And that's part of the core of the problem.The standard market mechanisms break down far too easily when it comes to something that is not only life or death, but also immediate. At a minimum, health insurance should not be for-profit, because the profit motives there are decidedly negative towards a good system that works to serve the community. We can try to pass laws to prevent those negative outcomes, but it's like choosing to ride a tiger while passing laws that tell the tiger it can't eat you. The tiger is still busy looking for any way it can to eat you once it thinks it can get away with it. We'd be much better riding a horse - or even a donkey. Sure, a donkey is obnoxious and ornery, and possibly lazy, but its ultimate purpose is not to eat you.
It's much the same with single-payer government insurance versus for-profit insurance. Sure, government run insurance won't be the most efficient or fast, but a for-profit company isn't looking to funnel those efficiencies to you the consumer, it's going to go to profits whereever they can manage it.
Yes - a strong currency is good for the consumers buying imported goods. It's bad for companies trying to export goods to overseas. Devaluing the currency is one of the measures that a country trying to kickstart its economy might take, to increase exports and tourism, and to boost domestic consumption by making imports more expensive. This is also why you see accusations of currency manipulation when the ratio is deliberately kept low for long periods of time, since market forces will tend to push towards a stable equilibrium of currency price.
Apple is in an interesting position here since it's both an importer and exporter, but it sounds like the balance of those accounts is still negative to Apple when the dollar is strong. It's probably a little more complex than that too, since you've got both the Yuan-Dollar and Dollar-Other currency (Euro, Pound, etc) ratios to consider.
From what I understand, it wasn't so much about making healthcare actually cheaper, so much as slowing the projected rate of increase from "Ludicrous" to merely "Ridiculous" or less.
Actually making it cheaper would probably have required a lot of things that were just not politically feasible at the time (like single payer/Medicare for all), considering how difficult even the messy patchwork of fixes that comprise the ACA/Obamacare was to get passed to begin with.
I wouldn't blame the news organizations entirely. The Israeli Energy Minister was serving up a nice heaping scoop of FUD and political spin, trying to portray what looks now to just be a garden variety ransomware infection (probably some employee surfing for porn on a work computer) as a big dangerous targeted nation state attack. Certainly, the news folks ate it up, and didn't bother to ask the questions that should arise when you hear wild initial reports like that.
The theory of H-1B is fine, the big problem is that it's not applicable at the scale it's being used for, because these companies keep trying to use it as a backdoor to hire all that sweet, sweet, cheap labor from overseas. Congress needs to do its job and crack down on these loopholes, and prosecutors/govt. agencies/etc need to go after the companies that are exploiting them.
IANAL, but here's my understanding (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Average citizens can't sue to have the law enforced per se, and there would be no direct criminal proceedings as a result. (Which doesn't mean some prosecutor couldn't decide to bring such on the basis of any evidence brought forth, but the citizens couldn't make him/her do it.) What they can do is allege that they have suffered harm as a result of actions which were in violation of those statutes, and seek monetary damages/etc. This is usually the sort of thing that follows a criminal case, but isn't explicitly required to.
Furthermore, they haven't been improving service in the large metropolitan centers, by and large. If they had been, whether you live in one or not would be the best indicator of faster service availability. Instead, the best indicator of faster service, regardless of where you live, tends to be the presence of outside competition, especially Google Fiber.
The major ISPs (Cable, Verizon, etc) have been able to afford upgrades for a long time, but they've preferred to push the money into profits instead.
Classic, physical bank heists may be dying out, but people are still robbing banks - they're just doing it online now instead. Why go physically, when you can steal millions from the other side of the world, where as long as you keep current to the bribes to your local crooked cops in the Former East Nowhere SSR, you don't even have to worry about getting caught. At least, not until you take a trip somewhere...
