I find it very strange, how ALL countries got so paranoid and totalitarian and just plain nuts and evil since between 1998 and 2006.
Those countries look like they couldn't be more different. Yet the somehow all follow the same path.
Seriously, what the hell?
Accepting (for now) that your premise is true, what could have brought that about? The answer would appear to be the general availability of Internet communications (aided and abetted by significant increases on communications speed and storage capabilities).
Visionaries and early adopters saw a lot of good in it; but it turns out that the technology itself is morally neutral, and can be used (both deliberately and accidentally) for both good and evil. We are still dealing with the aftermath of this radical change in communications capability. We haven't figured out how to keep the good (or even what IS good in some cases) and avoid the bad.
The ability for marginalized individuals to discover they aren't alone and to form virtual communities that give them the strength/power to be heard - generally good, but not when their outlook is evil.
The ability for anyone anywhere to publish information available to the world? Often good, but can clearly be used for evil.
The ability to amass huge quantities of data for analysis? Mixed bag... sometimes good, but often very bad especially when those collecting the data are shrouded in secrecy and using the results of analysis to further their own aims and not benefit society at large.
There is a big down side to most of the technological advancements in communications and storage over the past 20 years or so. We might disagree on some of the details, but I would be surprised to find anyone (at least on Slashdot) who didn't see some potential for misuse.
I personally don't fully agree with the "right to be forgotten" (because of the potential for gross abuses) but on the other hand I don't think the stupid things the 20 or 30-year earlier version of some did should be used to judge them today, never mind condemning someone because their early political/economic thoughts contrast significantly with their current political/economic thoughts.
Automated license plate readers that law enforcement can use to help them apprehend lawbreakers? Great! Using automated license plate readers to feed a massive distributed database that eventually can track an individual vehicle everywhere it has been, even going back days, weeks, or years? Ripe for abuse.
I could go on, but I think all of us could. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to participate in public dialogues with the aim of sorting out how to keep the good and reject the bad, or just engage in flame wars over small details while corporate/authoritarian interests extend their power and control?
If Apple had a completely unlocked phone where multiple appmarketplaces could compete for customers they could charge a 90% cut for all I care. But when they lock out the competition it gets very shady. In my mind they are abusing their monopoly position just like Microsoft and Intel did in their heydays, to the detriment of us all.
I have an Apple iPhone; I'm on my second one. Prior to my first one I had an iPod Touch. I have deliberately chosen the iPhone over all of its Android competitors because of the way that Apple has built IOS and the way that Apple administers the app store. Although I appreciate being able to freely install and run software on my home computer, I also appreciate the "walled garden" approach on my phone as I want it to work more like an appliance and less like another system that I have to administer. I don't see how this could work as effectively without Apple's "monopoly" power over their app store. If I wasn't happy with that, I could easily have chosen a platform with an alternative approach, namely Android. Apple's "monopoly" is over their product and what can run on their product. In my opinion that control is PART OF THE PRODUCT and is one of the things that causes me to choose Apple over Android.
I understand that Luxottica is Italian, but all of the eyeglass stores and the vision insurance company are operating as US companies. The manufacturers are probably all foreign, though. I wonder if it is really the case that all one must due to escape US antitrust law is to have the parent corporation be a foreign entity, even though the subsidiaries are all US companies?
Should this kind of activity and market ownership trigger some sort of anti-trust action?
One would think so... given the radical pronouncement by a leading US Presidential candidate that all of the big tech companies should be broken up (especially when they both own a marketplace and sell items in the same marketplace) it seems it would be duck soup to get a medical products firm that owns the production, retailing, and insurance business for a huge percentage of the company split up. Especially since the evidence of anti-competitive behavior (e.g., Oakley) and price-gouging seems beyond question... yet no action has been suggested by any leading Presidential candidate. Why not?
The problem is that practically nothing in the Luxottica empire is named Luxottica. They bought up numerous US eyeglass retailers, but kept the original names. They own a big vision insurance company, but not with their name. They own numerous "brands" of actual eyeglasses, but practically none with their own name.
Unless you read the articles carefully and note all of the names for the vision plan(s), eyeglass "brands", and eyeglass stores that together give the illusion of competition but in reality are all one giant singular entity, you won't see the forest for the trees.
As far as LASIK goes, I had it done about 18 years ago for something like $1800 per eye. Economically, it's been a big win, and practically it has been a big win as well. I was nearsighted enough to need glasses for everything but reading, and I enjoyed many years being eyeglass free. Once I got into my upper 40s and presbyopia set in I began to need reading glasses (first in low light, then generally). My optometrist tells me that would have happened anyway. When I had my LASIK procedure done, I hedged my bets and paid big $$$ to have a very experienced doctor perform the surgery (he was well-known for doing the eyes of some sports figures, including Tiger Woods). Even so, during the recovery period I kept asking myself what the flock I was thinking... fortunately it all worked out ok.
Cash costs more to handle than credit cards for many retailers. As well as slowing down transactions, mistakes are inevitable, it has to be counted, it has to be taken to the bank, and there has to be enough of a float in every till to provide change.
Easily proven false. Although fewer places do it now, it used to be fairly common to get a "cash discount." I have never been offered a discount for using credit. Although credit card transactions have gotten speedier now that signatures aren't required, they aren't substantially faster than cash with an experienced cashier and/or change dispenser. And those "no signature" transactions carry increased risk of fraudulent transactions, the cost of which is buried in the transaction fees charged the merchants, who add it to the cost of goods/services sold.
