The best way to prevent Amazon from spying on you is never to buy one of these infernal devices and never to put one of them into your house. If you do otherwise, you are begging them to listen in. Trust me: No matter what they say, no matter what the law demands, they will listen in. Remove the temptation. It may mean that you have to get out of your chair to turn the lights on and off, but I see this as a small price to pay for privacy.
Charles's son Harry is obviously a chip off the old block, and is just as shallow and ignorant as his father. And, just as happy to offer his royal opinion on things about which he knows little.
One of the reasons I turned against Apple many years ago was that they consistently charge premium prices for their proprietary equipment. The main advantage gained in making this premium purchase is the use of Apple's shiny user interface and the cachet of viewing yourself as an artist or an intellectual because you have the wisdom to go Apple. This is just another example of the elitism that they encourage. I am satisfied with the choice of user interfaces available on Linux, where I can choose my own hardware and fix most of it myself. And the hardware price is determined by demand, not by marketers. No thanks, Apple. I'm done with you.
This is just another case of the Brits and the Euros being resentful of any success any American company has in what they view as their private territory. One World is fine for them as long as they are the ones making a profit on it.
On the surface, this sounds like a good idea if only because the smallest scratch on the exterior of a car now costs over $1000 to repair. The side airbags could prevent some of this damage, at least with slow-speed collisions and scrapes. The only problem is that it also costs about $1000 to replace an airbag that has discharged. For cars that have over 100K miles, insurance companies often declare them a total loss after an accident if the airbags have discharged. Replacing the bags can cost more than the car is worth, and it's illegal in the US to repair a car and put it on the road without the airbags in place and working.
There is a reason that the big pharma companies are spending all their research money to develop drugs that relieve symptoms temporarily, but don't actually cure anything. Think statins, impotence pills for men, and various skin nostrums to improve your complexion. These are all big money-makers and none of them cure anything. Rather, they alleviate symptoms temporarily, and require the patient to continue buying them for the rest of his or her life to enjoy their benefits. Now, this is a good business model. Just ask Pfizer how much they have made from their impotence pills. Conversely, there is relatively little money being spent on research to cure viral infections or to produce vaccines for various deadly infectious diseases. The reason is simple: these drugs are taken once or twice, the disease is cured, and the patient walks away without being required to continue dropping money on the pharma company.
The idea that we are not allowed to look inside and fix some device that we have purchased and own is insane, totalitarian, and antithetical to everything America stands for. Self-reliance? Uh-uh. We're all too stupid to touch the insides of our high-tech devices or, heaven forbid, reprogram the computers that control them. This should not be a matter of copyright or patent, as I am not considering copying the device and manufacturing it myself without paying royalties to the owner of the design. I just want to fix the damned thing myself. There is legal support in government now for the idea that consumers don't really own the things they buy. They are just purchasing some sort of limited "right to use". I am sure that this started with the software industry and their ridiculous user licenses. But does this apply to a car, or a tractor, or a lawn mower? The government should not be supporting the manufacturers in this situation. I will be taking my stuff apart no matter what they say. Will they kick down my door at midnight? Maybe. It has almost reached this point with farmers and patented seed from companies like Monsanto.
If some group of people have decided to advocate something stupid (or not stupid, for that matter) we all should have the same rights to use whatever medium is available to everyone for that discussion. More and more often, a group of do-gooders like the ones cited here pops up demanding that people be protected from things that they believe to be untrue. People have the right to be wrong, and if we attempt to curtail others' thought in public forums, then we are becoming exactly the society described in Orwell's 1984. Do you really want the government to hobble the communication of people with views that oppose the currently-held government position on something?
India tried to liberalize the rules for foreign investors about 50 years ago, too, and attracted quite a few large American companies to do business there. But, the same sort of crackdown occurred and the foreign companies all bailed out and cut their losses. Now it seems to be happening again. Part of the problem is that several splinter groups of the Indian Communist party maintain a power base in different provincial governments in India. These people have the power to negotiate with the national government, and they generally behave like labor unions on steroids -- but they have the power to pass laws in their provinces as well. If India is really serious about attracting foreign investors, they had better stop their current behavior right away. No one from outside India will ever trust them again if they don't.
We don't need a new "company" for this. I'm sure some of the sports books in Las Vegas would cover this sort of a bet already. All you need to do is ask...
It seriously offends me when I download something from a government Web site and discover that I cannot read it without buying a copy of Microsoft Word or some other proprietary software. It is not my government's job to guarantee Microsoft a market for their products.
