Well, of course - if I have to choose between A and B, and I get rewarded for picking A, why wouldn't I pick A?
A related trick/tip - make sure that your boss' bonuses and target match yours - because when A and B are both important, but you get rewarded for A and PHB gets rewarded for B, guess who gets their bonus at the end of the year? (Hint: it's not you.)
I hope you're joking, or I will be forced to find the US terrifying in a whole new way.
In the UK, Virgin's cable TV package is something like £12.50 a month ($20 or so). $130 a month (US Dollars?) for TV is scandalous.
Nope, the bundles are just one more way the cable/phone folks try to reel you in - in my market (in Canada), I get internet and phone from my cable company (but no cable - they're not amused by this, but it amuses me). I thought about cutting my landline phone, but the bundling makes it a net $10/month (30/mth for the phone, -20 for having two services).
It'd actually be fairly cheap for me to add cable as well (depending on the deal, it's often *cheaper* to have all three), but I need cable like I need dynamite down my pants.
Next thing you know, they'll have TV shows with names like "General Electric Theater" or "Goodyear Television Playhouse" or "The Alcoa Hour"
(Well played) snark aside, I'd prefer that - if you're going to advance your agenda, at least have the balls to be up front about it. It's when they hide behind layers to obfuscate that it's the same parent telling WSJ and Fox what to say that I get cranky.
It's not that they want to produce dreck - it's that they want to produce consistency.
McDonald's would happily make you a quality hamburger, if they could find a way for all their staff across their worldwide empire to make that burger at a decent price. But studies have shown that what customers want is consistency - they're happy to be able to walk into any Mickey D's in the world, order a Big Mac, and get the exact same burger, whether they're at home or halfway around the world. So the menu is reduced to lowest common demoninator - what can all these McJobbers consistently produce?
Radio has gone the same way - one bad side of the Internet is that Joe Jockey can do the morning show in City A, the lunch-hour in City B, and the drive-home in City C, all from one booth. But to do that those three stations need similar formats (so the DJ's all fit), so you end up with three stations all playing the same format. (Actually, radio has even started franchising the formats - anyone care to guess how many "Joe" stations there are, all playing the exact same rotation?)
I suppose it could be worse, though - until they had to divest, we had a company own TV, radio, and newspapers in my market - so you could hear the Official Spin no matter where you looked.
All it takes is one talented musician with a synthesizer to produce a sound track; writing music isn't hard.
Just going to stop you there for a Bullshit - writing "music" isn't hard, in the "hit the chord buttons and whack a table a few times". But something of quality that works takes some actual talent, so let's not pretend that you can snap your fingers and John Williams is going to jump out of the bushes with your soundtrack.
The situation for musicians is about the same as it is for actors and writers and cameramen - there are some talented amateurs out there, and some professions with the spare time to help you out, but you're going to have to put some work into finding them. And it probably helps if you've done some smaller stuff first to establish that you are talented enough to be worth helping out.
And if it didn't say "you can use a calculator", I probably would have done that. (Back "in the old days" when calculators were only used for trig and log and actual *difficult* maths, I certainly would have).
But in a test situation, if you're going to say "yes, you may use this device which will just *give* you the answer assuming you have basic data entry skills", I'm bloody going to turn off the brain and punch the numbers in. Remember, there's no "show your work" half marks here anymore, just right/wrong. Oh, and there's a time limit.
The lady I buy bus tickets from (Who is VERY sweet) told me a couple days ago that she is amazed that the school kids she sells stuff to can't count their money.
That's not surprising, when you stop to think about it - the reason "math isn't relevant" is because we spend so little time teaching the maths that people *will* use through their whole life. Counting money. Interest rates (including compound interest). Heck, considering how many people will end up working with some variation of income/expense in their work and life, I wonder why some basic bookkeeping isn't covered.
Instead, we'll skim over interest rates quickly (usually just using it as an example as part of exponents), and then sit and spend weeks teaching trig. (I don't have anything against trig, but it's not exactly a discipline that is used in everyday life, is it?
Replacing ads is commonplace up here in Canada. CRTC (Canada's FCC-equivalent) says that if American Channel A is showing the Simpsons at the same time Canadian Channel B, the cable company is required to substitute the Canadian ads over the US ones (even on the US channel).
Among other things, it means we never see the Super Bowl ads.
And I can't count the number of times I've seen station ID logos stacked on top of each other in the corner. (Protip to broadcasters: three translucent logos on top of each other = unreadable mess and no-one wins.)
I don't think Google or Facebook have a legal leg to stand on, for starters - if I change my software to change the presentation of the data you've sent me, that's my perogative. If you can't stop me from using AdBlock, you certainly can't stop me from using AddAds.
Also, the logical question here would be - what are these add-ons doing that people want so much that they're willing to accept even more ads for? And perhaps the big players should simply take half an hour and add the code to let you put snowflakes or whatever on your page and cut them out of the loop.
Finally - ad-supported companies bitching about ad-supported companies stealing their cheese amuses me to absolutely no end. Watching Facebook warn users about privacy dangers is worth the price of admission, right there.
Obvious rebuttal: by that logic, I can happily build my toxic waste facility next to your house, since you'll concentrate on the big picture of all the business the neighborhood will generate, rather than the sludge that's creeping toward your kid's swingset.
Also obvious: these sorts of projects are always big on community benefit when we're talking about costs (and noise is a cost), but when it comes time to divvy up the actual physical moolah, I bet that airport ain't sharing...
And all that time, the citizens of Santa Clara were benefiting from the economic growth which the airport aided.
How you figure? The airport isn't on their land, so they're not getting any taxes. There's no guarantee that any revenue at all is making it into Santa Clara.
Resulting damage and initial part, maybe- too valuable not to. But I really think they didn't have cameras on the back side of the hill.
And they have shown that sort of footage in the past - the "instant convertable" myth (where the car doesn't stop as expected after going under the semi, launches off a berm and ends up in a ditch on the other side of the fence), they show the launch (several times - because that was cool), and more importantly, focus on the team's reactions (which were obviously unscripted "oh ****" type responses), and then show them finding the car and having "oh, this could have sucked a whole lot" type conversations. (I think one of the "don't try this at home" bits are actually in front of the car.)
I imagine they'll still use the bomb range in future - they'll just point the cannon *away* from the residential housing...
I'd say a better comparison is that China is protecting their businesses at the expense of foreign businesses, while the US is protecting their businesses at the expense of... their other businesses.
Hey hey hey, you need to use the correct terminology here. It's not "their other businesses". It's "filthy stealing pirates" and "lazy entitled kids who got loans they couldn't afford for an unmarketable degree"
Unless they're a person who attacks and robs ships at sea, pirate is the wrong word (no matter what rich media moguls would have you believe). Your second point is probably more accurate - old money is never fond of new money. (Even if the "old money" used to *be* new a generation ago).
Plus, with their one-child policy they're a demographic powder keg waiting to go off (eventually). Either they are going to have too many sex-selected men looking for women or they are going to have too few young people to support all the old people.
Or, they'll just reinvent the mail order bride business.
This is nothing like SOPA. The only similarity one can draw is that they're both using unethical methods to protect domestic businesses. However, the Chinese government is protecting their businesses from legitimate competition, whereas the US government is protecting their businesses from illegitimate competition (piracy).
I'd say a better comparison is that China is protecting their businesses at the expense of foreign businesses, while the US is protecting their businesses at the expense of... their other businesses.
And of course, if I was in China's shoes, I would be cheerfully putting the boots to US companies, since the US has abdicated any sort of moral authority in the matter.
Legally the NYC govt is in its right to do so, but there is something disturbing in the manner that the govt considers that even such innocuous protests are not to be tolerated.
I'd question the legality - yes, they can pass the law, but that doesn't make it legal. (And apparently at least one judge agrees, since they signed the injunction.)
What I find interesting is how people are finding the juxtaposition of the theory of their rights ("if you don't like it, you should protest and complain!") and the reality of it ("if you protest and complain, don't be surprised if SWAT comes and busts your head in"). The idea of supporting free speech, but banning people from being in any public space while doing it, for instance.