Same boat as you, but we need to go one step further. For those of us who know the proper way to use credit cards, many only GIVE you "cash" back.
Amazon Visa - 2% restaurants always (3% on Amazon)
Chase and Discover - Rotating 5% back on some categories
That is free money.
It is not exactly free money. The money that you get back came from the transaction fee that the credit card levied onto the merchants who sold you goods/services. Those merchants marked up the price of their goods/services to include the credit card transaction fee, and since so many people use credit cards these days, even for small transactions, the cost of everything has been increased so that we can enjoy this "convenience." Few merchants even bother giving a discount for cash any more, so we pay the price of credit even if we don't use it. Which justifies using credit cards even more (so that we can get at least some of our cash back).
Meanwhile, the "retail credit" industry has managed to insert themselves into practically every retail transaction, skimming their percent or two, and growing very fat doing it. Hey - apparently we like the convenience of paying with plastic, so what's the harm?
Meanwhile, the records linking all of the purchases to the purchasers are growing in huge numbers, and can be analyzed to determine many things. And that information isn't just in the hands of the retailers, because they make agreements and sell that information off. And ultimately it is available to the government, because although various constitutional protections (in the US) keep the government out of our knickers without a warrant, there is nothing stopping the government from buying commercially whatever is available - which happens to be a lot more data than could ever be gathered with a warrant.
So yea, congratulate yourself on knowing the "proper" way to use credit cards so that you can get back a few percent of your own money. But be aware that you are the product that is being bought and sold, with every transaction being financed by your own money, with the minuscule amount they return to you being the price at which you are being bought.
When I was an undergraduate, I watched the university I attended railroad out an undergraduate Chemistry major in her last semester before graduation. Someone had been lighting fires in the dorm she lived in, and based on an FBI profile and some very ambiguous evidence they decided it was her. My RA was a friend of hers, so I had a perspective not available to people just reading the newspaper (yes, I realize the perspective was influenced by the source). From what I could see, there was virtually no "due process" in the manner in which the accusation was handled by the university, which was not at all in line with what one would expect for such a serious action. She was immediately kicked off campus, and not allowed to attend classes to finish her semester even with an "escort". The court action against her had more "due process" and she was found not guilty of all with which she was charged, but by that time her academic career had been seriously set back.
At the same time, we will be increasing our investment in the Tesla service system, with the goal of same-day, if not same-hour service, and with most service done by us coming to you, rather than you coming to us. Moreover, we guarantee service availability anywhere in any country in which we operate./quote?
Closing *many of* the stores... some stay open. From the article:
Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average, allowing us to achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected. Over the next few months, we will be winding down many of our stores, with a small number of stores in high-traffic locations remaining as galleries, showcases and Tesla information centers. The important thing for customers in the United States to understand is that, with online sales, anyone in any state can quickly and easily buy a Tesla.
I'm all for sticking it to cable companies but if this makes a serious dent in content creator's revenue
I'm beginning to think the dude doing this is right that everyone has forgotten that terrestrial broadcast TV is free for the public to receive and always has been. When local broadcast TV was first carried on local cable systems, it was a matter of convenience so that people didn't have to wire up both their own antenna and the cable box at the same time; this made the cable channels appear a more seamless part of the TV. For some people who lived in fringe reception areas, it made their picture better.
Once "digital TV" came along (ATSC), using the cable companies feed for your local terrestrial broadcast TV actually degraded the signal quality, because the ATSC bandwidth was higher than the channel bandwidth that the cable company wanted to devote to each channel.
The purpose of this isn't to "stick it" to the cable company. It is to allow people who are in the broadcast service area of existing (free) broadcast signals (but for whom reception is difficult (or for whom putting up an antenna is a problem)) the option of receiving the broadcast signal through a packet stream delivery mechanism instead of the over the air antenna. The major TV networks are already broadcasting this very signal FOR FREE in that service area, and a substantial fraction of the population is already watching that free broadcast signal.
It won't replace cable - it doesn't include the 100s of channels of cable TV content. It won't replace streaming services - it doesn't include the vast stored media libraries that they use to deliver on-demand content. It simply affords the user realtime, live access to the same broadcast signal that their local terrestrial (free) TV station(s) area already sending out.
I could never understand why the major networks didn't just offer direct streaming off of their signal sources over the Internet once the capability was available, instead of continuing to have local network affiliates in each major metro area spend $$$ on transmission facilities, the antenna tower, the land around the antenna tower, the electricity to operate the transmitters, etc. they could just send the signal out directly themselves, have a better idea of the actual eyeballs watching them than the Nielsen ratings could every provide, and be happy.
I should know better than to engage with an Anonymous Coward, especially when you merely attacked the form of my argument, and not the substance. I'll bite, though:
The original poster used the term "economic hub" and referenced "Silicon Valley", "Wall Street", and Shenzhen, so a strict definition of the label of the hub as being synonymous with the name of a single city doesn't seem to have been established for the discussion. I used the label "Detroit, MI" as a familiar reference to the United States major automotive-related industrial area, not as a reference to the individual city. The auto industry in that area is spread out a bit more and includes not only the city of Detroit, MI; but also Flint, MI; Flat Rock, MI; Dearborn, MI; Wayne, MI; Lansing, MI; Lake Orion, MI; Sterling Heights, MI; Warren, MI; Fort Wayne, IN; Warren, OH; and even Toronto, ON. I've read this described as "the upper midwest" but thought that "Detroit" was more familiar a term in this context.