Someone actually did an edit that cuts some of the superfluous gungan scenes, and replaces Jar-Jar's and the Nemoidians' dialogue with more classical Star Wars alien speech (i.e. non-english) that's subtitled, and changed many of the lines to make more sense. It's amazing how much less shitty the result is. For example: https://youtu.be/KfQBdRcgizc?t...
It certainly doesn't fix all the problems of the film, but it's a noticeable improvement that just highlights how awful the original was, because it could have easily been better if he'd had an editor.
In theory, it would serve to make it that much more expensive until they could do so. Apple might not be able to to it today, but if they face a steep tax, they might conclude that it would be worth investing the money to build that additional infrastructure. (Not that I agree with Trump necessarily, but that's the way it would work, in theory)
While we're not likely to know the details for a while yet, I wonder if it might not have had something to do with trying to create a synthetic or artificial version that does the same thing, in order to get around drug war paranoid reactions to the "natural" version. It's always struck me as ridiculous that society tends to be so averse to the idea that something beneficial could also be pleasant, so we have to strip one from the other. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if doing that sort of thing led them to instead accidentally create something that was poisonous instead of helpful.
The difference is in the intended use. It's one thing to sell items that are for a general purpose, it's another to sell something with an explicit purpose. For instance, shoes isn't a big deal, unless the contract explicitly states something like that the shoes should have spikes for stomping dissidents in the head. If Cisco sold routers to the Chinese government, and the Chinese government used them for whatever, that's not necessarily Cisco's fault.
If on the other hand, China asked Cisco "Hey, what can you do for us to help us deal with squashing these dissidents and such?" and Cisco responded with a whole list of things they could do, and then were paid to do it, that's entirely different.
Also, the Tomahawk was used in both conventional and nuclear capacities, so the "they won't know if it's a nuke or not!" argument is BS. Now, with ballistic missiles they might have a point, since ICBMs pretty much were only ever used to carry nukes, but cruise missiles and other such weapons are a different story.
Nonsense. Lockheed Northrop Dynamics has assured the Department of Defense that the new Strategic-Kinetic Yankee Network contains the most advanced anti-hacking defenses, including not just intrusion countermeasures, but also the latest in artificially intelligent active defense. This advanced system will control all of the nuclear delivery systems, and is absolutely certain to be the safest from any attempt at outside intrusion. Yes, under the umbrella of safety provided by SKY-Net, we have nothing to worry about at all...
You joke, but this is actually a question on the customs declaration and entry form given to everyone arriving in the United States.
Of course, they don't actually expect anyone to say 'yes' - the idea (as I understand it) is to give the authorities one more thing to charge an actual terrorist with.
That's certainly a part of it. It's a lot easier to believe the propaganda when you're not directly confronted with the truth on a day to day basis. That doesn't make them any less wrong or delusional, but it's not unimaginable. People in general can bring themselves to believe some incredibly insane shit, especially when they've surrounded themselves with a lot of like-minded individuals. Studies have shown that pointing out the truth of the matter just causes them to become even more fervent about it, because by that point, they've made those falsehoods a part of their belief system, and attacks on those beliefs are the same as attacks on their very sense of self.
Even Putin isn't indiscriminately using force in any of the conflicts in the Ukraine. Even if no one believes that "it's really just the separatists, not Russian troops pretending to be separatists" bit, it's an important fig leaf of plausible deniability. Putin still seems to feel it's important to be able to pretend to be doing this stuff.
And it would be the same with this. Assuming the Russians were behind it, they'd likely be using this method in part because it obscures their connection to the point that, despite everyone thinking they did it, no one can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Which, if you think about it, is sort of the best of both worlds. You get the intimidation factor that comes with people not wanting to mess with you, but also without the consequences of having gotten caught doing it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here - this is the War Room!"
There's an easy way to figure out the answer.
1) Are the cable companies for or against this?
2) Adopt the opposite position.