To be more clear; if someone gets a degree in an area of study generally considered to be/socially/ rather than/materially/ valuable, and then makes a lot of noise about disagreeing with the capitalist/commercial economic system, they don't really make sense if their conclusion is that they're not being _paid_ enough, or _employed_ enough.
The "artist types" that I know are perfectly content that they're not making crazy-rich money. Most of them don't even mind that they're not making money directly from the art (although none of them would complain if they suddenly got paid). But by and large, they accept that they're going to be working to live, not living to work.
Counter-intuitively, a lot of them end up in decent jobs - any degree shows a reasonable amount of dedication and intelligence, and a lot of arts majors have good communications skills and make solid office staffers.
When I hear arts folks complain about jobs, it's not because they can't work in their field - it's because they can't work at all.
they are not 100% of the public as homeless people can not sleep legally at any public place in Las Vegas or Los Angeles.
Just gotta ask - in a country where you know there are homeless people, you know that there isn't enough shelters to put them all up, and you know they're not allowed to sleep in a public place... where the heck do you expect them to sleep? Or is this a "if you can't afford your own place, you don't deserve rest" thing?
At this point there is no real goal other than 'dismantel the man'.
I thought the goal was pretty obvious - and pretty successful. The goal is to make as visible as possible the fact that the current economic conditions means that you have large groups of people who are completely cut off from society. (The camping out makes that point - "I'm here because I literally have nowhere else to go, and if I have to sit in a tent city, I'm damned sure you can't ignore me".)
What OWS doesn't have is a policy statement, which is a good thing in my books - politicians love debating policy, because it's a nice abstract way to avoid dealing with the facts on the ground. It's easy to say "oh, their plan won't possibly work". It's a lot harder to deal with a group simply showing that the current plan is actively harming the population.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, of course - if I have to choose between A and B, and I get rewarded for picking A, why wouldn't I pick A?
A related trick/tip - make sure that your boss' bonuses and target match yours - because when A and B are both important, but you get rewarded for A and PHB gets rewarded for B, guess who gets their bonus at the end of the year? (Hint: it's not you.)
It's a cool idea, but right now it's just that - a cool idea that's trying to generate buzz and funding. Let me know when they put the prototype up.
I hope you're joking, or I will be forced to find the US terrifying in a whole new way.
In the UK, Virgin's cable TV package is something like £12.50 a month ($20 or so). $130 a month (US Dollars?) for TV is scandalous.
Nope, the bundles are just one more way the cable/phone folks try to reel you in - in my market (in Canada), I get internet and phone from my cable company (but no cable - they're not amused by this, but it amuses me). I thought about cutting my landline phone, but the bundling makes it a net $10/month (30/mth for the phone, -20 for having two services).
It'd actually be fairly cheap for me to add cable as well (depending on the deal, it's often *cheaper* to have all three), but I need cable like I need dynamite down my pants.
Next thing you know, they'll have TV shows with names like "General Electric Theater" or "Goodyear Television Playhouse" or "The Alcoa Hour"
(Well played) snark aside, I'd prefer that - if you're going to advance your agenda, at least have the balls to be up front about it. It's when they hide behind layers to obfuscate that it's the same parent telling WSJ and Fox what to say that I get cranky.
It's not that they want to produce dreck - it's that they want to produce consistency.
McDonald's would happily make you a quality hamburger, if they could find a way for all their staff across their worldwide empire to make that burger at a decent price. But studies have shown that what customers want is consistency - they're happy to be able to walk into any Mickey D's in the world, order a Big Mac, and get the exact same burger, whether they're at home or halfway around the world. So the menu is reduced to lowest common demoninator - what can all these McJobbers consistently produce?
Radio has gone the same way - one bad side of the Internet is that Joe Jockey can do the morning show in City A, the lunch-hour in City B, and the drive-home in City C, all from one booth. But to do that those three stations need similar formats (so the DJ's all fit), so you end up with three stations all playing the same format. (Actually, radio has even started franchising the formats - anyone care to guess how many "Joe" stations there are, all playing the exact same rotation?)
I suppose it could be worse, though - until they had to divest, we had a company own TV, radio, and newspapers in my market - so you could hear the Official Spin no matter where you looked.