I believe that my contrast between the automotive industry in this area ("Detroit" or the "upper midwest") and the subsequent establishment of a new area of automotive industry in the southeastern United States, is valid. I also think that my use of the term industry or manufacturing hub to describe these areas is roughly congruent to the original poster's use of the term "economic hub" and "industry hub" as apparently synonomous terms, which is what the discussion was about, but if you insist please consider my argument to be amended to use the term "economic hub" everywhere I used the word "hub" modified by some other term. If have the time to read the paper that I cited, it describes this in much better detail than I can. Quoting from this paper: "Since the late 1980s, a number of high-profile automotive assembly facilitiesâ"and their associated jobsâ"have located in the southern portion of the United Statesâ"in a region which previously had a small automotive presence. Speculation is rampant that the automotive industry is moving south, lured by lower costs and large incentive packages. This has caused concern among the traditional automotive communities in the U.S. upper Midwest and southern Ontario that they do not have the necessary resources to compete for new automotive investment against the southern U.S. This paper examines what factors are responsible for this shift south, and whether the northern region can stem the tide and attract new investment."
The discussion isn't about whether a southern city is the analogue of Detroit, but whether it is possible to "clone" an existing industry hub. Specifically, I was addressing the original poster's statement that "I can't ever think of a time where somebody was able to clone an existing industry hub elsewhere." I believe that I have provided a reasoned counter-example.
Technically, you are moving the goalposts from the original argument. A statement was made that a new industrial hub couldn't just be cloned someplace else, because of a lack of physical proximity. I gave an example where it had been done, and quite successfully. I don't see how the fact that Mercedes and BMW are European brands changes the original analogy, although it certainly explains why those manufacturers were incentivized to create a hub/hubs outside of Detroit.
I think you will find that the parts of the southeastern US that have become involved in a new automobile hub for the US are quite happy with the outcome. Having lived there, I disagree strongly with what some might take to be your distain for the area. While it is true that some places in the southeast aren't as cosmopolitan as big well-known urban areas in the US, they are not at all like 3rd world countries (which I have also visited). I don't have the data at hand, but I don't think lax environmental regulations played a big role, either. I moved to the southeast from New England, and although it took me a while to adjust to a different outlook and rhythm of life, I can't say that either is better, just that they are different.
"While the American automakers were investing in or buying foreign competitors, the foreign automakers continued to establish more production facilities in the United States. In the 1990s, BMW and Daimler-Benz opened SUV factories in Spartanburg County, South Carolina and Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, respectively. In the 2000s, assembly plants were opened by Honda in Lincoln, Alabama, Nissan in Canton, Mississippi, Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama and Kia in West Point, Georgia. Toyota opened an engine plant in Huntsville, Alabama in 2003 (along with a truck assembly plant in San Antonio, Texas) and is building an assembly plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi. Volkswagen has announced a new plant for Chattanooga, Tennessee. Also, several of the Japanese auto manufacturers expanded or opened additional plants during this period. For example, while new, the Alabama Daimler-Benz and Honda plants have expanded several times since their original construction. The opening of Daimler-Benz plant in the 1990s had a cascade effect. It created a hub of new sub-assembly suppliers in the Alabama area. This hub of sub-assemblies suppliers helped in attracting several new assembly plants into Alabama plus new plants in nearby Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee."
The impetus for all of this was, naturally, economic. Tariffs and other costs associated with foreign production and importation of automobiles into the United States eventually made the prospect of local manufacturer not only possible, but desirable. The idea of this happening with other foreign-manufactured goods is far from crazy, IMHO. Wisconsin is trying to figure out how to get a piece of that pie to stimulate their local economy - isn't that one of the roles of government?
Look at the same issue in a slightly different context: If the deposition had been conducted using landline telephones, and by an accident of the phone system a third-party had been able to overhear the deposition, would a lawsuit against the landline telephone company have merit?
Apple does claim that the FaceTime technology uses encryption, but I don't think they claim it uses encryption at an assurance level that would make it ok for use in highly sensitive contexts (e.g., would the US government accept FaceTime as an approved technical control for preventing the non-disclosure of classified communications [Confidential, Secret, or Top-Secret]?). Stating a claim that a technical control intended to provide a certain level of security in place is one thing. Claiming a particular level of assurance is another. Using a product with a claimed technical control but without establishing sufficient level of assurance of that technical control for sensitive information just shows how ignorant the claimant is.
Disclaimer: I use FaceTime, and I like the fact that it uses encryption to make it less likely that my casual communications are dead simple to listen in on by bored techs at an ISP. I'm not so thrilled that Apple let slip into production such a painfully simple-to-exploit vulnerability, and apparently took the better part of a week to react to first reports.
[Geezing] Many (many) years ago a I bought a Motorola (analog) cordless phone (when cordless phones were a big deal) because it claimed it provided a "secure" wireless link between the handset and the base. I happened to have a frequency-agile radio receiver that could tune in on the handset-to-base audio, and was disappointed to discover that it seemed to be nothing more than an audio frequency inversion, and that with a few minutes of "training" I found that I could understand the "secure" communications reasonably well. Could a lawyer have sued Motorola if the lawyer used this model of cordless phone, then discovered that it wasn't as "secure" as the lawyer had thought? I think not...
