...have people already forgotten that they have pretty much NEVER led the development of anything in terms of web browsers?
So IE8 won't support flash. So? That's like saying 'Disney won't support (random new movie format)'. Sounds impressive, unless you actually know that they've never led tech development...ever.
In the history of web clients, MS has constantly dragged their feet and been a reluctant clumsy participant, adopting technology and systems well after everyone else has done so, and then doing it poorly for at least a few iterations.
It ultimately depends if the porn industry accepts that html5 is more advantageous for them, or if flash works well enough. If porn is delivered by flash, flash will live on.
I know it seems like an odd complaint these days, but my issue with USB connectors - pretty much all of them - is that I don't understand why they don't have a more obvious bias.
It's not clear which side of the plug is up.
Oh sure, if you are looking at it in bright light, you can USUALLY tell clearly. But if you have bad vision, or are trying to put the cable in a blind spot (we're never plugging in cables that are hard to see, under desks, in the dark, or all three, are we?) it's pretty much a 50% chance if you have the plug right side up.
With the micro usb it's even worse, given their delicacy putting them into a phone, and the ease that one might misinterpret the "not fitting this way" with "not fitting because I'm not pushing hard enough".
Why didn't they make the USB plug format a triangle or some other shape that has a clear "top" and "bottom".?
Middle income Americans go to Canada for their pharmaceuticals. Thousands of US patients of all types go to Mexico and points south for all sorts of surgeries that aren't (yet, or ever) available in the US. This story points to wealthy Americans going elsewhere for not-yet-approved 'edgy' radiological treatments, or stem cell therapies not practiced here.
Some on the left are going to see only that last one, and once again blame Bush for crippling US stem cell research. The fact is that is only seeing a single symptom of a more chronic condition: when you have a system crippled by politics and paralyzed by excessive litigation. when ideas, procedures, and research is circumscribed not by practicality or technology, but by policy set by science-illiterate representatives voted into their positions by a science-ignorant public for decades...well, what did we expect?
Clearly, some Americans are choosing with their WALLETS that value is more important than litiginous recourse - if you're buying a cut-rate surgery in Mexico, you're not really scrutinizing their malpractice coverage. If you're buying your heart medication from some website *.ca, FDA approval is clearly not your primary concern.
Don't get me wrong; anyone conversant with US history will recognize the consistency here. The US has always has a population that is non-intellectual, I believe even de Tocqueville commented on that in 1830. But like so many things in American popular culture, it seems the currents have somehow lately surged to tidal waves that threaten to swamp the whole boat.
Then again, that could just be me shouting "get off my lawn" like so many generations before...
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/09/13/2111210/Ask-Slashdot-Best-Use-For-a-New-Supercomputing-Cluster...who posted that he was allegedly just getting the budget to build "...the largest x86_64-based supercomputer on the east coast of the U.S. (at least until someone takes the title away from us). It's spec'ed to start with 1200 dual-socket six-core servers..." but apparently has no idea what he's going to use it for.
If true, he'll have lots of cycles to sell for cheap and/or his organization is clearly not value-oriented so he'll probably sell time without much concern over price.
I don't recall an entire political class of eco-marxists being validated by an astronomer's theory (after being wrong so very many times about their eco-eschatological predictions regarding DDT, fresh water, oil, landfill space, population, food, etc.)
I don't recall ever reading emails from astronomers colluding to manipulate the peer-review process. Nor do I recall astronomers hiding their algorithms, or threatening to delete files in case of a FOIA inquiry.
I don't recall astronomers ever making extraordinary claims...and then "accidentally losing" the raw data, yet still insisting that they be taken seriously.
I don't recall that if someone did disagree with an astronomer's interpretation, that he was immediately pilloried as some sort of shill for some vague 'corporate interest'.
I don't recall that a leading European lab tested a major critique of an astronomer's theory, and when finding the critique was in fact spot-on, the lab's director suddenly instructed the scientists involved "not to draw conclusions".
I was somewhat with you, up until this statement: "But remember that we still live in the amazing times when the mention of undisputed facts about civilian deaths is done only by protesters and other marginalized people. Some undisputed facts are just too inconvenient when we want to live with our delusions, so they become unmentionable. "
Would that be the 'undisputed fact' that war and violence is an unavoidable part of the human condition? This is historical fact, and undisputable. So would the people in denial really be the ones that are making and enjoying video games whose subject is war, or would it be the strident whiners who somehow* hold the belief that one can live a human life without violence, without war? *most likely an attitude only allowed by the luxury of living in a society protected by the overwhelming might of the US military (whether you're American, or European/Japanese/Taiwanese/Canadian who all are directly protected, or people generally across the rest of the world who benefit by and large from the Pax Americana) - a 60-year span absent great-power war that is unmatched in modern history, and made possible by weapons of such staggering violence that they could literally end the human species.
To suggest something so intrinsic to human nature wouldn't be reflected in our entertainment is farcical.
Personally, I think "war" games are more generally about entertainment, and less about the "glorification" of war than you apparently do, but I concede that you are indeed correct for a segment of society.
So in essence you're simply agreeing - that sales taxes on internet sales are a socialistic 'field-leveler' at best, or punitive behavior-modifier at worst. In no case is the tax simply a tax: something taken in small amounts from the mass population to pay for a necessary function of government.
Is that even constitutional? I'd suggest that there's at least an interpretation of the commerce clause that would recognize ANY state's action to disincline a private citizen from doing business with a firm in another state SOLELY because that business isn't a "local" business is utterly unconstitutional. In that sense, it's a sort of systemic internal tariff on business from any of the 49 other states, and I'm pretty certain internal tariffs are absolutely prohibited. (State sales taxes are a case of taxation with representation - the citizens have directly or indirectly through their representatives voted for the imposition of their own sales taxes; extra-state entities are having it applied through force of law, with no such recourse, thus they are critically different circumstances, even though they are simply the broad application of a local rule.)
Is that really what we want our tax policy to do? I'm sure many of readers will agree that's a legitimate role of tax policy. