Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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Carly Is Out
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· Score: 1
Ever heard the phrase "Divided by a Common Language?"
That phrase refers to different, acceptable usages in different English-speaking countries. Sanders' use of the term "socialism" to describe his program is not accepted usage anywhere in the world.
As an American, I am telling you: in American English, as spoken by people who are not older then Hillary, Bernie's use of the term Socialist is perfectly acceptable.
It was actually popularized by the conservatives, who insisted on deriding the most trivial of Obama's proposals as "socialism."
In this case when Bernie and his boys say "Socialist," they mean Nordic Welfare state.... while b) moving the country left a whole lot in economic terms
Yes, and that is a deliberate misrepresentation. It's also not a new thing. Go read the National Socialist Program and you will find a large overlap with Sanders' programs, promises, and rhetoric. Like Sanders, they misrepresented their progressive and anti-capitalist program as a form of socialism.
That might be a perfectly valid line of argument in several countries.
But this is fucking America. No, we did not research the history of your silly little foreign socialism word before we co-opted it. No, we will not research it now that you have pointed out we do not fit into your silly little foreign box. We built our very own box, wrote "socialism" on it, and are quite happy there.
So, if Sanders wants to call himself a "national socialist", he should go ahead; a "socialist" he is not.
(Furthermore, Sanders does not actually advocate the Nordic model, which involves a massive financial sacrifices from the middle class and government interference that Americans would be in no way willing to accept. Sanders is peddling a fiction that has nothing to do with either socialism or the Nordic model.)
No shit a large welfare state requires taxes.
But, on the other hand, as a Clevelander in the Middle Class the best I can hope for for my kids (who do not exist, because in America you can only afford the little bastards if you are either a) poor enough to get some state support, or b) fucking rich) is a $50k tuition bill from a mediocre State University. Switching careers is a great theory that economists have, but in practice I tried that once so I have $30k in student debt and would only try it again if somebody gave me a really good guaranteed job offer. Many of my problems are due to my stubborn loyalty to the region where I grew up.
OTOH, if I was a Swede I wouldn't have gotten that level of debt from my first Masters so a second would be somewhat realistic, I wouldn't have to worry about ridiculous paperwork for healthcare while going back, nobody says "well of course your life sucks, you didn't drive 10 hours to a place you hate, if you were morally deserving of a job that paid $11 an hour you would move to Florida," etc.
As for Sanders. A lot of what Sanders is selling is not gonna work and he knows it. You don't force single-payer through the US Congress with a "revolution" that does not include a lynch mob and at least 50 dead Congresscritters.
Re:Hammerheads in Vermont
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Carly Is Out
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· Score: 1
None of those countries are socialist. They are Nordic welfare states.
Ever heard the phrase "Divided by a Common Language?" It's goes triple for political words, especially in comparative international politics, because what an Irishman thinks about Republicanism (ie: left economics, as practiced secularized catholics, plus a healthy distaste for the UK and especially the Queen) is in many ways the opposite of what an American thinks (right-wing economics, as practiced by anti-secular protestants, who have a not-so-secret crush on both the British Empire the Queen).
Socialism is even worse then Republicanism.
In this case when Bernie and his boys say "Socialist," they mean Nordic Welfare state. This makes sense to them because a) they want to piss the fuck out of the establishment, while b) moving the country left a whole lot in economic terms. And calling yourself socialist while supporting a Nordic Social Democratic welfare state does both.
Your appeals to any other definition of the term will simply be ignored as said Establishment trying to fight the 'revolution.' And to Bernie-bots "Revolution" doesn't mean we execute the ruling class, it means something much less wimpy. Apparently it's mostly about voting while pontificating pretentiously on the nature of the problems that bedevil the Republic.
Have you ever tried to replace a part for a PC Laptop from the manufacturer?
I'm not talking about the standardized electronic components (ie: RAM, HD), I'm talking about the stuff that's either a custom board or custom plastic.
Those price-lists are just as bad as Apple's, and it's generally virtually impossible to work your way around them through the company because you only contact them via phone and nobody at the Call Center in Bangalore has the authority to say "ok, this was our fuck-up, we'll code it in the system this way and it'll cost $20." OTOH I have gotten repairs from Apple, of daughter-boards to the main board, for $20. I have had them store my machine overnight, while it backed up to an external drive, because that was the only way to save my data from a bad boot sector. Because they have a physical retail location in the Cleveland area, where I can go and make reasonable requests that they have a high statistical likelihood of fulfilling.