Futter me with a spanner; I should have actually read the article... I see elsewhere (The Register) that the lawyer isn't suing because he/she conducted a deposition over FaceTime that was accidentally disclosed (possibly) but simply conducted a deposition in a room where someone had an iPhone, and is now concerned that someone (gasp!) could have surreptitiously activate the microphone on the iPhone and listened in? Not knowing that cellphone microphones can be remotely activated by various bugs and tools is almost as stupid as I look in my original post where I failed to understand the article before going off half-cocked.
Keeping a reasonable number of low-skill, low-but-livable-wage manufacturing and service jobs around suddenly starts to sound like a decent alternative.
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Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Shenzhen, all these economic hubs generally crop up and persist in a single geography because of the benefits of physical proximity. I can't ever think of a time where somebody was able to clone an existing industry hub elsewhere. Plus it always seems like they're trying to recreate the past rather than the future.
A relevant quote from the article I linked to above: "The incentives offered southern firms average $143 million per facility, or over $87,000 per job. In the early part of the 1990s, this level of incentives were unheard of, and sometimes very unpopular with the taxpayers--in fact the governor of Alabama at the time of the original Mercedes deal, was voted out of office as his challenger screamed corporate welfare and tax giveaways. However, as the decade wore on, more announcements were made that included huge incentive packages used to attract brand new assembly plants. Soon, many states took a closer look at the economic benefits from those facilities and realized that maybe incentives weren't such a bad idea to help attract these facilities and their accompanying jobs."
Looking at the current level of not only automobile manufacturing, but generally manufacturing job growth in the southern US, it seems it's not so crazy an idea when it succeeds. But the governor of Alabama still lost his job when he was an early proponent.
Look at the same issue in a slightly different context: If the deposition had been conducted using landline telephones, and by an accident of the phone system a third-party had been able to overhear the deposition, would a lawsuit against the landline telephone company have merit?
Apple does claim that the FaceTime technology uses encryption, but I don't think they claim it uses encryption at an assurance level that would make it ok for use in highly sensitive contexts (e.g., would the US government accept FaceTime as an approved technical control for preventing the non-disclosure of classified communications [Confidential, Secret, or Top-Secret]?). Stating a claim that a technical control intended to provide a certain level of security in place is one thing. Claiming a particular level of assurance is another. Using a product with a claimed technical control but without establishing sufficient level of assurance of that technical control for sensitive information just shows how ignorant the claimant is.
Disclaimer: I use FaceTime, and I like the fact that it uses encryption to make it less likely that my casual communications are dead simple to listen in on by bored techs at an ISP. I'm not so thrilled that Apple let slip into production such a painfully simple-to-exploit vulnerability, and apparently took the better part of a week to react to first reports.
[Geezing] Many (many) years ago a I bought a Motorola (analog) cordless phone (when cordless phones were a big deal) because it claimed it provided a "secure" wireless link between the handset and the base. I happened to have a frequency-agile radio receiver that could tune in on the handset-to-base audio, and was disappointed to discover that it seemed to be nothing more than an audio frequency inversion, and that with a few minutes of "training" I found that I could understand the "secure" communications reasonably well. Could a lawyer have sued Motorola if the lawyer used this model of cordless phone, then discovered that it wasn't as "secure" as the lawyer had thought? I think not...
It is obvious that this is the story behind the lost continent of Atlantis... the first self-conscious species to arise on earth were the Atlanteans. But they poisoned themselves with carbon releases 56 million years ago. Now all that is left is the geological record and some trace memories that must have been passed down, somehow, throughout the ages.
And even cheaper and still legal: shut it all off. The justification that illegal actions are ok because legal actions cost "too much" ignore the fact that (legal) inaction is even cheaper. Unless health/life/safety factors are at play, justifying illegal activity on an economic basis is highly questionable.
If I park my car in a public space, would that be legally "abandoned property"?
When I was young and stupid, I had a car that broke down while I was on my way home from a bar. I was able to safely park it well onto the shoulder where it was not in anyone's way. I was going out of town the next day and did not have the time to repair it (nor the $$ to have it towed or repaired for me). Stupidly I took the license plate off of it so that no one could *steal the license plate* (there was no chance they would want to steal the car). When I got back in town three or four days later I was *shocked* to find that my car had been towed at the request of the police, to an impound yard. When I called the impound yard and found out how much they wanted me to pay to get my car back, I let them know they could keep it, and went and bought another (cheap) car. I assume that after some legal procedure the impound yard was able to acquire ownership of my property and have their way with it.
If you read the letter from the EFF, you will see the rebuttal from the EFF that the Bird code is not overwritten, the kit has a replacement motherboard. The Bird code is removed when the motherboard containing the Bird code is removed. A new motherboard, owned by the new scooter owner (acquired legally from an impound yard auction) is installed in the scooter, making the scooter work properly for the new owner. No more infringing than putting new locks in a house acquired in a foreclosure auction even if the old locks were "smart locks" with code in them.
Slashdot Mirror
I find it very strange, how ALL countries got so paranoid and totalitarian and just plain nuts and evil since between 1998 and 2006. Those countries look like they couldn't be more different. Yet the somehow all follow the same path. Seriously, what the hell?
Accepting (for now) that your premise is true, what could have brought that about? The answer would appear to be the general availability of Internet communications (aided and abetted by significant increases on communications speed and storage capabilities).
Visionaries and early adopters saw a lot of good in it; but it turns out that the technology itself is morally neutral, and can be used (both deliberately and accidentally) for both good and evil. We are still dealing with the aftermath of this radical change in communications capability. We haven't figured out how to keep the good (or even what IS good in some cases) and avoid the bad.
The ability for marginalized individuals to discover they aren't alone and to form virtual communities that give them the strength/power to be heard - generally good, but not when their outlook is evil.
The ability for anyone anywhere to publish information available to the world? Often good, but can clearly be used for evil.
The ability to amass huge quantities of data for analysis? Mixed bag... sometimes good, but often very bad especially when those collecting the data are shrouded in secrecy and using the results of analysis to further their own aims and not benefit society at large.
There is a big down side to most of the technological advancements in communications and storage over the past 20 years or so. We might disagree on some of the details, but I would be surprised to find anyone (at least on Slashdot) who didn't see some potential for misuse.
I personally don't fully agree with the "right to be forgotten" (because of the potential for gross abuses) but on the other hand I don't think the stupid things the 20 or 30-year earlier version of some did should be used to judge them today, never mind condemning someone because their early political/economic thoughts contrast significantly with their current political/economic thoughts.
Automated license plate readers that law enforcement can use to help them apprehend lawbreakers? Great! Using automated license plate readers to feed a massive distributed database that eventually can track an individual vehicle everywhere it has been, even going back days, weeks, or years? Ripe for abuse.
I could go on, but I think all of us could. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to participate in public dialogues with the aim of sorting out how to keep the good and reject the bad, or just engage in flame wars over small details while corporate/authoritarian interests extend their power and control?
More like Practically Chrome, Chrome, Chrome, and Chrome
Can I get spam with that?
If Apple had a completely unlocked phone where multiple appmarketplaces could compete for customers they could charge a 90% cut for all I care. But when they lock out the competition it gets very shady. In my mind they are abusing their monopoly position just like Microsoft and Intel did in their heydays, to the detriment of us all.
I have an Apple iPhone; I'm on my second one. Prior to my first one I had an iPod Touch. I have deliberately chosen the iPhone over all of its Android competitors because of the way that Apple has built IOS and the way that Apple administers the app store. Although I appreciate being able to freely install and run software on my home computer, I also appreciate the "walled garden" approach on my phone as I want it to work more like an appliance and less like another system that I have to administer. I don't see how this could work as effectively without Apple's "monopoly" power over their app store. If I wasn't happy with that, I could easily have chosen a platform with an alternative approach, namely Android. Apple's "monopoly" is over their product and what can run on their product. In my opinion that control is PART OF THE PRODUCT and is one of the things that causes me to choose Apple over Android.
I understand that Luxottica is Italian, but all of the eyeglass stores and the vision insurance company are operating as US companies. The manufacturers are probably all foreign, though. I wonder if it is really the case that all one must due to escape US antitrust law is to have the parent corporation be a foreign entity, even though the subsidiaries are all US companies?
Should this kind of activity and market ownership trigger some sort of anti-trust action?
One would think so... given the radical pronouncement by a leading US Presidential candidate that all of the big tech companies should be broken up (especially when they both own a marketplace and sell items in the same marketplace) it seems it would be duck soup to get a medical products firm that owns the production, retailing, and insurance business for a huge percentage of the company split up. Especially since the evidence of anti-competitive behavior (e.g., Oakley) and price-gouging seems beyond question... yet no action has been suggested by any leading Presidential candidate. Why not?
I'll be sure to avoid anything Luxottica.
The problem is that practically nothing in the Luxottica empire is named Luxottica. They bought up numerous US eyeglass retailers, but kept the original names. They own a big vision insurance company, but not with their name. They own numerous "brands" of actual eyeglasses, but practically none with their own name.
Unless you read the articles carefully and note all of the names for the vision plan(s), eyeglass "brands", and eyeglass stores that together give the illusion of competition but in reality are all one giant singular entity, you won't see the forest for the trees.
As far as LASIK goes, I had it done about 18 years ago for something like $1800 per eye. Economically, it's been a big win, and practically it has been a big win as well. I was nearsighted enough to need glasses for everything but reading, and I enjoyed many years being eyeglass free. Once I got into my upper 40s and presbyopia set in I began to need reading glasses (first in low light, then generally). My optometrist tells me that would have happened anyway. When I had my LASIK procedure done, I hedged my bets and paid big $$$ to have a very experienced doctor perform the surgery (he was well-known for doing the eyes of some sports figures, including Tiger Woods). Even so, during the recovery period I kept asking myself what the flock I was thinking... fortunately it all worked out ok.
Cash costs more to handle than credit cards for many retailers. As well as slowing down transactions, mistakes are inevitable, it has to be counted, it has to be taken to the bank, and there has to be enough of a float in every till to provide change.
Easily proven false. Although fewer places do it now, it used to be fairly common to get a "cash discount." I have never been offered a discount for using credit. Although credit card transactions have gotten speedier now that signatures aren't required, they aren't substantially faster than cash with an experienced cashier and/or change dispenser. And those "no signature" transactions carry increased risk of fraudulent transactions, the cost of which is buried in the transaction fees charged the merchants, who add it to the cost of goods/services sold.
Same boat as you, but we need to go one step further. For those of us who know the proper way to use credit cards, many only GIVE you "cash" back. Amazon Visa - 2% restaurants always (3% on Amazon) Chase and Discover - Rotating 5% back on some categories That is free money.
