Sweet - more ways to kill my Sims! Actually, no. This method is slower than that; I can simulate global warming now by just taking the ladder out of the pool.:D
I say this rarely on slashdot, so if you are reading it, be proud. I agree completely with everything you just said. I'm not sure what other mechanisms exist besides rationalization, however; It is an umbrella term that describes any thinking process that normalizes something 'wrong' into something 'acceptable'. You go into more detail in your post about a couple thought patterns, but I don't see how it departs from the umbrella of rationalizations.
So they've finally solved the problem of repressive governments disconnecting citizens from the internet, preventing the free flow of information, being co-opted by large corporations, and a litany of jurisdictional issues that have caused many people's lives to be ruined?
"No, they just made it so this can only be done by those people, and not your people. Our people are, of course, better than your people, being authoritative, responsible, and all of that."
from scripted sequences to impossibly incompetent NPCs, and how they might be solved
You must be under the age of 30 to say that. The original NES, the first major standard ever created, thrived on making games that were cheap, painfully difficult (Battletoads, anyone?), and wasn't advertisement supported. The reason the industry is suffering is the same reason everything turns to crap: Money.
Producers have gotten the notion in their head that they don't just expect profit, that it's an inalienable right. Take linux for example; There are hundreds of command-line based programs that are there, for free, that can be combined and manipulated to perform almost any basic function. In the windows world, I'm expected to pay $30 for an application that can rename multiple files at once. It gets worse when they see dollar signs in advertising revenue.
Imagine Super Mario Brothers if it were made today; The entire first level would be a tutorial where it cheers everytime you press 'A', gives you an 'achievement unlocked' after you stomp 10 goombas, and at the end of the level asks you to 'upgrade' to a Premium Mario that would start every level in 'fireball mario' mode for only $9.99. Especially in MMOs -- microtransactions now mean you can buy levels, gears, whatever you want. Some guy who slaved through all the levels gets no respect when some 14 year old with daddy's credit card comes in, curb stomps him, and then steals all his hard-earned equipment, which he just drags to the trash anyway, because hey, I can just buy it with real money. ha ha!
Good games are about personal achievement, and being difficult enough to be a challenge without becoming tedious. Good games are intuitive and don't require a three hour introduction, and they are immersive experiences; You're thinking about your next move, not wondering if there's any way to unlock that next level without spending a weeks' worth of groceries on upgrades.
No... Money is what ruined games; Businesses don't look at it as providing entertainment anymore, it's revenue, it's eyeballs for advertisers.. they aren't selling a product anymore: You are the product of the modern game. And it shows: The quality of modern games is shit.
That's how they think. They don't see the dehumanization.
No, they see it, they just rationalize it;
They're just lazy! If they really wanted a job, they'd have one.
Poor people want to be poor.
They're oppressing themselves.
I am successful because of my ________, not because of luck.
Some are born to lead, the rest follow.
...
The rich overwhelmingly rationalize their behavior with the belief in a natural moral order. Survival of the fittest, predators verus prey, white versus black, strong versus weak. They view their every achievement through the lens of that belief, and inevitably conclude they have the fortune they do because they deserve it because of intrinsic qualities which have them at the top of the natural moral order. This thinking has strong parallels with monarchies and the concept of divine rule. It is also why the rich are overwhelmingly conservative in nature; If the difference between liberalism and conservativism was boiled down to a single ideological statement, it would be that "conservatives believe in a natural moral order, with some humans being inherently superior to others, and liberals believe in a peer to peer relational model, where individual achievement is the result of good teamwork."
If you have something others want, it's only natural as a defense mechanism to loudly proclaim you deserve it and shouldn't have to share; Whereas if you are one of the people that wants something you don't have, it's just as natural to proclaim others have to share. That's the curveball; This isn't liberal or conservative thinking, but whenever one is confronted by the other, the argument usually is an exchange of these two statements. So be careful when you hear statements similar to this, or pronunciations of "fairness" or "equality" -- they could be based on self-interest, not ideology.
In the end, neither group's ideology leads to its stated objective; Too much of either leads to societal collapse; With a strict social hierarchy, capitalism fails because workers cannot move into positions where their skills and abilities are most optimal; People who do not possess natural leadership ability would be leading, and people who did wouldn't; The net result is gross inefficiency. The reverse is also true; Large-scale democracy has never been possible in any context... it begins to break down with as little as a few thousand people, and consensus (majority vote) can take so long that the window of opportunity passes before action can be taken.
I would like to think that anyone who takes the time to critically consider these two ideologies, as well as the problem of wealth inequity, would come to realize that our system, as corrupt and inefficient as it is, is mostly the correct one. I say mostly because it has become too top-heavy; There will (and must) be a stratification of wealth -- there will always be poor people, and will always be rich people, however the majority of the wealth in the system should be concentrated in the middle. For as many millionares as are generated in a year, the number of people who are economically destitute should be the same; It should ideally resemble a bell curve, and with the GDP in this country, the median income is about $42,000 right now -- that's what most people should be making as well.
The system has become unbalanced; And it actually has nothing to do with ideologies, but instead is the result of investment. Compound interest is what has caused the problem -- and the solution is to prevent cash from becoming stagnant. There should be a limit to the amount of unsed assets a person (or organization) can possess; Companies and individuals shouldn't have billions in cash reserves sitting there, doing nothing. For an economy to grow -- and for wealth inequity to cease, money needs to change hands. There needs to be an increase in trade. It's macroeconomics 101, but sadly, it's been "overlooked" by certain social elements to the detriment of us all. That is the real culprit in our economy.
the spying and censorship is purely for the purpose of keeping The Party in power, whatever the cost to the people.
You just described the domestic policies of the top 8 economic powers of the world. Oppression = good business. Also, it strikes me as amusing that the Chinese have erected their great firewall and surveillance technology by copying already-existing technology from the United States. Now that the Chinese are ramping up their industrial espionage and surveillance... perhaps in response to seeing what happened to Iran with Stuxnet... it's no surprise they're looking to harden their infrastructure.
We're trying to do it here as well; But only for certain businesses and government entities. Private citizens are still left to hang.
Private organizations and citizens can collect evidence that the police cannot due to legal restrictions. This is not news. However, sharing with a non-profit can still violate contractual agreements; This is what CISPA aims to kill, along with the notion that companies can refuse until a warrant is served. By removing all risk, law enforcement can just look at a company and say "Gee, that's a really nice data center you have there. A shame it would be if we had to search it for drugs..." And viola, instant and total compliance -- company lawyers can no longer say there's a liability, so even the slightest coerceion makes surrendering the data the right business move.
* sex in contracts can be a no-go because of similarities to prostitution.
Exception: Marriage.
Most states allow a marriage to be anulled if a marriage isn't 'consumated' within a period of time. Divorce is also allowed (bonus: can be a reason to deny alimony) if sex is withheld by either party.
Hotmail login same as windows log on and windows store with CC? WOW windows 8 may flop so bad that they have to have a windows 9 next year or a windows 7.5
It won't have any domain authentication, no group policy, and not much as far as granular security (obviously). No, it was dead on arrival as far as business use is concerned, and Microsoft has already stated as much. Apparently Microsoft Bob, Windows ME, etc., and now Windows 8 demonstrates that Microsoft will continue its "Trek" release schedule; You know, that whole odd-even thing.:\
Because Windows 8 practically forces you to login with your Windows Live/Hotmail details to access features
So the Marketing department got the green light over the Security department during the development of Windows 8. Naturally, it is the Security department's responsibility to ensure that when the Marketing department does something stupid like linking account credentials between two separate administrative domains, it's Security's responsibility to sprinkle magic fairy dust over it.
Okay, I'd like my $80,000 bonus now, and a letter of resignation from the chief designer of the Windows Live security team please. Also, let the marketing department know that we'll need to find someone to spin the bad press away, you know, the usual crap about it being a beta release and then suing him for violating the NDA that says he can only report positive experiences with the beta.
They will disclose it in the EULA, that no one reads.
Of course! It's totally legal as long as you write it down. Forgot about that loophole in our industry. "You consented to have our developers have forcible sex with you right there in paragraph 136, subsection (c). You can't complain now when some 'strangers' showed up and held you down on the bed and had their way with you." Judge: "That seems reasonable. Case dismissed."
Governments tend not to like their citizens taking part in transactions that don't have a paper trail.
Yes, but what a government likes or not is immaterial; There are plenty of legitimate things and reasons for anonymous purchases, not the least of which is economic stability; If money cannot be exchanged anonymously, then that means that all transactions can (and will) be taxed. That means that the barter system will come back into play for any number of purchases, as well as complex tax shelters and evasion methods where goods trade hands instead of cash, or instruments are created that are "like" cash, but legally different enough to avoid taxation. Every organic system, currency being no exception, needs some slippage for the system to work; It's the same reason you have a clutch in a car... While most of the system is trackable and the majority of the money supply isn't physical money (ie, non-anonymous), that percentage that is keeps the rest of the system healthy and simple. Take that away, and all manner of complexities and incompatibilities develop as people scramble to create a custom solution to the problem.
Besides, governments have little to worry about; The movement and storage of cash is a cumbersome process, which is why large drug cartels don't keep their assets in cash-form; They convert it to something more durable -- goods, materials, services. It's why money laundering is such an important aspect of organized crime... it is a logistical nightmare to base your operation on cash. Cash is really only used for the point of sale, and once it has moved a few levels up the chain, it is converted into other things before being deposited in a bank or translated to a financial instrument (bonds, checks, stocks, etc.).
Forbes explains the details of their business plan but in short it has to do with tapping the GPU mining potential of gamers,
So 'in short', they're going to trojan a video game and turn a bunch of PCs into a botnet to generate bitcoins. But because it's a business doing this, and not some teenager in his mom's basement, they're going to make billions instead of go to jail? That sound about right?
If any other kind of software you ran was doing something in the background other than what you wanted to do, it would be called malware.
We really need better names in this industry. I read the headline and immediately imagined a robot falling over and convulsing while saying "IP conflict.. conffflict... unaaaable to.. reboot," while a self-satisfied and positively glowing Sun glanced over the top of his laptop and started giggling quietly to himself. But it could just be the caffeine withdrawl too.
GP's post is largely false and mimics the US Government's official interpretation of events, which has little to do with how the Philippine population was treated.
I never said anything about how they were "treated", I said the Philipines belonged to the US for about 40 years, and that's a true statement. There is no "interpretation" there.
We've known for a long time that subordinate monkeys have worse health and live shorter lives in general than dominant monkeys, but this is one of the first studies that describe how this actually happens, genetically and physiologically.
In human societies, we've known about this since the Industrial Revolution. -_- It's hardly a shocking finding that when you get the crap kicked out of you and live in constant fear, under stress, and working hard, you die sooner.
Ideally journals themselves would be replaced with a decentralized Web based system where
Dude, that was what the internet was first used for, before it became a cesspool of pop culture and marketing. It's been done. Decentralization leads to privatization. Privatization leads to populist thinking. Populist thinking leads to marketing. Marketing... leads to suffering.
Forget restriction on academia, etc. Science functions best with as many participants as possible sharing as much information as possible. These journals used to only charge a modest fee to cover distribution -- their function in that regard ended in the mid 80s with the introduction of mass communication becoming available to the individual at low cost, and a decade later the internet became a viable method of distribution.
These journals are counter-productive today; They're causing work duplication on a mass scale because research (that thing where you look up what other people have done about the problem, also known as 'step 2') has become so cost prohibitive it's cheaper (and faster, thanks to a lack of standardization regarding searching) to just move forward with doing it over again. If I were Queen of the establishment of science, I'd send the military in and charge the owners of those businesses with crimes against science and sentence them to 10 years hard labor as assistants to (cough)... undergraduates.
Your version of the Philippines' history is laughably wrong.
No, it's actually spot-on, and now I must insist that you provide citations for any 'facts' you present.
We gained ownership of the islands around the turn of the century, not by the war as you imply.
Umm, no -- you lost at exactly the turn of the century -- the philipine/american war was from 1899â"1902, and we won. You were owned by the US until the Treaty of Manila in 1946. You may recall that within that 44 year time period, both world wars happened. The islands were occupied by japanese forces during WWII, true enough -- but less than a year after the war ended and we'd licked our wounds, we returned and cleared the deck.