It tends not to seem as bad on the PC side, because a) the companies are so terrible and ridiculously over-priced that there's a thriving secondary market, and b) it's generally possible to replace your entire machine for $200. But if you get the actual tech support guys, from the actual manufacturer, they will charge you an arm and a leg because they can.
Bricking a phone that's reported stolen and bricking a phone that still 99% works and is still in its original owner's possession are two very different things.
Like many things, this is clear in hindsight.
In the actual world of linear time, where we are currently forced to live, we whined our asses off that companies weren't taking cell phone theft seriously. We still have the right to complain they're taking it too seriously, but a lot of people on this particular thread are acting like only a sociopath could possibly think breaking phones with broken physical security features is a good idea. And that's stupid. We insisted something was so important that the world would end if it wasn't maximized, and now that we realize that was a wee bit hyperbolic we're blaming the poor fucks who took us at our word.
As for this policy, this is fucking Apple. They make $Billions convincing people the Apple walled garden is the only place anyone will ever need. They will do something to respond. I suspect it will be something along the lines of "if you get error 53, come into the store so we can fix it for a fee." The fee is unlikely to be $300. I'd guess $50.
Are you planning on making a counter-argument that includes something that is not a straw-man?
I didn't compare Apple to a tiny company, I compared it to Ford. And I explicitly said that the mark-up on this kind of part was hideous. If you manage to post a response that is anywhere near as untethered from my actual argument ("In real life for-profit companies that make proprietary parts always charge a huge mark up.") I will be forced to conclude you are agreeing with me and are simply too stupid to notice.
BTW, Apple doesn't produce chips. They buy chips, and they design, but they don't produce them. Therefore any argument based on the price of chips make about as much sense as claiming Ford shouldn't raise prices when steel goes up because the miners are still getting the same money.
I haven't said anything about build quality in this thread. That's a straw man you're insisting on bringing up.
Hell, your entire argument is a straw man. Any price list of replacement parts from any manufacturer is gonna sound ridiculous. Because the nature of manufacturer-sourced replacement parts is that they cost a fucking arm and a leg. For desktop components you might be OK, but Apple doesn't use those.
I have no fucking clue what you're talking about with "Apple certified hard drives" and I've used Macs since '92. There was a time a Mac HD cost significantly more then a PC one, but that was because Macs used technically superior, but much more expensive, SCSI.
I don't think you understand what I mean by commodity parts. A commodity part is one that you can replace with parts from any of several manufacturers and/or product lines without changing anything else. At all.
In 2010 the only machine Apple made which used any commodity components whatsoever was their desktop line, because that was pre-Trash Can Mac Pro. Everything else was (at a minimum) custom-fit to a very specific and exacting case design. Now it's all custom-engineered high-end laptop parts, and you don;t get those cheap from any PC Manufacturer.
Let me put it to you this way: I explicitly brought up the dreaded car analogy. A bumper is a couple pounds of specialized plastic that probably costs $10 to make, and costs your ass $150 to buy new from the manufacturer.
Yes, by the standards of a geek whose used to buying desktop parts that are totally interchangeable this is a total rip-off, because if Ford open-sourced the design some Chinese guy would make it for the aforementioned $10. But that doesn't mean said geek should act surprised when the exact same principle appears in the computer industry.
A Ford's bumper isa not actually very expensive to produce in massive volumes. If you were making 1 Billion of them a year your cost would be in the $10 range. But you're not making that many of them. So a) your cost is nowhere near $10, and b) you'd be a fool to charge $10.
You actually see this on the PC Side all the time in laptops. The chips are commodity-produced, but the case tends to be highly customized, so a board that has the same chips as something that would cost $5 on a desktop almost always cost Apple-level prices.
Which makes sense, given that Apple has not produced a machine that uses the equivalent of desktop components for literally years.
So, why couldn't it just disable the fingerprint input and require the backup passcode? Why brick the whole damn thing? Oh, right, Apple wants even MORE of your money...
Because if they did that, and some asshole nabbed your phone from the train station, you'd be freaking out that Apple made it so easy for him to pawn the thing simply by removing the sensor and swearing to "I just stole this" discount was actually a "the touch sensor broke" discount.