It is not exactly free money. The money that you get back came from the transaction fee that the credit card levied onto the merchants who sold you goods/services. Those merchants marked up the price of their goods/services to include the credit card transaction fee, and since so many people use credit cards these days, even for small transactions, the cost of everything has been increased so that we can enjoy this "convenience." Few merchants even bother giving a discount for cash any more, so we pay the price of credit even if we don't use it. Which justifies using credit cards even more (so that we can get at least some of our cash back).
Meanwhile, the "retail credit" industry has managed to insert themselves into practically every retail transaction, skimming their percent or two, and growing very fat doing it. Hey - apparently we like the convenience of paying with plastic, so what's the harm?
Meanwhile, the records linking all of the purchases to the purchasers are growing in huge numbers, and can be analyzed to determine many things. And that information isn't just in the hands of the retailers, because they make agreements and sell that information off. And ultimately it is available to the government, because although various constitutional protections (in the US) keep the government out of our knickers without a warrant, there is nothing stopping the government from buying commercially whatever is available - which happens to be a lot more data than could ever be gathered with a warrant.
So yea, congratulate yourself on knowing the "proper" way to use credit cards so that you can get back a few percent of your own money. But be aware that you are the product that is being bought and sold, with every transaction being financed by your own money, with the minuscule amount they return to you being the price at which you are being bought.
When I was an undergraduate, I watched the university I attended railroad out an undergraduate Chemistry major in her last semester before graduation. Someone had been lighting fires in the dorm she lived in, and based on an FBI profile and some very ambiguous evidence they decided it was her. My RA was a friend of hers, so I had a perspective not available to people just reading the newspaper (yes, I realize the perspective was influenced by the source). From what I could see, there was virtually no "due process" in the manner in which the accusation was handled by the university, which was not at all in line with what one would expect for such a serious action. She was immediately kicked off campus, and not allowed to attend classes to finish her semester even with an "escort". The court action against her had more "due process" and she was found not guilty of all with which she was charged, but by that time her academic career had been seriously set back.
Howie Carr: 2020 Democratic candidates share non-working-class background https://www.bostonherald.com/2... (Via Boston Herald)
At the same time, we will be increasing our investment in the Tesla service system, with the goal of same-day, if not same-hour service, and with most service done by us coming to you, rather than you coming to us. Moreover, we guarantee service availability anywhere in any country in which we operate./quote?
Shifting all sales online, combined with other ongoing cost efficiencies, will enable us to lower all vehicle prices by about 6% on average, allowing us to achieve the $35,000 Model 3 price point earlier than we expected. Over the next few months, we will be winding down many of our stores, with a small number of stores in high-traffic locations remaining as galleries, showcases and Tesla information centers. The important thing for customers in the United States to understand is that, with online sales, anyone in any state can quickly and easily buy a Tesla.
I'm all for sticking it to cable companies but if this makes a serious dent in content creator's revenue
I'm beginning to think the dude doing this is right that everyone has forgotten that terrestrial broadcast TV is free for the public to receive and always has been. When local broadcast TV was first carried on local cable systems, it was a matter of convenience so that people didn't have to wire up both their own antenna and the cable box at the same time; this made the cable channels appear a more seamless part of the TV. For some people who lived in fringe reception areas, it made their picture better.
Once "digital TV" came along (ATSC), using the cable companies feed for your local terrestrial broadcast TV actually degraded the signal quality, because the ATSC bandwidth was higher than the channel bandwidth that the cable company wanted to devote to each channel.
The purpose of this isn't to "stick it" to the cable company. It is to allow people who are in the broadcast service area of existing (free) broadcast signals (but for whom reception is difficult (or for whom putting up an antenna is a problem)) the option of receiving the broadcast signal through a packet stream delivery mechanism instead of the over the air antenna. The major TV networks are already broadcasting this very signal FOR FREE in that service area, and a substantial fraction of the population is already watching that free broadcast signal.
It won't replace cable - it doesn't include the 100s of channels of cable TV content. It won't replace streaming services - it doesn't include the vast stored media libraries that they use to deliver on-demand content. It simply affords the user realtime, live access to the same broadcast signal that their local terrestrial (free) TV station(s) area already sending out.
I could never understand why the major networks didn't just offer direct streaming off of their signal sources over the Internet once the capability was available, instead of continuing to have local network affiliates in each major metro area spend $$$ on transmission facilities, the antenna tower, the land around the antenna tower, the electricity to operate the transmitters, etc. they could just send the signal out directly themselves, have a better idea of the actual eyeballs watching them than the Nielsen ratings could every provide, and be happy.
Vote for Seattle; let's get some Locast broadcast TV access going in the Seattle area! I threw in $100 - what will you put in?
I should know better than to engage with an Anonymous Coward, especially when you merely attacked the form of my argument, and not the substance. I'll bite, though:
The original poster used the term "economic hub" and referenced "Silicon Valley", "Wall Street", and Shenzhen, so a strict definition of the label of the hub as being synonymous with the name of a single city doesn't seem to have been established for the discussion. I used the label "Detroit, MI" as a familiar reference to the United States major automotive-related industrial area, not as a reference to the individual city. The auto industry in that area is spread out a bit more and includes not only the city of Detroit, MI; but also Flint, MI; Flat Rock, MI; Dearborn, MI; Wayne, MI; Lansing, MI; Lake Orion, MI; Sterling Heights, MI; Warren, MI; Fort Wayne, IN; Warren, OH; and even Toronto, ON. I've read this described as "the upper midwest" but thought that "Detroit" was more familiar a term in this context.
I believe that my contrast between the automotive industry in this area ("Detroit" or the "upper midwest") and the subsequent establishment of a new area of automotive industry in the southeastern United States, is valid. I also think that my use of the term industry or manufacturing hub to describe these areas is roughly congruent to the original poster's use of the term "economic hub" and "industry hub" as apparently synonomous terms, which is what the discussion was about, but if you insist please consider my argument to be amended to use the term "economic hub" everywhere I used the word "hub" modified by some other term. If have the time to read the paper that I cited, it describes this in much better detail than I can. Quoting from this paper: "Since the late 1980s, a number of high-profile automotive assembly facilitiesâ"and their associated jobsâ"have located in the southern portion of the United Statesâ"in a region which previously had a small automotive presence. Speculation is rampant that the automotive industry is moving south, lured by lower costs and large incentive packages. This has caused concern among the traditional automotive communities in the U.S. upper Midwest and southern Ontario that they do not have the necessary resources to compete for new automotive investment against the southern U.S. This paper examines what factors are responsible for this shift south, and whether the northern region can stem the tide and attract new investment."
The discussion isn't about whether a southern city is the analogue of Detroit, but whether it is possible to "clone" an existing industry hub. Specifically, I was addressing the original poster's statement that "I can't ever think of a time where somebody was able to clone an existing industry hub elsewhere." I believe that I have provided a reasoned counter-example.
Technically, you are moving the goalposts from the original argument. A statement was made that a new industrial hub couldn't just be cloned someplace else, because of a lack of physical proximity. I gave an example where it had been done, and quite successfully. I don't see how the fact that Mercedes and BMW are European brands changes the original analogy, although it certainly explains why those manufacturers were incentivized to create a hub/hubs outside of Detroit.
I think you will find that the parts of the southeastern US that have become involved in a new automobile hub for the US are quite happy with the outcome. Having lived there, I disagree strongly with what some might take to be your distain for the area. While it is true that some places in the southeast aren't as cosmopolitan as big well-known urban areas in the US, they are not at all like 3rd world countries (which I have also visited). I don't have the data at hand, but I don't think lax environmental regulations played a big role, either. I moved to the southeast from New England, and although it took me a while to adjust to a different outlook and rhythm of life, I can't say that either is better, just that they are different.
It's not just Alabama, anyway. Rather than re-write what someone else already wrote, I'll just quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_the_United_States:
"While the American automakers were investing in or buying foreign competitors, the foreign automakers continued to establish more production facilities in the United States. In the 1990s, BMW and Daimler-Benz opened SUV factories in Spartanburg County, South Carolina and Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, respectively. In the 2000s, assembly plants were opened by Honda in Lincoln, Alabama, Nissan in Canton, Mississippi, Hyundai in Montgomery, Alabama and Kia in West Point, Georgia. Toyota opened an engine plant in Huntsville, Alabama in 2003 (along with a truck assembly plant in San Antonio, Texas) and is building an assembly plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi. Volkswagen has announced a new plant for Chattanooga, Tennessee. Also, several of the Japanese auto manufacturers expanded or opened additional plants during this period. For example, while new, the Alabama Daimler-Benz and Honda plants have expanded several times since their original construction. The opening of Daimler-Benz plant in the 1990s had a cascade effect. It created a hub of new sub-assembly suppliers in the Alabama area. This hub of sub-assemblies suppliers helped in attracting several new assembly plants into Alabama plus new plants in nearby Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee."
The impetus for all of this was, naturally, economic. Tariffs and other costs associated with foreign production and importation of automobiles into the United States eventually made the prospect of local manufacturer not only possible, but desirable. The idea of this happening with other foreign-manufactured goods is far from crazy, IMHO. Wisconsin is trying to figure out how to get a piece of that pie to stimulate their local economy - isn't that one of the roles of government?
Look at the same issue in a slightly different context: If the deposition had been conducted using landline telephones, and by an accident of the phone system a third-party had been able to overhear the deposition, would a lawsuit against the landline telephone company have merit? Apple does claim that the FaceTime technology uses encryption, but I don't think they claim it uses encryption at an assurance level that would make it ok for use in highly sensitive contexts (e.g., would the US government accept FaceTime as an approved technical control for preventing the non-disclosure of classified communications [Confidential, Secret, or Top-Secret]?). Stating a claim that a technical control intended to provide a certain level of security in place is one thing. Claiming a particular level of assurance is another. Using a product with a claimed technical control but without establishing sufficient level of assurance of that technical control for sensitive information just shows how ignorant the claimant is. Disclaimer: I use FaceTime, and I like the fact that it uses encryption to make it less likely that my casual communications are dead simple to listen in on by bored techs at an ISP. I'm not so thrilled that Apple let slip into production such a painfully simple-to-exploit vulnerability, and apparently took the better part of a week to react to first reports. [Geezing] Many (many) years ago a I bought a Motorola (analog) cordless phone (when cordless phones were a big deal) because it claimed it provided a "secure" wireless link between the handset and the base. I happened to have a frequency-agile radio receiver that could tune in on the handset-to-base audio, and was disappointed to discover that it seemed to be nothing more than an audio frequency inversion, and that with a few minutes of "training" I found that I could understand the "secure" communications reasonably well. Could a lawyer have sued Motorola if the lawyer used this model of cordless phone, then discovered that it wasn't as "secure" as the lawyer had thought? I think not...