It's true that despite initially supporting the Philippines independence movement from Spain, we waged our own war against a rebelling populace after we received the islands in the Treaty of Manila
You imply that the struggle ended; the declaration of martial law in 1972, assassination of opposing party leaders in 1983, a rigged election in 1986 which eventually led to the incumbent fleeing to Hawaii with his cabinet, the removal from office of the current president in 2001 amid stories of corruption, and into the present now with several militant factions suspected of ties to terrorism including the Moro National Liberation Front, New People's Army, and the Abu Sayyaf.
The destroyed infrastructure was of the same pre-Industrial-Revolution kind that was largely being willfully destroyed elsewhere in the world
But it was destroyed. If I crash my friend's 20 year old car, I don't just tell him "Well, everyone else was junking these to, so this was totally, like, a favor to you." No, I help him get another vehicle.
In the interrim, the Philippines prospered alongside the US - we established a modern health care system rivaling our own at the time, ended slavery, formed a national education system and civil bureaucracy. Throughout the 1930s efforts toward releasing the Philippines as a free and independent nation were well underway
Yes -- because the US helped rebuild your country after the war, in the same way it helped the UK and France rebuild. You paint a picture of US neglect of the philipine islands, when in fact it had major involvement. Your country attempted to create free public education while it was still under spanish rule as early as 1863, but it wasnt until the 1930s, under US control, that the system was fully realized -- thanks in no small part to programs like JEEP.
After the official withdrawal of US troops, the Philippine Army )with large participation from underground movements) waged a guerilla war with support from what US remnants remained - against the unpopular Japanese-puppet regime. When we reinvaded in 1944...
If by "we" you mean the United States, Mexico, Australia, as well, then sure. But don't try and claim sole credit for that -- it was a 4 country effort.
You paint a picture of an invading US army laying waste to the country and then holding onto it during and after WWII, when the exact opposite is far closer to the truth.
No, I was trying to paint a picture of a country that, like many, suffered greatly during the world wars, and was assisted in its rebuilding by its ally (and owner), the United States, who after making sure the country could stand on its own two feet, ceded independence. Since then, we've done our best to render economic aid because the country is still not stable and over the past decade has seen a rise in militancy due in no small part to a failing economic infrastructure.
In the immediate, yes. However I suspect dozens more will follow them upon realizing that the company endorses firing people via e-mail using a form letter. It's a universally bad sign when a company has streamlined it's firing process to that degree. I worked for a company where the phrase "is no longer with the Company" was so common I had to setup an Outlook filter to mark them read and remove them from my inbox. A high turnover rate is an unambiguous indicator of bad management.
Oh, and just 'P.S.', the philipines right now is experiencing a rise in extremism amongst its muslim population due to high unemployment and low literacy; this program was enacted specifically to address that problem as an informal 'thank you' to that country for being a major supporter of our anti-terrorism efforts after 9/11, particularly in Iraq. So you could say with a straight face that Bishop is supporting terrorism in order to garner more votes in this election. Sick, isn't it?
Bishop says that USAID needs to find ways to assist developing regions without compromising the jobs of U.S. call center workers"
Does our esteemed congress critter realize we conquered the Philipines, and for awhile owned it after WWII? This isn't like offering education programs in Iraq; Some of them are still legally US citizens. We destroyed their infrastructure -- the least we can do is help these people improve their economic infrastructure, of which literacy is an excellent first step. The issue of corporations outsourcing to this country is a separate problem, and one that will not be solved by plunging these people back into illiteracy.
There is a word for men like Bishop, and that word is 'asshole'. This guy's screwing them over for short-term political points in an election year. They deserve economic aid; It's part of the treaty we signed with them along with a mutual defense pact. Plus with the crap in North Korea going down, can we really afford to be pissing on these people's backs? We may need their military support, and they'd be a lot more willing to give it if we were making good on our treaty obligations.