Instagram announced today that all images providing some potential for damage to vulnerable viewers will henceforth be banned, and the only photos that will be allowed will be soft, furry kittens. They may be sleeping or playing with each other, as long as no claws are visible in the photo. So, we all will be able to continue exercising our free-speech rights without harming anyone.
If we had begun paying higher taxes and sent a lot of money to third-world countries like the Paris Accords wanted us to do, then all of this would not be happening, right?
I clearly remember doing something pretty similar to this in the 1950s and 1960s with refillable soda and beer bottles. (Well, it was my father buying the beer, not me...) So, the idea is not new. The only real loser in this will be the California state government, which collects a "CRV" deposit of 0.10 or 0.20 on nearly every drink bottle (not necessarily refillable ones) and then makes it impossible to ever get the deposit back. This will punch a hole in that scheme, but I am sure the CA legislature will find another way to squeeze money out of their constituents. The new governor there is talking about taxing drinking water now.
This will (1) incapacitate the car when something goes wrong, and (2) call TeslaTow(r), the approved repair center for all Tesla automobiles. TeslaTow, conveniently enough, will also be owned by Musk. The Right to Repair people should be alerted about this.
It looks like the world's largest democracy is coming into some bumpy times. The Indians have a strange love-hate relationship with the British due to the lasting influence of the British Raj there, but they are now showing an unhealthy tendency to emulate the UK in its snooping, anti-privacy attitudes. No government needs to control what its citizens can read and write unless it has totalitarian aims. Clearly, the UK does want to control its people just as Orwell predicted, but until now the Indian government has not been visibly interested in this sort of control. It's ver sad, and very bad news for the people of India.
China's infrastructure strategy in recent years -- and apparently going forward -- is to make enormous loans to third-world countries in Africa and Southeast Asia for Chinese companies to build giant infrastructure projects like harbors and high-speed railways. They know that the country will never be able to repay the loans, and wait until they start to come due to squeeze privileges out of the defaulting government. This is how they got an eternal lease on the new harbor facilities in Malaysia that Chinese companies built there. Similar things are going on in Africa. It's all a sort of back-door colonialism cloaked in altruism, at least in the beginning. It's also a great way to establish a foothold in foreign countries for commercial and military activities.
I have encountered several fairly well-known news sites that fool with the back button, making it difficult to back up past their home page.
Even more than this, I would love to see the browser people find a way to absolutely, positively block auto-play videos. The one at the top of a news story is irritating, but when you scroll past it and a little clone of the window pops up in the right margin and starts playing it really gets on my nerves.
How is it that California allows people who own a patch of land adjacent to the ocean to restrict access to the Pacific Ocean? And to prohibit access to the beach between their property and the ocean? The ocean does not belong to these rich people, and the rest of us should not be blocked from accessing it just because they want to lock strangers out of their little world.
Let's face it: Aston-Martins are not cars that people buy to use for their work commute. They are expensive and relatively small numbers of them are made. And as they age, they tend to become even more valuable. The idea of taking a valuable 1970 Aston Martin Volante and stripping out the engine and drive train to install electric motors and batteries does not seem like a good one to me. These cars will immediately lose all of their collector value and the owners' investment in them will tank. Knowing the company, it probably will not be cheap to make the conversion, either.
This is not the only thing that Homeland Security will be looking at to evaluate an application for admission to the US, but it is not an unreasonable thing for them to check. The "moral character" of the immigrant is not the only characteristic that concerns them. Many immigrants arrive in the US and go on public assistance almost immediately, especially families with children. We do not need any more wards of the state in the US. We need productive citizens and residents who will feed themselves and contribute to society. If this helps identify people who are responsible financially and pay their debts, it is a good thing.
The movie people want ISPs to be their quislings and enforce their copyrights for them. Sorry, movie moguls. I don't want ISPs looking at the content of my traffic that they carry at all. Not copyrighted material, not snooping that the police may want them to do, not records that some court may demand that they produce years after the fact. Outside the Internet, these entities are not allowed to spy on me without legal cause and a warrant from a court. There is no reason that they should be able to do routine screening of my internet traffic without a legal warrant for each instance as well. And there is no more justification for my ISP to screen my data than there is for my postman to open all of my mail.
