I think you're painting things a little dishonestly on the Soviet side there. Nobody at NASA ever got sent to Siberia because their project failed, you know.
The politics of Soviet space launches were just as convoluted as ours, and created problems of it's own. They were "doing science" to prove their own political and military points. Sure, NASA was a counterpoint to that, but don't act like both sides weren't playing a game against each other with their space programs and captured Nazi scientists.
The government provides the mission and funding, the private sector does what it does best.
Bribe senators & congressmen for contracts, inflate the costs to double or triple original estimates, deliver 20 years after spec while milking every dollar they can from the government? So, you want to turn NASA into the Defense Industry II?
Maybe if the poor downtrodden manufacturers weren't such soulless bastards that willingly sell untested barely functioning devices and drugs to the populace at sickening profit, the government wouldn't have had to step in with all their evil regulations and certifications.
Other nations are always free to attempt to invade the United States, just as much as any other nation, which is why everyone has a standing army or is allied with someone who does. There's this thing called 'war' have you heard of it? You are incredibly naive, so maybe not, do some research.
OMG an atrocity committed during an uprising, let me appear surprised for you.. there, can you see it? Total shock. On my meat carcass face.
Look, people do evil shit to each other without even the pretense of being a military force. I am not proud of that incident any more than I'm proud of the bajillion other incidents committed by the human race. I hope the soldiers involved were tried in court and sentenced harshly. I don't however find anything particularly unique about it though. Shall I name off some European atrocities? How about some Buddhist ones, I mean they're peaceful and chill, they'd never commit an atrocity right? Right?..right?
It's nice to have ideals and stuff, but you have to live with some realism too dude or life is just going to kick you in the balls and leave you crying.
Between 1911 and 1915, a series of political assassinations and forced exiles saw the presidency of Haiti change six times.[1] Various revolutionary armies carried out this series of coups. Each was formed by cacos, or peasant brigands from the mountains of the north, along the porous Dominican border, who were enlisted by rival political factions under the promises of money, which would be paid after a successful revolution, and the opportunity to plunder.
The United States was particularly apprehensive about the role played by the small German community in Haiti, which numbered approximately 200 in 1910 and wielded a disproportionately high amount of economic power.[2] German nationals controlled about 80 percent of the country's international commerce, owned and operated utilities in Cap Haitien and Port-au-Prince, the main wharf and a tramway in the capital, and owned a railroad serving the Plain of the Cul-de-Sac.[3]
1900 invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance (including the United States)
Hmm what was going on in China in 1900.. oh the Boxer Rebellion, Empress Dowager Cixi declared war against all foreign powers, the German envoy, Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler, was killed on the streets of Beijing by a Manchu captain and 473 foreign civilians, 409 soldiers from eight countries, and about 3,000 Chinese Christians took refuge in a fortified Legation Quarter.
Oh look, they declared war on us and attacked our diplomats & civilians...
1898 invasion of the Philippines by the United States
This one was a clusterf***. Unknown to the soldiers on the ground the US & Spain had signed a peace treaty the day before Spanish troops surrendered Manila to the US rather than the Filipino nationalists who'd overthrown the Spanish forces around the island. THEN this happened: "The June 12 declaration of Philippine independence had not been recognized by either the United States or Spain, and the Spanish government ceded the Philippines to the United States in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which was signed on December 10, 1898, in consideration for an indemnity for Spanish expenses and assets lost." Took us much too long to return the islands to independance (1946).
The whole deal was not popular at home with the Anti-Imperialist League forming over it. A ding, but not a punch sir.
1898 invasion of Puerto Rico by the United States; 1898 invasion of Spanish Cuba by the United States; 1898 invasion of the Philippines by the United States
You know what, I was going to respond to these individually but heck with it. The US was at war with Spain, these were all Spanish colonies. Colonies get invaded during wars, end of story.
1893 invasion of Hawaii by the United States
This one is another clusterf***. History really loves those, but in this one we were at best used by Industrialists to overthrow the Hawaiian Kingdom, at worst we stole it. Even Grover Cleveland was against it:
"the military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war; unless made either with the consent of the government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperiled lives and property of citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the government of the queen... the existing government, instead of requesting the presence of an armed force, protested against it. There is as little basis for the pretense that forces were landed for the security of American life and property. If so, they would have been stationed in the
Liberia was a repatriation colony established by former black slaves. Neither the US Government nor the US Military were involved in it, it was an entirely private concern. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
The US was involved in China, yeah, trying to compete with the long standing British stranglehold on China's products. We never had any sort of colonial cities or 99 year leases on Chinese islands (Britain, Portugal, Spain looking at you guys).
