with the XBox and Wii.
It's not "backwards compatibility vs no backwards compatibility" with no other considerations. There's always a trade-off of features vs price.
Even Doctor Oz, as loony as he is, has done a number of successful good quality heart surgeries. He seems to be the king of the placebos though.
Sparrows can't smell much of anything, like most birds who aren't vultures.
* Bad understanding of current technology (every hacking movie ever -- with the very notable exception of The Social Network)
What about the Matrix Reloaded, with Trinity exploiting an SSH exploit from a laptop? That comes pretty close.
This might have been a built in security measure. I only say this because he was built to be human like, and he strove to be more human. Additionaly it may have been seen as a security measure, Data on the bridge and he gets hacked by the Romulans because of an insecure WifFi connection. though if he was originally WiFi or Bluetooth enabled, he very well may have disengaged it himself.
Interestingly, it turned out Data was very much a security risk without wi-fi. I remember one episode where his original creator activated a homing beacon which made Data's primary purpose (over all others) to return to his build site. So Data immediately locked out the controls to all bridge consoles other than his own, turned off life support systems to the bridge and started evacuating air from there to force the human bridge crew off. He sealed off the bridge, used a perfect imitation of Captain Picard's voice to lock out all main computer controls from non-bridge consoles, using force fields to allow him to move around the ship, and aborted attempts from the crew to retake control.
It wasn't until Data 'went ballistic' that you realized just the tricks he could pull and the security threat that could result.
Although, being immune to mind control, other forms of psychic manipulation, most poisonings, and air loss make up for that.
Yeah, I always wondered how to get alt-text on a smart phone.
Also, I read tvtropes.org often, and entries with text that contains spoilers (like the Sixth Sense ending) are invisible, since it's white text on a white background. You can see text by selecting it with the mouse and that makes spoiler text readable. Problem was that I couldn't highlight text on my iphone. On my Android, it's kludgy but possible at least.
An owl signifies intelligence in most of Europe, evil in parts of latin America, and stupidity in much of Asia
And there are logical reasons for each, in fact!
An owl signifies intelligence in most of Europe
Because it was the symbol of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. We just.. inherited that somehow. This makes no sense, given the below. Great-Horned Owls have an expression that looks like wisdom (though I always thought it was more 'cool disdain').
evil in parts of latin America
It's theorized that many of our stories of white ghosts come from sightings of Barn Owls which are common throughout the world, have entirely silent flight, a pure-white underside, human-like faces, and the most god-awful ear-piercing scream you've ever heard.
and stupidity in much of Asia
Owls, for the most part, are rather dim-witted birds. Sad but true, as one who used to work with them often. Especially the aforementioned Barn Owl, who were nonsensically made Athena's symbol.
The obvious solution is that we need research into finding a glass-like material that can be switched between shiny ("sales mode") and matte ("use mode'").
In some ways we already have it: the Internet.
IE, you don't actually look at the screen in a store, you go based on professional reviews.
I found long ago that the image you see on demo boxes in a store cannot be relied upon, so looking at something in the store is the worst way to shop.
It never ceases to amaze me how self-proclaimed "intellectuals" have the exact same hangups about unpleasant but true speech as all the folks they like to pretend they outsmart.
It never ceases to amaze me that people complain about the moderation of a post when only half an hour has passed. That's an incredibly small sample size.
Over time, the moderation seems to work decently well, but not instantly.
The roads and schools are socialized too. And they work pretty well.
They do?
When road maintenance is funded instead of being gutted so legislators can give more "tax cuts," yes, the roads work pretty well. The schools are a whole mess of issues, only some of them related to actual education.
I disagree. The Republican Party has done an extremely good job of purging liberal-ish Republicans from their party by denying them party funding. It led to them being unified (for awhile... recently that's broken down) while Democrats were not. It's one reason why Obama wasn't just able to push anything through Congress in his first term (including a non-neutered Obamacare).. his own party was fractured and not on board.
At least you could appeal to the FCC, if your ISP made a mistake.
And they wouldn't give a shit.
At least I can choose a local provider (which is pretty good) in my area that doesn't subscribe to six strikes.
If the FCC was in control? Ugh.
while i agree the op went too far in his rant, the wording does imply govt regulations
Any action from on high preventing the company from doing whatever the hell it wants is a "government regulation."
Some regulations are bad and pointless. Some regulations are *gasp* good.
How can the ISPs possibly make money without constant kickbacks from the MPAA/RIAA for things like cooperating with them on things like CAS?
I suspect they don't get kickbacks. They might get "we promise not to sue you" which are much harder to trace. A little more of the stick than the carrot.
This is fine too. If they are willing to spend millions for every thousand our side wastes, then they'll run out of money before we do (maybe). Just call it a war of attrition and we are golden.
Not as long as "we" (the general we) also give the opposition much more money at the same time.
I'll bet that the OP spends more than 50 bucks in music and movie and TV and Internet (if he uses the Comcast/AT&T duopoly prevalent in much of the US). Hell I spend more than that on cable per month.