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The best way to prevent Amazon from spying on you is never to buy one of these infernal devices and never to put one of them into your house. If you do otherwise, you are begging them to listen in. Trust me: No matter what they say, no matter what the law demands, they will listen in. Remove the temptation. It may mean that you have to get out of your chair to turn the lights on and off, but I see this as a small price to pay for privacy.
Charles's son Harry is obviously a chip off the old block, and is just as shallow and ignorant as his father. And, just as happy to offer his royal opinion on things about which he knows little.
One of the reasons I turned against Apple many years ago was that they consistently charge premium prices for their proprietary equipment. The main advantage gained in making this premium purchase is the use of Apple's shiny user interface and the cachet of viewing yourself as an artist or an intellectual because you have the wisdom to go Apple. This is just another example of the elitism that they encourage.
I am satisfied with the choice of user interfaces available on Linux, where I can choose my own hardware and fix most of it myself. And the hardware price is determined by demand, not by marketers. No thanks, Apple. I'm done with you.
This is just another case of the Brits and the Euros being resentful of any success any American company has in what they view as their private territory. One World is fine for them as long as they are the ones making a profit on it.
On the surface, this sounds like a good idea if only because the smallest scratch on the exterior of a car now costs over $1000 to repair. The side airbags could prevent some of this damage, at least with slow-speed collisions and scrapes. The only problem is that it also costs about $1000 to replace an airbag that has discharged. For cars that have over 100K miles, insurance companies often declare them a total loss after an accident if the airbags have discharged. Replacing the bags can cost more than the car is worth, and it's illegal in the US to repair a car and put it on the road without the airbags in place and working.
They said that this was happening about 100 years ago, but nobody was able to isolate it until now.
There is a reason that the big pharma companies are spending all their research money to develop drugs that relieve symptoms temporarily, but don't actually cure anything. Think statins, impotence pills for men, and various skin nostrums to improve your complexion. These are all big money-makers and none of them cure anything. Rather, they alleviate symptoms temporarily, and require the patient to continue buying them for the rest of his or her life to enjoy their benefits. Now, this is a good business model. Just ask Pfizer how much they have made from their impotence pills. Conversely, there is relatively little money being spent on research to cure viral infections or to produce vaccines for various deadly infectious diseases. The reason is simple: these drugs are taken once or twice, the disease is cured, and the patient walks away without being required to continue dropping money on the pharma company.
The idea that we are not allowed to look inside and fix some device that we have purchased and own is insane, totalitarian, and antithetical to everything America stands for. Self-reliance? Uh-uh. We're all too stupid to touch the insides of our high-tech devices or, heaven forbid, reprogram the computers that control them. This should not be a matter of copyright or patent, as I am not considering copying the device and manufacturing it myself without paying royalties to the owner of the design. I just want to fix the damned thing myself. There is legal support in government now for the idea that consumers don't really own the things they buy. They are just purchasing some sort of limited "right to use". I am sure that this started with the software industry and their ridiculous user licenses. But does this apply to a car, or a tractor, or a lawn mower? The government should not be supporting the manufacturers in this situation. I will be taking my stuff apart no matter what they say. Will they kick down my door at midnight? Maybe. It has almost reached this point with farmers and patented seed from companies like Monsanto.
If some group of people have decided to advocate something stupid (or not stupid, for that matter) we all should have the same rights to use whatever medium is available to everyone for that discussion. More and more often, a group of do-gooders like the ones cited here pops up demanding that people be protected from things that they believe to be untrue. People have the right to be wrong, and if we attempt to curtail others' thought in public forums, then we are becoming exactly the society described in Orwell's 1984. Do you really want the government to hobble the communication of people with views that oppose the currently-held government position on something?
India tried to liberalize the rules for foreign investors about 50 years ago, too, and attracted quite a few large American companies to do business there. But, the same sort of crackdown occurred and the foreign companies all bailed out and cut their losses. Now it seems to be happening again. Part of the problem is that several splinter groups of the Indian Communist party maintain a power base in different provincial governments in India. These people have the power to negotiate with the national government, and they generally behave like labor unions on steroids -- but they have the power to pass laws in their provinces as well. If India is really serious about attracting foreign investors, they had better stop their current behavior right away. No one from outside India will ever trust them again if they don't.
We don't need a new "company" for this. I'm sure some of the sports books in Las Vegas would cover this sort of a bet already. All you need to do is ask...
It seriously offends me when I download something from a government Web site and discover that I cannot read it without buying a copy of Microsoft Word or some other proprietary software. It is not my government's job to guarantee Microsoft a market for their products.