Don't get me wrong here. I;m not saying they shouldn't have some solution to the issue that does not involve bricking phones. But if your beloved Slashdot makes a point of repeatedly posting stories about how evil the cell industry is for "not bricking" phones it has reason to believe are stolen, then complaining when they do brick phones they have reason to believe are stolen is a bit silly.
Have you ever worked outside the desktop computer industry? Like, at all? Computer parts tend to be incredibly cheap because the Chinese are competing with the Koreans to make an extremely standard part for as little money as physically possible.
Everywhere else this is not the case. Either you have to pay for your own manufacturing plant to get the correct part, or you have to cannibalize it from something that used that exact part. The manufacturer will always charge you the "I just spent $500 million setting up a plant in Sichuan" price even if they are cannibalizing.
Cars, laptops, cell phones all work that way. The parts are worth much more then the entire product, particularly at the manufacturer's price. OTOH, it's almost always possible to make the same desktop Dell is selling for less then Dell is charging by using commodity desktop parts.
In those circumstances 20k libertarian activists should be able to totally revolutionize the state's politics, which will in turn mean that the national political scene has to deal with libertarian ideas in a much more serious way then otherwise.
It should be noted that the major political parties in New Hampshire are already upset that the Libertarians are bumping into their turf and engaged in a backlash against the Libertarians. If a mass immigration of Libertarians actually happens, I would expect that pushback to only get worse with even funds from national committees to get dumped into the state politics.
It is funny to hear candidates complain about the "damn Free Staters" and how their cushy re-election campaigns are thwarted.
The backlash is overblown. Look at it this way: The Free Staters are coming to NH because the decided it was the best, freest, most wonderful state in the country, and that the people there were great, but they want to make it better.
If somebody moved to your town and said "I love what you're doing here, but it would be great if you did more of it" would you be mad?
Probably if you were a politician. But a voter? Nope. Flattered is more like it.
These are activists. I believe the estimate for the current number of activists in the state is on the order of 2,000, soi if 20k libertarians show up, get jobs, and start activisting that's a BFD. They're joining the big parties, getting appointed to boards, filling phone banks etc. Which means that a) the actual candidates owe them shit, and b) if those guys screw up most of the people who immediately come to mind as replacements are gonna be Free Staters.
So it will be a slow process, on the order of a decade, but if even 5k of them make the trip (and 2k already have), New Hampshire politics will completely change.
Two very important things: 1) Virtually no people. 2) A libertarian ethos.
In those circumstances 20k libertarian activists should be able to totally revolutionize the state's politics, which will in turn mean that the national political scene has to deal with libertarian ideas in a much more serious way then otherwise.
That's the plan. And if they all actually follow the fuck through it will work. The issue is that getting 20k people to click on an internet link saying "I will move to New Hampshire in the future" is way easier then getting them to move to NH, much less getting them to move to NH and all agree on a single political program.
Why would any poor benighted fool pay money for a Porsche that didn't need to be driven? The entire point of their ridiculously inflated price tags is they're a joy to drive.
er, no. The point for most buyers is to own it, talk about owning it, talk about how much better it is than brand-X, and be seen in it. The actual driving is done in stop and go urban traffic where the only joy would be a self-driving car.
And if you make it self-drive you lose prestige because you no longer get to talk about how great your driver's car is. You might as well be in a Lexus or BMW.
Don't get me wrong here, in the unlikely event I start to drive I'll strongly prefer a self-driver (long stretches of road tend to put me to sleep after about an hour-and-a-half, which is bad at 80 MPH), but I'm not the target market.
Why would any poor benighted fool pay money for a Porsche that didn't need to be driven? The entire point of their ridiculously inflated price tags is they're a joy to drive.
And, interestingly enough, he's not the Republican candidate who got his start in the Dubya White House inventing that shit. That would be Ted Cruz.
The third wheel of the GOP trifecta-of-I-guess-Hillary-isn't-that-badism is the guy whose convinced that banning a religion from entering the country will pass Constitutional muster.
The logical implication of everyone having equal rights isn't that you get to vote for exactly the guy you want, it's that you get to be governed by the guy who compromised enough to get most of your neighbors to vote for them.