And that's part of the core of the problem.The standard market mechanisms break down far too easily when it comes to something that is not only life or death, but also immediate. At a minimum, health insurance should not be for-profit, because the profit motives there are decidedly negative towards a good system that works to serve the community. We can try to pass laws to prevent those negative outcomes, but it's like choosing to ride a tiger while passing laws that tell the tiger it can't eat you. The tiger is still busy looking for any way it can to eat you once it thinks it can get away with it. We'd be much better riding a horse - or even a donkey. Sure, a donkey is obnoxious and ornery, and possibly lazy, but its ultimate purpose is not to eat you.
It's much the same with single-payer government insurance versus for-profit insurance. Sure, government run insurance won't be the most efficient or fast, but a for-profit company isn't looking to funnel those efficiencies to you the consumer, it's going to go to profits whereever they can manage it.
Yes - a strong currency is good for the consumers buying imported goods. It's bad for companies trying to export goods to overseas. Devaluing the currency is one of the measures that a country trying to kickstart its economy might take, to increase exports and tourism, and to boost domestic consumption by making imports more expensive. This is also why you see accusations of currency manipulation when the ratio is deliberately kept low for long periods of time, since market forces will tend to push towards a stable equilibrium of currency price.
Apple is in an interesting position here since it's both an importer and exporter, but it sounds like the balance of those accounts is still negative to Apple when the dollar is strong. It's probably a little more complex than that too, since you've got both the Yuan-Dollar and Dollar-Other currency (Euro, Pound, etc) ratios to consider.
From what I understand, it wasn't so much about making healthcare actually cheaper, so much as slowing the projected rate of increase from "Ludicrous" to merely "Ridiculous" or less.
Actually making it cheaper would probably have required a lot of things that were just not politically feasible at the time (like single payer/Medicare for all), considering how difficult even the messy patchwork of fixes that comprise the ACA/Obamacare was to get passed to begin with.
I wouldn't blame the news organizations entirely. The Israeli Energy Minister was serving up a nice heaping scoop of FUD and political spin, trying to portray what looks now to just be a garden variety ransomware infection (probably some employee surfing for porn on a work computer) as a big dangerous targeted nation state attack. Certainly, the news folks ate it up, and didn't bother to ask the questions that should arise when you hear wild initial reports like that.
The theory of H-1B is fine, the big problem is that it's not applicable at the scale it's being used for, because these companies keep trying to use it as a backdoor to hire all that sweet, sweet, cheap labor from overseas. Congress needs to do its job and crack down on these loopholes, and prosecutors/govt. agencies/etc need to go after the companies that are exploiting them.
IANAL, but here's my understanding (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Average citizens can't sue to have the law enforced per se, and there would be no direct criminal proceedings as a result. (Which doesn't mean some prosecutor couldn't decide to bring such on the basis of any evidence brought forth, but the citizens couldn't make him/her do it.) What they can do is allege that they have suffered harm as a result of actions which were in violation of those statutes, and seek monetary damages/etc. This is usually the sort of thing that follows a criminal case, but isn't explicitly required to.
Furthermore, they haven't been improving service in the large metropolitan centers, by and large. If they had been, whether you live in one or not would be the best indicator of faster service availability. Instead, the best indicator of faster service, regardless of where you live, tends to be the presence of outside competition, especially Google Fiber.
The major ISPs (Cable, Verizon, etc) have been able to afford upgrades for a long time, but they've preferred to push the money into profits instead.
Classic, physical bank heists may be dying out, but people are still robbing banks - they're just doing it online now instead. Why go physically, when you can steal millions from the other side of the world, where as long as you keep current to the bribes to your local crooked cops in the Former East Nowhere SSR, you don't even have to worry about getting caught. At least, not until you take a trip somewhere...
What was the one thing George Lucas told Mel Brooks he couldn't do with Spaceballs?
Sell toys.
Someone actually did an edit that cuts some of the superfluous gungan scenes, and replaces Jar-Jar's and the Nemoidians' dialogue with more classical Star Wars alien speech (i.e. non-english) that's subtitled, and changed many of the lines to make more sense. It's amazing how much less shitty the result is. For example:
https://youtu.be/KfQBdRcgizc?t...