All it takes is one talented musician with a synthesizer to produce a sound track; writing music isn't hard.
Just going to stop you there for a Bullshit - writing "music" isn't hard, in the "hit the chord buttons and whack a table a few times". But something of quality that works takes some actual talent, so let's not pretend that you can snap your fingers and John Williams is going to jump out of the bushes with your soundtrack.
The situation for musicians is about the same as it is for actors and writers and cameramen - there are some talented amateurs out there, and some professions with the spare time to help you out, but you're going to have to put some work into finding them. And it probably helps if you've done some smaller stuff first to establish that you are talented enough to be worth helping out.
The ONLY public broadcast is public access, and that's on CABLE.
And as such, is owned wholly by the cable company - even further from public, in my opinion.
And if it didn't say "you can use a calculator", I probably would have done that. (Back "in the old days" when calculators were only used for trig and log and actual *difficult* maths, I certainly would have).
But in a test situation, if you're going to say "yes, you may use this device which will just *give* you the answer assuming you have basic data entry skills", I'm bloody going to turn off the brain and punch the numbers in. Remember, there's no "show your work" half marks here anymore, just right/wrong. Oh, and there's a time limit.
The lady I buy bus tickets from (Who is VERY sweet) told me a couple days ago that she is amazed that the school kids she sells stuff to can't count their money.
That's not surprising, when you stop to think about it - the reason "math isn't relevant" is because we spend so little time teaching the maths that people *will* use through their whole life. Counting money. Interest rates (including compound interest). Heck, considering how many people will end up working with some variation of income/expense in their work and life, I wonder why some basic bookkeeping isn't covered.
Instead, we'll skim over interest rates quickly (usually just using it as an example as part of exponents), and then sit and spend weeks teaching trig. (I don't have anything against trig, but it's not exactly a discipline that is used in everyday life, is it?
Replacing ads is commonplace up here in Canada. CRTC (Canada's FCC-equivalent) says that if American Channel A is showing the Simpsons at the same time Canadian Channel B, the cable company is required to substitute the Canadian ads over the US ones (even on the US channel).
Among other things, it means we never see the Super Bowl ads.
And I can't count the number of times I've seen station ID logos stacked on top of each other in the corner. (Protip to broadcasters: three translucent logos on top of each other = unreadable mess and no-one wins.)
I don't think Google or Facebook have a legal leg to stand on, for starters - if I change my software to change the presentation of the data you've sent me, that's my perogative. If you can't stop me from using AdBlock, you certainly can't stop me from using AddAds.
Also, the logical question here would be - what are these add-ons doing that people want so much that they're willing to accept even more ads for? And perhaps the big players should simply take half an hour and add the code to let you put snowflakes or whatever on your page and cut them out of the loop.
Finally - ad-supported companies bitching about ad-supported companies stealing their cheese amuses me to absolutely no end. Watching Facebook warn users about privacy dangers is worth the price of admission, right there.
And that section would clinch why I wouldn't recommend this plan to my wife (who's the author in the famiy).
If they don't want you to talk about your sales data, it's because they know the number is going to be bad or disappointing.
Obvious rebuttal: by that logic, I can happily build my toxic waste facility next to your house, since you'll concentrate on the big picture of all the business the neighborhood will generate, rather than the sludge that's creeping toward your kid's swingset.
Also obvious: these sorts of projects are always big on community benefit when we're talking about costs (and noise is a cost), but when it comes time to divvy up the actual physical moolah, I bet that airport ain't sharing...
And all that time, the citizens of Santa Clara were benefiting from the economic growth which the airport aided.
How you figure? The airport isn't on their land, so they're not getting any taxes. There's no guarantee that any revenue at all is making it into Santa Clara.
Resulting damage and initial part, maybe- too valuable not to. But I really think they didn't have cameras on the back side of the hill.
And they have shown that sort of footage in the past - the "instant convertable" myth (where the car doesn't stop as expected after going under the semi, launches off a berm and ends up in a ditch on the other side of the fence), they show the launch (several times - because that was cool), and more importantly, focus on the team's reactions (which were obviously unscripted "oh ****" type responses), and then show them finding the car and having "oh, this could have sucked a whole lot" type conversations. (I think one of the "don't try this at home" bits are actually in front of the car.)