So, unless you're a boring-ass loser who has no opinions that are even mildly controversial, you will never have the opportunity to vote without holding your nose. And if you are said boring-ass-loser, then you'll probably hold your nose because you can't the level of partisan controversy inherent to the system.
Interesting. For me the most blatantly obviously unelectable person is Clinton, but the bottom line is that all career politicians are as corrupt as hell and are all untrustworthy. They need to be to even get where they are. At least Trump isn't a career politician and I think thats what is actually attracting most of his supporters to him. in Iowa, a state that is a very bad fit for Trump, he won second place and only a couple of percentage points behind Cruz who got caught putting a fix in, so I think your claim that Trump is so unelectable it hurts is very naieve, especially this early on.
Blacks hate Trump. His nativist shtik brings up some really bad memories. The passion has to been to be believed. He'd likely do worse in the black community then McCain, who got roughly 5%.
Latinos are mostly Mexican, and his nativist shtik involves a lot of bitching about Mexicans.
You add white progressives, and the GOP Donor class, and you've got a candidate who'd be lucky to break 40%.
Girls schools are where girls learn to be independent women. That's too Western for many of the locals.
The guys blowing up the monuments are, by and large, westerners. Lots of French and Belgians, but also quite a few Brits and no small number of Americans. They are fighting in Syria and Iraq largely because the West has no use for young men who never went to college, and tends to be really hard on unemployed brown men. At least this way they can be more then a pothead.
All this said, I don't think there's a particularly easy solution for any of this. Supporting the destruction of Israel would help a bit, because the unsettled nature of Israeli borders causes problems everywhere in the region, but it's not gonna solve everything, and there are obvious moral issues there. Redrawing the borders sounds good when PhD idiots say it, but if it was actually as simple as un-drawing the map the WW1 Generation and Victorians hashed out why have there been more failures (ie: Somalia, Ethiopia including Eritrea, Senegambia, the United Arab Republic), then successes (Tanzania) when the locals try it?
Some magical economic policy that allowed us to a) employ all young men in jobs with $20k a year and benefits, b) provide sufficient economic aid to third-world countries to let them catch up to our level, without c) raising taxes would do the trick.
There is no such thing as "Federal authorities" in Sweden. The only authorities are agents of the National government, which is not a Federation. There has been no evidence provided by anyone that US Authorities are involved.
As far as the "it's not rape outside of Sweden" claim, here's what Assange's own lawyer said in British Court: "Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. [She] says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly."
So he admitted to fucking a woman who was fighting him so hard he had to hold her arms back, and physically force her legs open.
If you'll recall the original Swedish Prosecutor actually declined to press charges, then the famous Marriane Ny over-ruled him. The appeal of the original decision was filed by the victims. Or, to quote wikipedia: "The preliminary investigation concerning suspected rape was discontinued by Finné on 25 August,[7] but two days later Claes Borgström, the attorney representing the two women, requested a review of the prosecutor's decision to terminate part of the investigation.[7][10]"
I don'; know about not leaking, but not having sex with woman you have to start "holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her" would be a pretty good start at avoiding legal problems.
Yeah, but in the US "contractor" is a very specific legal term with lots of important legal implications. An NFL team are not contractors, even tho they all have individual contracts, so they can have a union. Uber drivers and Taxis are contractors, so they can't really have a powerful union under the US Legal system.
If it's a New York Taxi then: a) Up until quite recently a $50-100k Tesla would have been 5% of the price of the medallion he needs to operate. b) He'd probably be able to make a mint staying in Manhattan all damn day. No need to recharge.
Accountability is actually a major part of Uber's legal problems.
The difference between an employer/employee relationship and a contractor relationship is all about who has the control. With most taxi companies the Taxi Company's entire role is renting out the car, and then telling them "At 6th and Wilkins there's a guy who wants to go to the South Side. Show up if you want to. Or pay us to rent the car for 72 hours while you drive the it toi Vegas for a night of debauchery, and then come back. We really don't give a shit."
With Uber it's different. They pay you extra for working certain times (giving them an element of control over your schedule). They throw you out of the system if you're late or piss customers off (giving them control over your income). Note the "piss off customers." Since customers can be ridiculously petty ("This guy spoke ebonics while wearing a Pistons shirt! So fucking unprofessional! I'll give him a three!"), this means that it is very hard to name a single element of an Uber-driver's career Uber does not insist on having some influence over.