Slashdot Mirror
Sweet - more ways to kill my Sims! Actually, no. This method is slower than that; I can simulate global warming now by just taking the ladder out of the pool. :D
I say this rarely on slashdot, so if you are reading it, be proud. I agree completely with everything you just said. I'm not sure what other mechanisms exist besides rationalization, however; It is an umbrella term that describes any thinking process that normalizes something 'wrong' into something 'acceptable'. You go into more detail in your post about a couple thought patterns, but I don't see how it departs from the umbrella of rationalizations.
So they've finally solved the problem of repressive governments disconnecting citizens from the internet, preventing the free flow of information, being co-opted by large corporations, and a litany of jurisdictional issues that have caused many people's lives to be ruined?
"No, they just made it so this can only be done by those people, and not your people. Our people are, of course, better than your people, being authoritative, responsible, and all of that."
from scripted sequences to impossibly incompetent NPCs, and how they might be solved
You must be under the age of 30 to say that. The original NES, the first major standard ever created, thrived on making games that were cheap, painfully difficult (Battletoads, anyone?), and wasn't advertisement supported. The reason the industry is suffering is the same reason everything turns to crap: Money.
Producers have gotten the notion in their head that they don't just expect profit, that it's an inalienable right. Take linux for example; There are hundreds of command-line based programs that are there, for free, that can be combined and manipulated to perform almost any basic function. In the windows world, I'm expected to pay $30 for an application that can rename multiple files at once. It gets worse when they see dollar signs in advertising revenue.
Imagine Super Mario Brothers if it were made today; The entire first level would be a tutorial where it cheers everytime you press 'A', gives you an 'achievement unlocked' after you stomp 10 goombas, and at the end of the level asks you to 'upgrade' to a Premium Mario that would start every level in 'fireball mario' mode for only $9.99. Especially in MMOs -- microtransactions now mean you can buy levels, gears, whatever you want. Some guy who slaved through all the levels gets no respect when some 14 year old with daddy's credit card comes in, curb stomps him, and then steals all his hard-earned equipment, which he just drags to the trash anyway, because hey, I can just buy it with real money. ha ha!
Good games are about personal achievement, and being difficult enough to be a challenge without becoming tedious. Good games are intuitive and don't require a three hour introduction, and they are immersive experiences; You're thinking about your next move, not wondering if there's any way to unlock that next level without spending a weeks' worth of groceries on upgrades.
No... Money is what ruined games; Businesses don't look at it as providing entertainment anymore, it's revenue, it's eyeballs for advertisers.. they aren't selling a product anymore: You are the product of the modern game. And it shows: The quality of modern games is shit.
That's how they think. They don't see the dehumanization.
No, they see it, they just rationalize it;
They're just lazy! If they really wanted a job, they'd have one.
Poor people want to be poor.
They're oppressing themselves.
I am successful because of my ________, not because of luck.
Some are born to lead, the rest follow.
...
The rich overwhelmingly rationalize their behavior with the belief in a natural moral order. Survival of the fittest, predators verus prey, white versus black, strong versus weak. They view their every achievement through the lens of that belief, and inevitably conclude they have the fortune they do because they deserve it because of intrinsic qualities which have them at the top of the natural moral order. This thinking has strong parallels with monarchies and the concept of divine rule. It is also why the rich are overwhelmingly conservative in nature; If the difference between liberalism and conservativism was boiled down to a single ideological statement, it would be that "conservatives believe in a natural moral order, with some humans being inherently superior to others, and liberals believe in a peer to peer relational model, where individual achievement is the result of good teamwork."
If you have something others want, it's only natural as a defense mechanism to loudly proclaim you deserve it and shouldn't have to share; Whereas if you are one of the people that wants something you don't have, it's just as natural to proclaim others have to share. That's the curveball; This isn't liberal or conservative thinking, but whenever one is confronted by the other, the argument usually is an exchange of these two statements. So be careful when you hear statements similar to this, or pronunciations of "fairness" or "equality" -- they could be based on self-interest, not ideology.
In the end, neither group's ideology leads to its stated objective; Too much of either leads to societal collapse; With a strict social hierarchy, capitalism fails because workers cannot move into positions where their skills and abilities are most optimal; People who do not possess natural leadership ability would be leading, and people who did wouldn't; The net result is gross inefficiency. The reverse is also true; Large-scale democracy has never been possible in any context... it begins to break down with as little as a few thousand people, and consensus (majority vote) can take so long that the window of opportunity passes before action can be taken.