It certainly doesn't fix all the problems of the film, but it's a noticeable improvement that just highlights how awful the original was, because it could have easily been better if he'd had an editor.
I am altering the release date.
Pray I do not alter it any further.
Call it Pluto 2: Pluto's Revenge.
In theory, it would serve to make it that much more expensive until they could do so. Apple might not be able to to it today, but if they face a steep tax, they might conclude that it would be worth investing the money to build that additional infrastructure. (Not that I agree with Trump necessarily, but that's the way it would work, in theory)
While we're not likely to know the details for a while yet, I wonder if it might not have had something to do with trying to create a synthetic or artificial version that does the same thing, in order to get around drug war paranoid reactions to the "natural" version. It's always struck me as ridiculous that society tends to be so averse to the idea that something beneficial could also be pleasant, so we have to strip one from the other. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if doing that sort of thing led them to instead accidentally create something that was poisonous instead of helpful.
On the other hand, with a group like that, they're probably all having one hell of a party in the afterlife.
Relax...
He's now on a beach somewhere, earning 20%.
The difference is in the intended use. It's one thing to sell items that are for a general purpose, it's another to sell something with an explicit purpose. For instance, shoes isn't a big deal, unless the contract explicitly states something like that the shoes should have spikes for stomping dissidents in the head. If Cisco sold routers to the Chinese government, and the Chinese government used them for whatever, that's not necessarily Cisco's fault.
If on the other hand, China asked Cisco "Hey, what can you do for us to help us deal with squashing these dissidents and such?" and Cisco responded with a whole list of things they could do, and then were paid to do it, that's entirely different.
Also, the Tomahawk was used in both conventional and nuclear capacities, so the "they won't know if it's a nuke or not!" argument is BS. Now, with ballistic missiles they might have a point, since ICBMs pretty much were only ever used to carry nukes, but cruise missiles and other such weapons are a different story.
Nonsense. Lockheed Northrop Dynamics has assured the Department of Defense that the new Strategic-Kinetic Yankee Network contains the most advanced anti-hacking defenses, including not just intrusion countermeasures, but also the latest in artificially intelligent active defense. This advanced system will control all of the nuclear delivery systems, and is absolutely certain to be the safest from any attempt at outside intrusion. Yes, under the umbrella of safety provided by SKY-Net, we have nothing to worry about at all...
You joke, but this is actually a question on the customs declaration and entry form given to everyone arriving in the United States.
Of course, they don't actually expect anyone to say 'yes' - the idea (as I understand it) is to give the authorities one more thing to charge an actual terrorist with.
Obligatory XKCD:
https://xkcd.com/670/
That's certainly a part of it. It's a lot easier to believe the propaganda when you're not directly confronted with the truth on a day to day basis. That doesn't make them any less wrong or delusional, but it's not unimaginable. People in general can bring themselves to believe some incredibly insane shit, especially when they've surrounded themselves with a lot of like-minded individuals. Studies have shown that pointing out the truth of the matter just causes them to become even more fervent about it, because by that point, they've made those falsehoods a part of their belief system, and attacks on those beliefs are the same as attacks on their very sense of self.
Even Putin isn't indiscriminately using force in any of the conflicts in the Ukraine. Even if no one believes that "it's really just the separatists, not Russian troops pretending to be separatists" bit, it's an important fig leaf of plausible deniability. Putin still seems to feel it's important to be able to pretend to be doing this stuff.
And it would be the same with this. Assuming the Russians were behind it, they'd likely be using this method in part because it obscures their connection to the point that, despite everyone thinking they did it, no one can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Which, if you think about it, is sort of the best of both worlds. You get the intimidation factor that comes with people not wanting to mess with you, but also without the consequences of having gotten caught doing it.