Slashdot Mirror
That phrase refers to different, acceptable usages in different English-speaking countries. Sanders' use of the term "socialism" to describe his program is not accepted usage anywhere in the world.
As an American, I am telling you: in American English, as spoken by people who are not older then Hillary, Bernie's use of the term Socialist is perfectly acceptable.
It was actually popularized by the conservatives, who insisted on deriding the most trivial of Obama's proposals as "socialism."
Yes, and that is a deliberate misrepresentation. It's also not a new thing. Go read the National Socialist Program and you will find a large overlap with Sanders' programs, promises, and rhetoric. Like Sanders, they misrepresented their progressive and anti-capitalist program as a form of socialism.
That might be a perfectly valid line of argument in several countries.
But this is fucking America. No, we did not research the history of your silly little foreign socialism word before we co-opted it. No, we will not research it now that you have pointed out we do not fit into your silly little foreign box. We built our very own box, wrote "socialism" on it, and are quite happy there.
So, if Sanders wants to call himself a "national socialist", he should go ahead; a "socialist" he is not.
(Furthermore, Sanders does not actually advocate the Nordic model, which involves a massive financial sacrifices from the middle class and government interference that Americans would be in no way willing to accept. Sanders is peddling a fiction that has nothing to do with either socialism or the Nordic model.)
No shit a large welfare state requires taxes.
But, on the other hand, as a Clevelander in the Middle Class the best I can hope for for my kids (who do not exist, because in America you can only afford the little bastards if you are either a) poor enough to get some state support, or b) fucking rich) is a $50k tuition bill from a mediocre State University. Switching careers is a great theory that economists have, but in practice I tried that once so I have $30k in student debt and would only try it again if somebody gave me a really good guaranteed job offer. Many of my problems are due to my stubborn loyalty to the region where I grew up.
OTOH, if I was a Swede I wouldn't have gotten that level of debt from my first Masters so a second would be somewhat realistic, I wouldn't have to worry about ridiculous paperwork for healthcare while going back, nobody says "well of course your life sucks, you didn't drive 10 hours to a place you hate, if you were morally deserving of a job that paid $11 an hour you would move to Florida," etc.
As for Sanders. A lot of what Sanders is selling is not gonna work and he knows it. You don't force single-payer through the US Congress with a "revolution" that does not include a lynch mob and at least 50 dead Congresscritters.
None of those countries are socialist. They are Nordic welfare states.
Ever heard the phrase "Divided by a Common Language?" It's goes triple for political words, especially in comparative international politics, because what an Irishman thinks about Republicanism (ie: left economics, as practiced secularized catholics, plus a healthy distaste for the UK and especially the Queen) is in many ways the opposite of what an American thinks (right-wing economics, as practiced by anti-secular protestants, who have a not-so-secret crush on both the British Empire the Queen).
Socialism is even worse then Republicanism.
In this case when Bernie and his boys say "Socialist," they mean Nordic Welfare state. This makes sense to them because a) they want to piss the fuck out of the establishment, while b) moving the country left a whole lot in economic terms. And calling yourself socialist while supporting a Nordic Social Democratic welfare state does both.
Your appeals to any other definition of the term will simply be ignored as said Establishment trying to fight the 'revolution.' And to Bernie-bots "Revolution" doesn't mean we execute the ruling class, it means something much less wimpy. Apparently it's mostly about voting while pontificating pretentiously on the nature of the problems that bedevil the Republic.
Have you ever tried to replace a part for a PC Laptop from the manufacturer?
I'm not talking about the standardized electronic components (ie: RAM, HD), I'm talking about the stuff that's either a custom board or custom plastic.
Those price-lists are just as bad as Apple's, and it's generally virtually impossible to work your way around them through the company because you only contact them via phone and nobody at the Call Center in Bangalore has the authority to say "ok, this was our fuck-up, we'll code it in the system this way and it'll cost $20." OTOH I have gotten repairs from Apple, of daughter-boards to the main board, for $20. I have had them store my machine overnight, while it backed up to an external drive, because that was the only way to save my data from a bad boot sector. Because they have a physical retail location in the Cleveland area, where I can go and make reasonable requests that they have a high statistical likelihood of fulfilling.