I would like to think that anyone who takes the time to critically consider these two ideologies, as well as the problem of wealth inequity, would come to realize that our system, as corrupt and inefficient as it is, is mostly the correct one. I say mostly because it has become too top-heavy; There will (and must) be a stratification of wealth -- there will always be poor people, and will always be rich people, however the majority of the wealth in the system should be concentrated in the middle. For as many millionares as are generated in a year, the number of people who are economically destitute should be the same; It should ideally resemble a bell curve, and with the GDP in this country, the median income is about $42,000 right now -- that's what most people should be making as well.
The system has become unbalanced; And it actually has nothing to do with ideologies, but instead is the result of investment. Compound interest is what has caused the problem -- and the solution is to prevent cash from becoming stagnant. There should be a limit to the amount of unsed assets a person (or organization) can possess; Companies and individuals shouldn't have billions in cash reserves sitting there, doing nothing. For an economy to grow -- and for wealth inequity to cease, money needs to change hands. There needs to be an increase in trade. It's macroeconomics 101, but sadly, it's been "overlooked" by certain social elements to the detriment of us all. That is the real culprit in our economy.
the spying and censorship is purely for the purpose of keeping The Party in power, whatever the cost to the people.
You just described the domestic policies of the top 8 economic powers of the world. Oppression = good business. Also, it strikes me as amusing that the Chinese have erected their great firewall and surveillance technology by copying already-existing technology from the United States. Now that the Chinese are ramping up their industrial espionage and surveillance ... perhaps in response to seeing what happened to Iran with Stuxnet ... it's no surprise they're looking to harden their infrastructure.
We're trying to do it here as well; But only for certain businesses and government entities. Private citizens are still left to hang.
Private organizations and citizens can collect evidence that the police cannot due to legal restrictions. This is not news. However, sharing with a non-profit can still violate contractual agreements; This is what CISPA aims to kill, along with the notion that companies can refuse until a warrant is served. By removing all risk, law enforcement can just look at a company and say "Gee, that's a really nice data center you have there. A shame it would be if we had to search it for drugs..." And viola, instant and total compliance -- company lawyers can no longer say there's a liability, so even the slightest coerceion makes surrendering the data the right business move.
Is it really a good idea to give hackers so much control over one of the world's biggest cities?
I doubt they'd do a worse job than the people running them now. >.
* sex in contracts can be a no-go because of similarities to prostitution.
Exception: Marriage.
Most states allow a marriage to be anulled if a marriage isn't 'consumated' within a period of time. Divorce is also allowed (bonus: can be a reason to deny alimony) if sex is withheld by either party.
Hotmail login same as windows log on and windows store with CC? WOW windows 8 may flop so bad that they have to have a windows 9 next year or a windows 7.5
It won't have any domain authentication, no group policy, and not much as far as granular security (obviously). No, it was dead on arrival as far as business use is concerned, and Microsoft has already stated as much. Apparently Microsoft Bob, Windows ME, etc., and now Windows 8 demonstrates that Microsoft will continue its "Trek" release schedule; You know, that whole odd-even thing. :\
Because Windows 8 practically forces you to login with your Windows Live/Hotmail details to access features
So the Marketing department got the green light over the Security department during the development of Windows 8. Naturally, it is the Security department's responsibility to ensure that when the Marketing department does something stupid like linking account credentials between two separate administrative domains, it's Security's responsibility to sprinkle magic fairy dust over it.
Okay, I'd like my $80,000 bonus now, and a letter of resignation from the chief designer of the Windows Live security team please. Also, let the marketing department know that we'll need to find someone to spin the bad press away, you know, the usual crap about it being a beta release and then suing him for violating the NDA that says he can only report positive experiences with the beta.
They will disclose it in the EULA, that no one reads.
Of course! It's totally legal as long as you write it down. Forgot about that loophole in our industry. "You consented to have our developers have forcible sex with you right there in paragraph 136, subsection (c). You can't complain now when some 'strangers' showed up and held you down on the bed and had their way with you." Judge: "That seems reasonable. Case dismissed."
Governments tend not to like their citizens taking part in transactions that don't have a paper trail.