I'll even throw you a freebie that it was a military demonstration that opened up trade with Japan for the US, so what?
You fail to mention that the majority of our military use overseas was either because our trade vessels were attacked or we were openly at war with the Europeans who'd long ago colonized those areas.
The US has done some shady things over the course of it's time, but don't act like we're somehow morally bankrupt next to Europe who may be all "Human rights are awesome!" now but have more blood on their hands collectively than the Mongol Hordes. Who were also worse than us, btw. Go back to school and stop taking History courses filtered through Twitter.
You know what, I can choose to download and use the Kindle app or the Nook app on my iPhone. You know what I can't choose? I can't uninstall Apple's iBook app. For an afterthought it's pretty curious that they made sure to bundle it into iOS whether you wanted it or not.
As for the conspiracy, well that was just proven in court.
You're throwing quotes around but you're not actually saying anything. If you're going to respond at least don't half-ass it.
It's not Amazon's fault B&N have physical retail stores they choose to try to keep open. B&N wants to sell physical books, in their book stores. Their website, the Nook, etc are responses to Amazon, but they don't push it. They're not even going to make their Nooks anymore, since there are so many other Android tablets.
Apple has no interest in selling books. They want to keep their tablet competitive with Amazon's tablets and get their usual 30% take off the top of book sales, which Amazon doesn't have to pay them for since their app doesn't do in-app purchases. Apple resolutely can not tolerate 3rd parties making a profit through their devices without paying them off to top. Since Amazon can do sales through their website, circumventing the iTunes store tax, Apple had to make their own ebook app and rig the market in their favor.
The only reason Apple gained 20% share of the ebook market was because of the price collusion with the publishers, they otherwise expend zero effort in marketing ebooks or trying to grow that market because it's an add-on feature to the product that makes them money, the phone/tablet.
The only reason Amazon had a near-monopoly on ebooks was because they were the only retailer aggressively pursuing an ebook market. Any other retailer was equally open to compete against Amazon on pricing if they wished.
Apple, of all companies, could have chosen to compete against Amazon on price, they certainly have enough money. They could have given away access to an all you can read book locker just for buying an iDevice, if they wanted. They chose to be greedy and collude with publishers to ensure they got their 30% cut no matter what, at the expense of the consumer.
By your logic Target & Wal-Mart are treading on anti-trust grounds ever time they have a sale. When a retailer (like Amazon) buys a product wholesale (like ebooks) they have every right in the world to resell that product for whatever price they wish to set. Did/does Amazon have a large share of the ebook market? Yes, because they aggressively pursued that market and do more to market ebooks than anyone, the publishers included.
You do not have to have Kindle hardware to read Kindle books because Amazon freely distributes their reader software for numerous devices, just like you can put ePub reading software for Nook books on a Kindle.
You do know that video is not encoded in HTML5 right? That HTML5 is a markup language and the decoding is being done by the browser instead of a plugin? The HTML5 is just telling the browser "Hey here's some video, figure it out"?
I swear the way people toss around HTML5 as a magic generic term is worse than "the cloud".
I never claimed Foxconn was evil. I'm not even claiming they shouldn't automate. Society, however, does need to take a long hard look at ways to create opportunities for the offset workers of the future to find new liveable working conditions though. We're getting to a point where the costs of factory robots have decreased enough and their abilities risen enough that they can replace a significant portion of the work force.
Without some thought being put into what happens to those people after that, there will be some serious repercussions and telling ourselves "oh it worked out in the past" or "jobs will appear" as if by magic is foolishness.
Usually the people who spout things like "but it is survival of the fittest" are the ones willing to step over the dead homeless unemployed people laying in the streets while they clutch their copies of Atlas Shrugged tightly to their chests and tell themselves if all those parasites would just quit being lazy and get a job they would be better off. And then they order another round of layoffs so their stocks go up another 2%.
When we started automating our farms, there was the side benefit that industry was booming and needed those very same offset farmers to fill the factory floors. In that instance the transition was beneficial all around.
Now though, those factories have their doors welded shut and even management is getting the pink slip. There is no empty job market just waiting to absorb all those extra workers. Our governments can only make the jobless numbers go down anymore by removing the long term jobless from the reports, as though it's a personal failing and not a systemic problem.
Is increasing production efficiency always a good thing? We are quickly reaching the point where the only way to increase efficiency is to remove humans completely. So where do those humans go then?
Where do you find 1 million gainful jobs to replace all of the inefficient human labor they're replacing? How about 10 million, once all of Foxconn's partners and competitors have done the same robot transition to compete? Look at the US, we can't create enough jobs here to meet demands, and there are only so many STEM jobs available folks.