It tends not to seem as bad on the PC side, because a) the companies are so terrible and ridiculously over-priced that there's a thriving secondary market, and b) it's generally possible to replace your entire machine for $200. But if you get the actual tech support guys, from the actual manufacturer, they will charge you an arm and a leg because they can.
Bricking a phone that's reported stolen and bricking a phone that still 99% works and is still in its original owner's possession are two very different things.
Like many things, this is clear in hindsight.
In the actual world of linear time, where we are currently forced to live, we whined our asses off that companies weren't taking cell phone theft seriously. We still have the right to complain they're taking it too seriously, but a lot of people on this particular thread are acting like only a sociopath could possibly think breaking phones with broken physical security features is a good idea. And that's stupid. We insisted something was so important that the world would end if it wasn't maximized, and now that we realize that was a wee bit hyperbolic we're blaming the poor fucks who took us at our word.
As for this policy, this is fucking Apple. They make $Billions convincing people the Apple walled garden is the only place anyone will ever need. They will do something to respond. I suspect it will be something along the lines of "if you get error 53, come into the store so we can fix it for a fee." The fee is unlikely to be $300. I'd guess $50.
Dude,
Are you planning on making a counter-argument that includes something that is not a straw-man?
I didn't compare Apple to a tiny company, I compared it to Ford. And I explicitly said that the mark-up on this kind of part was hideous. If you manage to post a response that is anywhere near as untethered from my actual argument ("In real life for-profit companies that make proprietary parts always charge a huge mark up.") I will be forced to conclude you are agreeing with me and are simply too stupid to notice.
BTW, Apple doesn't produce chips. They buy chips, and they design, but they don't produce them. Therefore any argument based on the price of chips make about as much sense as claiming Ford shouldn't raise prices when steel goes up because the miners are still getting the same money.
I haven't said anything about build quality in this thread. That's a straw man you're insisting on bringing up.
Hell, your entire argument is a straw man. Any price list of replacement parts from any manufacturer is gonna sound ridiculous. Because the nature of manufacturer-sourced replacement parts is that they cost a fucking arm and a leg. For desktop components you might be OK, but Apple doesn't use those.
I have no fucking clue what you're talking about with "Apple certified hard drives" and I've used Macs since '92. There was a time a Mac HD cost significantly more then a PC one, but that was because Macs used technically superior, but much more expensive, SCSI.
I don't think you understand what I mean by commodity parts. A commodity part is one that you can replace with parts from any of several manufacturers and/or product lines without changing anything else. At all.
In 2010 the only machine Apple made which used any commodity components whatsoever was their desktop line, because that was pre-Trash Can Mac Pro. Everything else was (at a minimum) custom-fit to a very specific and exacting case design. Now it's all custom-engineered high-end laptop parts, and you don;t get those cheap from any PC Manufacturer.
Let me put it to you this way:
I explicitly brought up the dreaded car analogy. A bumper is a couple pounds of specialized plastic that probably costs $10 to make, and costs your ass $150 to buy new from the manufacturer.
Yes, by the standards of a geek whose used to buying desktop parts that are totally interchangeable this is a total rip-off, because if Ford open-sourced the design some Chinese guy would make it for the aforementioned $10. But that doesn't mean said geek should act surprised when the exact same principle appears in the computer industry.
I think you completely missed the point:
A Ford's bumper isa not actually very expensive to produce in massive volumes. If you were making 1 Billion of them a year your cost would be in the $10 range. But you're not making that many of them. So a) your cost is nowhere near $10, and b) you'd be a fool to charge $10.
You actually see this on the PC Side all the time in laptops. The chips are commodity-produced, but the case tends to be highly customized, so a board that has the same chips as something that would cost $5 on a desktop almost always cost Apple-level prices.
Which makes sense, given that Apple has not produced a machine that uses the equivalent of desktop components for literally years.
So, why couldn't it just disable the fingerprint input and require the backup passcode? Why brick the whole damn thing? Oh, right, Apple wants even MORE of your money...
Because if they did that, and some asshole nabbed your phone from the train station, you'd be freaking out that Apple made it so easy for him to pawn the thing simply by removing the sensor and swearing to "I just stole this" discount was actually a "the touch sensor broke" discount.
It wasn't that long ago that half the stories on Slashdot were about how nobody would help people who had their phones stolen. The headline in that middle story is actually US Mobile Carriers won't Brick Stolen Phones.