Instagram announced today that all images providing some potential for damage to vulnerable viewers will henceforth be banned, and the only photos that will be allowed will be soft, furry kittens. They may be sleeping or playing with each other, as long as no claws are visible in the photo. So, we all will be able to continue exercising our free-speech rights without harming anyone.
Perhaps Ocasio-Cortez could hold her breath indefinitely to demonstrate how net-zero emissions would work.
If we had begun paying higher taxes and sent a lot of money to third-world countries like the Paris Accords wanted us to do, then all of this would not be happening, right?
I clearly remember doing something pretty similar to this in the 1950s and 1960s with refillable soda and beer bottles. (Well, it was my father buying the beer, not me...) So, the idea is not new. The only real loser in this will be the California state government, which collects a "CRV" deposit of 0.10 or 0.20 on nearly every drink bottle (not necessarily refillable ones) and then makes it impossible to ever get the deposit back. This will punch a hole in that scheme, but I am sure the CA legislature will find another way to squeeze money out of their constituents. The new governor there is talking about taxing drinking water now.
This will (1) incapacitate the car when something goes wrong, and (2) call TeslaTow(r), the approved repair center for all Tesla automobiles. TeslaTow, conveniently enough, will also be owned by Musk. The Right to Repair people should be alerted about this.
This sounds like the basis for a great new Stephen King book...
It looks like the world's largest democracy is coming into some bumpy times. The Indians have a strange love-hate relationship with the British due to the lasting influence of the British Raj there, but they are now showing an unhealthy tendency to emulate the UK in its snooping, anti-privacy attitudes. No government needs to control what its citizens can read and write unless it has totalitarian aims. Clearly, the UK does want to control its people just as Orwell predicted, but until now the Indian government has not been visibly interested in this sort of control. It's ver sad, and very bad news for the people of India.
China's infrastructure strategy in recent years -- and apparently going forward -- is to make enormous loans to third-world countries in Africa and Southeast Asia for Chinese companies to build giant infrastructure projects like harbors and high-speed railways. They know that the country will never be able to repay the loans, and wait until they start to come due to squeeze privileges out of the defaulting government. This is how they got an eternal lease on the new harbor facilities in Malaysia that Chinese companies built there. Similar things are going on in Africa. It's all a sort of back-door colonialism cloaked in altruism, at least in the beginning. It's also a great way to establish a foothold in foreign countries for commercial and military activities.
I have encountered several fairly well-known news sites that fool with the back button, making it difficult to back up past their home page.
Even more than this, I would love to see the browser people find a way to absolutely, positively block auto-play videos. The one at the top of a news story is irritating, but when you scroll past it and a little clone of the window pops up in the right margin and starts playing it really gets on my nerves.
How is it that California allows people who own a patch of land adjacent to the ocean to restrict access to the Pacific Ocean? And to prohibit access to the beach between their property and the ocean? The ocean does not belong to these rich people, and the rest of us should not be blocked from accessing it just because they want to lock strangers out of their little world.
Let's face it: Aston-Martins are not cars that people buy to use for their work commute. They are expensive and relatively small numbers of them are made. And as they age, they tend to become even more valuable. The idea of taking a valuable 1970 Aston Martin Volante and stripping out the engine and drive train to install electric motors and batteries does not seem like a good one to me. These cars will immediately lose all of their collector value and the owners' investment in them will tank. Knowing the company, it probably will not be cheap to make the conversion, either.
This is not the only thing that Homeland Security will be looking at to evaluate an application for admission to the US, but it is not an unreasonable thing for them to check. The "moral character" of the immigrant is not the only characteristic that concerns them. Many immigrants arrive in the US and go on public assistance almost immediately, especially families with children. We do not need any more wards of the state in the US. We need productive citizens and residents who will feed themselves and contribute to society. If this helps identify people who are responsible financially and pay their debts, it is a good thing.
The movie people want ISPs to be their quislings and enforce their copyrights for them. Sorry, movie moguls. I don't want ISPs looking at the content of my traffic that they carry at all. Not copyrighted material, not snooping that the police may want them to do, not records that some court may demand that they produce years after the fact. Outside the Internet, these entities are not allowed to spy on me without legal cause and a warrant from a court. There is no reason that they should be able to do routine screening of my internet traffic without a legal warrant for each instance as well. And there is no more justification for my ISP to screen my data than there is for my postman to open all of my mail.