Yes, but what a government likes or not is immaterial; There are plenty of legitimate things and reasons for anonymous purchases, not the least of which is economic stability; If money cannot be exchanged anonymously, then that means that all transactions can (and will) be taxed. That means that the barter system will come back into play for any number of purchases, as well as complex tax shelters and evasion methods where goods trade hands instead of cash, or instruments are created that are "like" cash, but legally different enough to avoid taxation. Every organic system, currency being no exception, needs some slippage for the system to work; It's the same reason you have a clutch in a car... While most of the system is trackable and the majority of the money supply isn't physical money (ie, non-anonymous), that percentage that is keeps the rest of the system healthy and simple. Take that away, and all manner of complexities and incompatibilities develop as people scramble to create a custom solution to the problem.
Besides, governments have little to worry about; The movement and storage of cash is a cumbersome process, which is why large drug cartels don't keep their assets in cash-form; They convert it to something more durable -- goods, materials, services. It's why money laundering is such an important aspect of organized crime... it is a logistical nightmare to base your operation on cash. Cash is really only used for the point of sale, and once it has moved a few levels up the chain, it is converted into other things before being deposited in a bank or translated to a financial instrument (bonds, checks, stocks, etc.).
Forbes explains the details of their business plan but in short it has to do with tapping the GPU mining potential of gamers,
So 'in short', they're going to trojan a video game and turn a bunch of PCs into a botnet to generate bitcoins. But because it's a business doing this, and not some teenager in his mom's basement, they're going to make billions instead of go to jail? That sound about right?
If any other kind of software you ran was doing something in the background other than what you wanted to do, it would be called malware.
We really need better names in this industry. I read the headline and immediately imagined a robot falling over and convulsing while saying "IP conflict.. conffflict... unaaaable to.. reboot," while a self-satisfied and positively glowing Sun glanced over the top of his laptop and started giggling quietly to himself. But it could just be the caffeine withdrawl too.
GP's post is largely false and mimics the US Government's official interpretation of events, which has little to do with how the Philippine population was treated.
I never said anything about how they were "treated", I said the Philipines belonged to the US for about 40 years, and that's a true statement. There is no "interpretation" there.
We've known for a long time that subordinate monkeys have worse health and live shorter lives in general than dominant monkeys, but this is one of the first studies that describe how this actually happens, genetically and physiologically.
In human societies, we've known about this since the Industrial Revolution. -_- It's hardly a shocking finding that when you get the crap kicked out of you and live in constant fear, under stress, and working hard, you die sooner.
A much more inviting target for cost savings would be the many specialized humanities journals that publish
Yes, well, let's help save humanity first before we help the fields dedicated to charting its demise and then doing the autopsy. :D
Will they get raped in the names of science ?
That would be unethical. Instead we'll study the effects of prolonged incarceration on the effects of men with a net worth over $5 million. :\
Ideally journals themselves would be replaced with a decentralized Web based system where
Dude, that was what the internet was first used for, before it became a cesspool of pop culture and marketing. It's been done. Decentralization leads to privatization. Privatization leads to populist thinking. Populist thinking leads to marketing. Marketing... leads to suffering.
Forget restriction on academia, etc. Science functions best with as many participants as possible sharing as much information as possible. These journals used to only charge a modest fee to cover distribution -- their function in that regard ended in the mid 80s with the introduction of mass communication becoming available to the individual at low cost, and a decade later the internet became a viable method of distribution.
These journals are counter-productive today; They're causing work duplication on a mass scale because research (that thing where you look up what other people have done about the problem, also known as 'step 2') has become so cost prohibitive it's cheaper (and faster, thanks to a lack of standardization regarding searching) to just move forward with doing it over again. If I were Queen of the establishment of science, I'd send the military in and charge the owners of those businesses with crimes against science and sentence them to 10 years hard labor as assistants to (cough)... undergraduates.
Your version of the Philippines' history is laughably wrong.
No, it's actually spot-on, and now I must insist that you provide citations for any 'facts' you present.
We gained ownership of the islands around the turn of the century, not by the war as you imply.