I imagine they'll still use the bomb range in future - they'll just point the cannon *away* from the residential housing...
Also - air friction.
I would suspect things may already be cleaned up. (My memory was that those broken windows were fixed in a matter of hours, not days).
As for the lawyers, you think they don't have disclaimers pre-printed in large pads for these guys?
OK, I think they need to start cutting back on the gunpowder - that thing got some serious airtime...
I'd say a better comparison is that China is protecting their businesses at the expense of foreign businesses, while the US is protecting their businesses at the expense of... their other businesses.
Hey hey hey, you need to use the correct terminology here. It's not "their other businesses". It's "filthy stealing pirates" and "lazy entitled kids who got loans they couldn't afford for an unmarketable degree"
Unless they're a person who attacks and robs ships at sea, pirate is the wrong word (no matter what rich media moguls would have you believe). Your second point is probably more accurate - old money is never fond of new money. (Even if the "old money" used to *be* new a generation ago).
Plus, with their one-child policy they're a demographic powder keg waiting to go off (eventually). Either they are going to have too many sex-selected men looking for women or they are going to have too few young people to support all the old people.
Or, they'll just reinvent the mail order bride business.
This is nothing like SOPA. The only similarity one can draw is that they're both using unethical methods to protect domestic businesses. However, the Chinese government is protecting their businesses from legitimate competition, whereas the US government is protecting their businesses from illegitimate competition (piracy).
I'd say a better comparison is that China is protecting their businesses at the expense of foreign businesses, while the US is protecting their businesses at the expense of... their other businesses.
And of course, if I was in China's shoes, I would be cheerfully putting the boots to US companies, since the US has abdicated any sort of moral authority in the matter.
Legally the NYC govt is in its right to do so, but there is something disturbing in the manner that the govt considers that even such innocuous protests are not to be tolerated.
I'd question the legality - yes, they can pass the law, but that doesn't make it legal. (And apparently at least one judge agrees, since they signed the injunction.)
What I find interesting is how people are finding the juxtaposition of the theory of their rights ("if you don't like it, you should protest and complain!") and the reality of it ("if you protest and complain, don't be surprised if SWAT comes and busts your head in"). The idea of supporting free speech, but banning people from being in any public space while doing it, for instance.
To be more clear; if someone gets a degree in an area of study generally considered to be /socially/ rather than /materially/ valuable, and then makes a lot of noise about disagreeing with the capitalist/commercial economic system, they don't really make sense if their conclusion is that they're not being _paid_ enough, or _employed_ enough.
The "artist types" that I know are perfectly content that they're not making crazy-rich money. Most of them don't even mind that they're not making money directly from the art (although none of them would complain if they suddenly got paid). But by and large, they accept that they're going to be working to live, not living to work.
Counter-intuitively, a lot of them end up in decent jobs - any degree shows a reasonable amount of dedication and intelligence, and a lot of arts majors have good communications skills and make solid office staffers.
When I hear arts folks complain about jobs, it's not because they can't work in their field - it's because they can't work at all.
they are not 100% of the public as homeless people can not sleep legally at any public place in Las Vegas or Los Angeles.
Just gotta ask - in a country where you know there are homeless people, you know that there isn't enough shelters to put them all up, and you know they're not allowed to sleep in a public place... where the heck do you expect them to sleep? Or is this a "if you can't afford your own place, you don't deserve rest" thing?
At this point there is no real goal other than 'dismantel the man'.
I thought the goal was pretty obvious - and pretty successful. The goal is to make as visible as possible the fact that the current economic conditions means that you have large groups of people who are completely cut off from society. (The camping out makes that point - "I'm here because I literally have nowhere else to go, and if I have to sit in a tent city, I'm damned sure you can't ignore me".)
What OWS doesn't have is a policy statement, which is a good thing in my books - politicians love debating policy, because it's a nice abstract way to avoid dealing with the facts on the ground. It's easy to say "oh, their plan won't possibly work". It's a lot harder to deal with a group simply showing that the current plan is actively harming the population.