Are we prepared for a day when 50% of the world or more has to be on welfare simply because there are no jobs available to humans anymore?
What do any of those devices have to do with an actual reliable internet connection? Unless you paid for a tethering plan for your phone, they are all just as subject to your internet going out, they just don't stop working because of it.
To me, the problems with the always on connection is a bit more sinister frankly. With the mandatory Kinect watching and listening in 24/7, added to the always on internet connection and the knowledge that Microsoft has willingly and happily given the NSA everything they've asked for, it's not inconceivable to believe this is a handy Big Brother system. I don't think you even need a tin foil hat to figure that one out.
Q: Why require Kinect with every Xbox One?
A: The all new Kinect is now an essential and integrated part of the platform. By having it as a consistent part of every Xbox One, game and entertainment creators can build experiences that assume the availability of voice, gesture and natural sensing, leading to unrivaled ease of use, premium experiences and interactivity for consumers.
Certainly sounds like the system will not be happy if the Kinect is disabled.
Q: Can I party chat or game chat between Xbox One and Xbox 360 Live users?
A: No. Because the new services of Xbox Live and the all new Kinect were designed to power next generation experiences (not compatible with Xbox 360), party chat and game chat will not be available between Xbox One and Xbox 360 Live members.
So best encourage all your friends to buy an XBone or you won't be playing each other!
If the Ouya were just by itself, your prediction might come true. However the hardware of the Ouya is inconsequential, the real value is the Android ecosystem. All of the games and apps will transfer from Ouya to your phone or tablet to the Nvidia Shield or the Gamestick or any other Android capable machine.
Why apple thinks a bunch of external crap is prettier than internal drive bays, I'll never know.
Because when you add up the price of the $40 Thunderbird cables and the cut Apple will get for all the external hardware, it's very pretty for Apple's bottom line.
Slashdot Mirror
We're going to wind up with a generation of script kiddies who cannot function without a IDE and GUI.
I think the onion tied to your belt is starting to get moldy there.
I think you're painting things a little dishonestly on the Soviet side there. Nobody at NASA ever got sent to Siberia because their project failed, you know.
The politics of Soviet space launches were just as convoluted as ours, and created problems of it's own. They were "doing science" to prove their own political and military points. Sure, NASA was a counterpoint to that, but don't act like both sides weren't playing a game against each other with their space programs and captured Nazi scientists.
Those same politcos screwing with NASA's budget will get on TV and scream how bloated government can't get anything done.
The government provides the mission and funding, the private sector does what it does best.
Bribe senators & congressmen for contracts, inflate the costs to double or triple original estimates, deliver 20 years after spec while milking every dollar they can from the government? So, you want to turn NASA into the Defense Industry II?
Maybe if the poor downtrodden manufacturers weren't such soulless bastards that willingly sell untested barely functioning devices and drugs to the populace at sickening profit, the government wouldn't have had to step in with all their evil regulations and certifications.
Other nations are always free to attempt to invade the United States, just as much as any other nation, which is why everyone has a standing army or is allied with someone who does. There's this thing called 'war' have you heard of it? You are incredibly naive, so maybe not, do some research.
OMG an atrocity committed during an uprising, let me appear surprised for you.. there, can you see it? Total shock. On my meat carcass face.
Look, people do evil shit to each other without even the pretense of being a military force. I am not proud of that incident any more than I'm proud of the bajillion other incidents committed by the human race. I hope the soldiers involved were tried in court and sentenced harshly. I don't however find anything particularly unique about it though. Shall I name off some European atrocities? How about some Buddhist ones, I mean they're peaceful and chill, they'd never commit an atrocity right? Right? ..right?
It's nice to have ideals and stuff, but you have to live with some realism too dude or life is just going to kick you in the balls and leave you crying.
Between 1911 and 1915, a series of political assassinations and forced exiles saw the presidency of Haiti change six times.[1] Various revolutionary armies carried out this series of coups. Each was formed by cacos, or peasant brigands from the mountains of the north, along the porous Dominican border, who were enlisted by rival political factions under the promises of money, which would be paid after a successful revolution, and the opportunity to plunder.
The United States was particularly apprehensive about the role played by the small German community in Haiti, which numbered approximately 200 in 1910 and wielded a disproportionately high amount of economic power.[2] German nationals controlled about 80 percent of the country's international commerce, owned and operated utilities in Cap Haitien and Port-au-Prince, the main wharf and a tramway in the capital, and owned a railroad serving the Plain of the Cul-de-Sac.[3]
Huh, 1915, why ever would the US be concerned about German nationals up to hijinks right off the coast of the US? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
1900 invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance (including the United States)
Hmm what was going on in China in 1900.. oh the Boxer Rebellion, Empress Dowager Cixi declared war against all foreign powers, the German envoy, Klemens Freiherr von Ketteler, was killed on the streets of Beijing by a Manchu captain and 473 foreign civilians, 409 soldiers from eight countries, and about 3,000 Chinese Christians took refuge in a fortified Legation Quarter.