Don't get me wrong here. I;m not saying they shouldn't have some solution to the issue that does not involve bricking phones. But if your beloved Slashdot makes a point of repeatedly posting stories about how evil the cell industry is for "not bricking" phones it has reason to believe are stolen, then complaining when they do brick phones they have reason to believe are stolen is a bit silly.
Have you ever worked outside the desktop computer industry? Like, at all? Computer parts tend to be incredibly cheap because the Chinese are competing with the Koreans to make an extremely standard part for as little money as physically possible.
Everywhere else this is not the case. Either you have to pay for your own manufacturing plant to get the correct part, or you have to cannibalize it from something that used that exact part. The manufacturer will always charge you the "I just spent $500 million setting up a plant in Sichuan" price even if they are cannibalizing.
Cars, laptops, cell phones all work that way. The parts are worth much more then the entire product, particularly at the manufacturer's price. OTOH, it's almost always possible to make the same desktop Dell is selling for less then Dell is charging by using commodity desktop parts.
In those circumstances 20k libertarian activists should be able to totally revolutionize the state's politics, which will in turn mean that the national political scene has to deal with libertarian ideas in a much more serious way then otherwise.
It should be noted that the major political parties in New Hampshire are already upset that the Libertarians are bumping into their turf and engaged in a backlash against the Libertarians. If a mass immigration of Libertarians actually happens, I would expect that pushback to only get worse with even funds from national committees to get dumped into the state politics.
It is funny to hear candidates complain about the "damn Free Staters" and how their cushy re-election campaigns are thwarted.
The backlash is overblown. Look at it this way:
The Free Staters are coming to NH because the decided it was the best, freest, most wonderful state in the country, and that the people there were great, but they want to make it better.
If somebody moved to your town and said "I love what you're doing here, but it would be great if you did more of it" would you be mad?
Probably if you were a politician. But a voter? Nope. Flattered is more like it.
These are activists. I believe the estimate for the current number of activists in the state is on the order of 2,000, soi if 20k libertarians show up, get jobs, and start activisting that's a BFD. They're joining the big parties, getting appointed to boards, filling phone banks etc. Which means that a) the actual candidates owe them shit, and b) if those guys screw up most of the people who immediately come to mind as replacements are gonna be Free Staters.
So it will be a slow process, on the order of a decade, but if even 5k of them make the trip (and 2k already have), New Hampshire politics will completely change.
Two very important things:
1) Virtually no people.
2) A libertarian ethos.
In those circumstances 20k libertarian activists should be able to totally revolutionize the state's politics, which will in turn mean that the national political scene has to deal with libertarian ideas in a much more serious way then otherwise.
That's the plan. And if they all actually follow the fuck through it will work. The issue is that getting 20k people to click on an internet link saying "I will move to New Hampshire in the future" is way easier then getting them to move to NH, much less getting them to move to NH and all agree on a single political program.
Why would any poor benighted fool pay money for a Porsche that didn't need to be driven? The entire point of their ridiculously inflated price tags is they're a joy to drive.
er, no. The point for most buyers is to own it, talk about owning it, talk about how much better it is than brand-X, and be seen in it. The actual driving is done in stop and go urban traffic where the only joy would be a self-driving car.
And if you make it self-drive you lose prestige because you no longer get to talk about how great your driver's car is. You might as well be in a Lexus or BMW.
Don't get me wrong here, in the unlikely event I start to drive I'll strongly prefer a self-driver (long stretches of road tend to put me to sleep after about an hour-and-a-half, which is bad at 80 MPH), but I'm not the target market.
Why would any poor benighted fool pay money for a Porsche that didn't need to be driven? The entire point of their ridiculously inflated price tags is they're a joy to drive.
And, interestingly enough, he's not the Republican candidate who got his start in the Dubya White House inventing that shit. That would be Ted Cruz.
The third wheel of the GOP trifecta-of-I-guess-Hillary-isn't-that-badism is the guy whose convinced that banning a religion from entering the country will pass Constitutional muster.
Isn't that the point of democracy?
The logical implication of everyone having equal rights isn't that you get to vote for exactly the guy you want, it's that you get to be governed by the guy who compromised enough to get most of your neighbors to vote for them.
So, unless you're a boring-ass loser who has no opinions that are even mildly controversial, you will never have the opportunity to vote without holding your nose. And if you are said boring-ass-loser, then you'll probably hold your nose because you can't the level of partisan controversy inherent to the system.