Umm, no -- you lost at exactly the turn of the century -- the philipine/american war was from 1899â"1902, and we won. You were owned by the US until the Treaty of Manila in 1946. You may recall that within that 44 year time period, both world wars happened. The islands were occupied by japanese forces during WWII, true enough -- but less than a year after the war ended and we'd licked our wounds, we returned and cleared the deck.
It's true that despite initially supporting the Philippines independence movement from Spain, we waged our own war against a rebelling populace after we received the islands in the Treaty of Manila
You imply that the struggle ended; the declaration of martial law in 1972, assassination of opposing party leaders in 1983, a rigged election in 1986 which eventually led to the incumbent fleeing to Hawaii with his cabinet, the removal from office of the current president in 2001 amid stories of corruption, and into the present now with several militant factions suspected of ties to terrorism including the Moro National Liberation Front, New People's Army, and the Abu Sayyaf.
The destroyed infrastructure was of the same pre-Industrial-Revolution kind that was largely being willfully destroyed elsewhere in the world
But it was destroyed. If I crash my friend's 20 year old car, I don't just tell him "Well, everyone else was junking these to, so this was totally, like, a favor to you." No, I help him get another vehicle.
In the interrim, the Philippines prospered alongside the US - we established a modern health care system rivaling our own at the time, ended slavery, formed a national education system and civil bureaucracy. Throughout the 1930s efforts toward releasing the Philippines as a free and independent nation were well underway
Yes -- because the US helped rebuild your country after the war, in the same way it helped the UK and France rebuild. You paint a picture of US neglect of the philipine islands, when in fact it had major involvement. Your country attempted to create free public education while it was still under spanish rule as early as 1863, but it wasnt until the 1930s, under US control, that the system was fully realized -- thanks in no small part to programs like JEEP.
After the official withdrawal of US troops, the Philippine Army )with large participation from underground movements) waged a guerilla war with support from what US remnants remained - against the unpopular Japanese-puppet regime. When we reinvaded in 1944...
If by "we" you mean the United States, Mexico, Australia, as well, then sure. But don't try and claim sole credit for that -- it was a 4 country effort.
You paint a picture of an invading US army laying waste to the country and then holding onto it during and after WWII, when the exact opposite is far closer to the truth.
No, I was trying to paint a picture of a country that, like many, suffered greatly during the world wars, and was assisted in its rebuilding by its ally (and owner), the United States, who after making sure the country could stand on its own two feet, ceded independence. Since then, we've done our best to render economic aid because the country is still not stable and over the past decade has seen a rise in militancy due in no small part to a failing economic infrastructure.
It will now be two people leaving the company!
In the immediate, yes. However I suspect dozens more will follow them upon realizing that the company endorses firing people via e-mail using a form letter. It's a universally bad sign when a company has streamlined it's firing process to that degree. I worked for a company where the phrase "is no longer with the Company" was so common I had to setup an Outlook filter to mark them read and remove them from my inbox. A high turnover rate is an unambiguous indicator of bad management.
Oh, and just 'P.S.', the philipines right now is experiencing a rise in extremism amongst its muslim population due to high unemployment and low literacy; this program was enacted specifically to address that problem as an informal 'thank you' to that country for being a major supporter of our anti-terrorism efforts after 9/11, particularly in Iraq. So you could say with a straight face that Bishop is supporting terrorism in order to garner more votes in this election. Sick, isn't it?
Bishop says that USAID needs to find ways to assist developing regions without compromising the jobs of U.S. call center workers"
Does our esteemed congress critter realize we conquered the Philipines, and for awhile owned it after WWII? This isn't like offering education programs in Iraq; Some of them are still legally US citizens. We destroyed their infrastructure -- the least we can do is help these people improve their economic infrastructure, of which literacy is an excellent first step. The issue of corporations outsourcing to this country is a separate problem, and one that will not be solved by plunging these people back into illiteracy.
There is a word for men like Bishop, and that word is 'asshole'. This guy's screwing them over for short-term political points in an election year. They deserve economic aid; It's part of the treaty we signed with them along with a mutual defense pact. Plus with the crap in North Korea going down, can we really afford to be pissing on these people's backs? We may need their military support, and they'd be a lot more willing to give it if we were making good on our treaty obligations.