Futter me with a spanner; I should have actually read the article... I see elsewhere (The Register) that the lawyer isn't suing because he/she conducted a deposition over FaceTime that was accidentally disclosed (possibly) but simply conducted a deposition in a room where someone had an iPhone, and is now concerned that someone (gasp!) could have surreptitiously activate the microphone on the iPhone and listened in? Not knowing that cellphone microphones can be remotely activated by various bugs and tools is almost as stupid as I look in my original post where I failed to understand the article before going off half-cocked.
Keeping a reasonable number of low-skill, low-but-livable-wage manufacturing and service jobs around suddenly starts to sound like a decent alternative.
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Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Shenzhen, all these economic hubs generally crop up and persist in a single geography because of the benefits of physical proximity. I can't ever think of a time where somebody was able to clone an existing industry hub elsewhere. Plus it always seems like they're trying to recreate the past rather than the future.
I don't think it happens often, but it does happen. Look at the rise of an automobile manufacturing hub in the southern United States when Detroit, MI was the firmly entrenched existing industry hub. I believe that some government subsidies were used to get that going. Some background on that https://cargroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/The-Auto-Industry-Moving-South-An-Examination-of-Trends.pdf.
A relevant quote from the article I linked to above: "The incentives offered southern firms average $143 million per facility, or over $87,000 per job. In the early part of the 1990s, this level of incentives were unheard of, and sometimes very unpopular with the taxpayers--in fact the governor of Alabama at the time of the original Mercedes deal, was voted out of office as his challenger screamed corporate welfare and tax giveaways. However, as the decade wore on, more announcements were made that included huge incentive packages used to attract brand new assembly plants. Soon, many states took a closer look at the economic benefits from those facilities and realized that maybe incentives weren't such a bad idea to help attract these facilities and their accompanying jobs."
Looking at the current level of not only automobile manufacturing, but generally manufacturing job growth in the southern US, it seems it's not so crazy an idea when it succeeds. But the governor of Alabama still lost his job when he was an early proponent.
Look at the same issue in a slightly different context: If the deposition had been conducted using landline telephones, and by an accident of the phone system a third-party had been able to overhear the deposition, would a lawsuit against the landline telephone company have merit?
Apple does claim that the FaceTime technology uses encryption, but I don't think they claim it uses encryption at an assurance level that would make it ok for use in highly sensitive contexts (e.g., would the US government accept FaceTime as an approved technical control for preventing the non-disclosure of classified communications [Confidential, Secret, or Top-Secret]?). Stating a claim that a technical control intended to provide a certain level of security in place is one thing. Claiming a particular level of assurance is another. Using a product with a claimed technical control but without establishing sufficient level of assurance of that technical control for sensitive information just shows how ignorant the claimant is.
Disclaimer: I use FaceTime, and I like the fact that it uses encryption to make it less likely that my casual communications are dead simple to listen in on by bored techs at an ISP. I'm not so thrilled that Apple let slip into production such a painfully simple-to-exploit vulnerability, and apparently took the better part of a week to react to first reports.
[Geezing] Many (many) years ago a I bought a Motorola (analog) cordless phone (when cordless phones were a big deal) because it claimed it provided a "secure" wireless link between the handset and the base. I happened to have a frequency-agile radio receiver that could tune in on the handset-to-base audio, and was disappointed to discover that it seemed to be nothing more than an audio frequency inversion, and that with a few minutes of "training" I found that I could understand the "secure" communications reasonably well. Could a lawyer have sued Motorola if the lawyer used this model of cordless phone, then discovered that it wasn't as "secure" as the lawyer had thought? I think not...
Isn't the SE/30 supposed to be better?
Only if you add a Lapis Technologies PDS/30 color board to it with an external NEC multisync monitor.
It is obvious that this is the story behind the lost continent of Atlantis... the first self-conscious species to arise on earth were the Atlanteans. But they poisoned themselves with carbon releases 56 million years ago. Now all that is left is the geological record and some trace memories that must have been passed down, somehow, throughout the ages.
And even cheaper and still legal: shut it all off. The justification that illegal actions are ok because legal actions cost "too much" ignore the fact that (legal) inaction is even cheaper. Unless health/life/safety factors are at play, justifying illegal activity on an economic basis is highly questionable.
If I park my car in a public space, would that be legally "abandoned property"?
When I was young and stupid, I had a car that broke down while I was on my way home from a bar. I was able to safely park it well onto the shoulder where it was not in anyone's way. I was going out of town the next day and did not have the time to repair it (nor the $$ to have it towed or repaired for me). Stupidly I took the license plate off of it so that no one could *steal the license plate* (there was no chance they would want to steal the car). When I got back in town three or four days later I was *shocked* to find that my car had been towed at the request of the police, to an impound yard. When I called the impound yard and found out how much they wanted me to pay to get my car back, I let them know they could keep it, and went and bought another (cheap) car. I assume that after some legal procedure the impound yard was able to acquire ownership of my property and have their way with it.
Except Bird says that the code is overwritten!
If you read the letter from the EFF, you will see the rebuttal from the EFF that the Bird code is not overwritten, the kit has a replacement motherboard. The Bird code is removed when the motherboard containing the Bird code is removed. A new motherboard, owned by the new scooter owner (acquired legally from an impound yard auction) is installed in the scooter, making the scooter work properly for the new owner. No more infringing than putting new locks in a house acquired in a foreclosure auction even if the old locks were "smart locks" with code in them.