Interesting. For me the most blatantly obviously unelectable person is Clinton, but the bottom line is that all career politicians are as corrupt as hell and are all untrustworthy. They need to be to even get where they are.
At least Trump isn't a career politician and I think thats what is actually attracting most of his supporters to him. in Iowa, a state that is a very bad fit for Trump, he won second place and only a couple of percentage points behind Cruz who got caught putting a fix in, so I think your claim that Trump is so unelectable it hurts is very naieve, especially this early on.
Blacks hate Trump. His nativist shtik brings up some really bad memories. The passion has to been to be believed. He'd likely do worse in the black community then McCain, who got roughly 5%.
Latinos are mostly Mexican, and his nativist shtik involves a lot of bitching about Mexicans.
You add white progressives, and the GOP Donor class, and you've got a candidate who'd be lucky to break 40%.
Girls schools are where girls learn to be independent women. That's too Western for many of the locals.
The guys blowing up the monuments are, by and large, westerners. Lots of French and Belgians, but also quite a few Brits and no small number of Americans. They are fighting in Syria and Iraq largely because the West has no use for young men who never went to college, and tends to be really hard on unemployed brown men. At least this way they can be more then a pothead.
All this said, I don't think there's a particularly easy solution for any of this. Supporting the destruction of Israel would help a bit, because the unsettled nature of Israeli borders causes problems everywhere in the region, but it's not gonna solve everything, and there are obvious moral issues there. Redrawing the borders sounds good when PhD idiots say it, but if it was actually as simple as un-drawing the map the WW1 Generation and Victorians hashed out why have there been more failures (ie: Somalia, Ethiopia including Eritrea, Senegambia, the United Arab Republic), then successes (Tanzania) when the locals try it?
Some magical economic policy that allowed us to a) employ all young men in jobs with $20k a year and benefits, b) provide sufficient economic aid to third-world countries to let them catch up to our level, without c) raising taxes would do the trick.
How did this get +5?
There is no such thing as "Federal authorities" in Sweden. The only authorities are agents of the National government, which is not a Federation. There has been no evidence provided by anyone that US Authorities are involved.
As far as the "it's not rape outside of Sweden" claim, here's what Assange's own lawyer said in British Court:
"Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. [She] says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly."
So he admitted to fucking a woman who was fighting him so hard he had to hold her arms back, and physically force her legs open.
Citation needed.
If you'll recall the original Swedish Prosecutor actually declined to press charges, then the famous Marriane Ny over-ruled him. The appeal of the original decision was filed by the victims. Or, to quote wikipedia:
"The preliminary investigation concerning suspected rape was discontinued by Finné on 25 August,[7] but two days later Claes Borgström, the attorney representing the two women, requested a review of the prosecutor's decision to terminate part of the investigation.[7][10]"
I don'; know about not leaking, but not having sex with woman you have to start "holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her" would be a pretty good start at avoiding legal problems.
Yeah, but in the US "contractor" is a very specific legal term with lots of important legal implications. An NFL team are not contractors, even tho they all have individual contracts, so they can have a union. Uber drivers and Taxis are contractors, so they can't really have a powerful union under the US Legal system.
If it's a New York Taxi then:
a) Up until quite recently a $50-100k Tesla would have been 5% of the price of the medallion he needs to operate.
b) He'd probably be able to make a mint staying in Manhattan all damn day. No need to recharge.
Accountability is actually a major part of Uber's legal problems.
The difference between an employer/employee relationship and a contractor relationship is all about who has the control. With most taxi companies the Taxi Company's entire role is renting out the car, and then telling them "At 6th and Wilkins there's a guy who wants to go to the South Side. Show up if you want to. Or pay us to rent the car for 72 hours while you drive the it toi Vegas for a night of debauchery, and then come back. We really don't give a shit."
With Uber it's different. They pay you extra for working certain times (giving them an element of control over your schedule). They throw you out of the system if you're late or piss customers off (giving them control over your income). Note the "piss off customers." Since customers can be ridiculously petty ("This guy spoke ebonics while wearing a Pistons shirt! So fucking unprofessional! I'll give him a three!"), this means that it is very hard to name a single element of an Uber-driver's career Uber does not insist on having some influence over.