Oh look, they declared war on us and attacked our diplomats & civilians...
1898 invasion of the Philippines by the United States
This one was a clusterf***. Unknown to the soldiers on the ground the US & Spain had signed a peace treaty the day before Spanish troops surrendered Manila to the US rather than the Filipino nationalists who'd overthrown the Spanish forces around the island. THEN this happened: "The June 12 declaration of Philippine independence had not been recognized by either the United States or Spain, and the Spanish government ceded the Philippines to the United States in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which was signed on December 10, 1898, in consideration for an indemnity for Spanish expenses and assets lost." Took us much too long to return the islands to independance (1946).
The whole deal was not popular at home with the Anti-Imperialist League forming over it. A ding, but not a punch sir.
1898 invasion of Puerto Rico by the United States; 1898 invasion of Spanish Cuba by the United States; 1898 invasion of the Philippines by the United States
You know what, I was going to respond to these individually but heck with it. The US was at war with Spain, these were all Spanish colonies. Colonies get invaded during wars, end of story.
1893 invasion of Hawaii by the United States
This one is another clusterf***. History really loves those, but in this one we were at best used by Industrialists to overthrow the Hawaiian Kingdom, at worst we stole it. Even Grover Cleveland was against it:
"the military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war; unless made either with the consent of the government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperiled lives and property of citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the government of the queen ... the existing government, instead of requesting the presence of an armed force, protested against it. There is as little basis for the pretense that forces were landed for the security of American life and property. If so, they would have been stationed in the
Liberia was a repatriation colony established by former black slaves. Neither the US Government nor the US Military were involved in it, it was an entirely private concern.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
The US was involved in China, yeah, trying to compete with the long standing British stranglehold on China's products. We never had any sort of colonial cities or 99 year leases on Chinese islands (Britain, Portugal, Spain looking at you guys).
I'll even throw you a freebie that it was a military demonstration that opened up trade with Japan for the US, so what?
You fail to mention that the majority of our military use overseas was either because our trade vessels were attacked or we were openly at war with the Europeans who'd long ago colonized those areas.
The US has done some shady things over the course of it's time, but don't act like we're somehow morally bankrupt next to Europe who may be all "Human rights are awesome!" now but have more blood on their hands collectively than the Mongol Hordes. Who were also worse than us, btw. Go back to school and stop taking History courses filtered through Twitter.
Of course the citizens are left to fend for themselves but the prisoners are evacuated in air conditioned buses.
The prisoners are the direct responsibility of the State and therefore the State is liable for their health and well being.
You know what, I can choose to download and use the Kindle app or the Nook app on my iPhone. You know what I can't choose? I can't uninstall Apple's iBook app. For an afterthought it's pretty curious that they made sure to bundle it into iOS whether you wanted it or not.
As for the conspiracy, well that was just proven in court.
You're throwing quotes around but you're not actually saying anything. If you're going to respond at least don't half-ass it.
It's not Amazon's fault B&N have physical retail stores they choose to try to keep open. B&N wants to sell physical books, in their book stores. Their website, the Nook, etc are responses to Amazon, but they don't push it. They're not even going to make their Nooks anymore, since there are so many other Android tablets.
Apple has no interest in selling books. They want to keep their tablet competitive with Amazon's tablets and get their usual 30% take off the top of book sales, which Amazon doesn't have to pay them for since their app doesn't do in-app purchases. Apple resolutely can not tolerate 3rd parties making a profit through their devices without paying them off to top. Since Amazon can do sales through their website, circumventing the iTunes store tax, Apple had to make their own ebook app and rig the market in their favor.
The only reason Apple gained 20% share of the ebook market was because of the price collusion with the publishers, they otherwise expend zero effort in marketing ebooks or trying to grow that market because it's an add-on feature to the product that makes them money, the phone/tablet.
The only reason Amazon had a near-monopoly on ebooks was because they were the only retailer aggressively pursuing an ebook market. Any other retailer was equally open to compete against Amazon on pricing if they wished.
Apple, of all companies, could have chosen to compete against Amazon on price, they certainly have enough money. They could have given away access to an all you can read book locker just for buying an iDevice, if they wanted. They chose to be greedy and collude with publishers to ensure they got their 30% cut no matter what, at the expense of the consumer.
By your logic Target & Wal-Mart are treading on anti-trust grounds ever time they have a sale. When a retailer (like Amazon) buys a product wholesale (like ebooks) they have every right in the world to resell that product for whatever price they wish to set. Did/does Amazon have a large share of the ebook market? Yes, because they aggressively pursued that market and do more to market ebooks than anyone, the publishers included. You do not have to have Kindle hardware to read Kindle books because Amazon freely distributes their reader software for numerous devices, just like you can put ePub reading software for Nook books on a Kindle.
You do know that video is not encoded in HTML5 right? That HTML5 is a markup language and the decoding is being done by the browser instead of a plugin? The HTML5 is just telling the browser "Hey here's some video, figure it out"? I swear the way people toss around HTML5 as a magic generic term is worse than "the cloud".
I never claimed Foxconn was evil. I'm not even claiming they shouldn't automate. Society, however, does need to take a long hard look at ways to create opportunities for the offset workers of the future to find new liveable working conditions though. We're getting to a point where the costs of factory robots have decreased enough and their abilities risen enough that they can replace a significant portion of the work force.
Without some thought being put into what happens to those people after that, there will be some serious repercussions and telling ourselves "oh it worked out in the past" or "jobs will appear" as if by magic is foolishness.
Usually the people who spout things like "but it is survival of the fittest" are the ones willing to step over the dead homeless unemployed people laying in the streets while they clutch their copies of Atlas Shrugged tightly to their chests and tell themselves if all those parasites would just quit being lazy and get a job they would be better off. And then they order another round of layoffs so their stocks go up another 2%.
ideally nobody would need to work on needed output and could just work on arts, science, drinking etc...
Yes, because everyone is suited to be an artist of some sort and artists have always had a tradition of making a liveable wage.
When we started automating our farms, there was the side benefit that industry was booming and needed those very same offset farmers to fill the factory floors. In that instance the transition was beneficial all around.
Now though, those factories have their doors welded shut and even management is getting the pink slip. There is no empty job market just waiting to absorb all those extra workers. Our governments can only make the jobless numbers go down anymore by removing the long term jobless from the reports, as though it's a personal failing and not a systemic problem.
Is increasing production efficiency always a good thing? We are quickly reaching the point where the only way to increase efficiency is to remove humans completely. So where do those humans go then?
Where do you find 1 million gainful jobs to replace all of the inefficient human labor they're replacing? How about 10 million, once all of Foxconn's partners and competitors have done the same robot transition to compete? Look at the US, we can't create enough jobs here to meet demands, and there are only so many STEM jobs available folks.
Are we prepared for a day when 50% of the world or more has to be on welfare simply because there are no jobs available to humans anymore?
You need a Gold subscription to use those media features Microsoft was so proud of, like Hulu & Netflix.
What do any of those devices have to do with an actual reliable internet connection? Unless you paid for a tethering plan for your phone, they are all just as subject to your internet going out, they just don't stop working because of it.
To me, the problems with the always on connection is a bit more sinister frankly. With the mandatory Kinect watching and listening in 24/7, added to the always on internet connection and the knowledge that Microsoft has willingly and happily given the NSA everything they've asked for, it's not inconceivable to believe this is a handy Big Brother system. I don't think you even need a tin foil hat to figure that one out.
Oh! Found this:
Q: Why require Kinect with every Xbox One?
A: The all new Kinect is now an essential and integrated part of the platform. By having it as a consistent part of every Xbox One, game and entertainment creators can build experiences that assume the availability of voice, gesture and natural sensing, leading to unrivaled ease of use, premium experiences and interactivity for consumers.
Certainly sounds like the system will not be happy if the Kinect is disabled.
Well, I don't have that per se, but:
Q: Can I party chat or game chat between Xbox One and Xbox 360 Live users?
A: No. Because the new services of Xbox Live and the all new Kinect were designed to power next generation experiences (not compatible with Xbox 360), party chat and game chat will not be available between Xbox One and Xbox 360 Live members.
So best encourage all your friends to buy an XBone or you won't be playing each other!
If the Ouya were just by itself, your prediction might come true. However the hardware of the Ouya is inconsequential, the real value is the Android ecosystem. All of the games and apps will transfer from Ouya to your phone or tablet to the Nvidia Shield or the Gamestick or any other Android capable machine.
Why apple thinks a bunch of external crap is prettier than internal drive bays, I'll never know.
Because when you add up the price of the $40 Thunderbird cables and the cut Apple will get for all the external hardware, it's very pretty for Apple's bottom line.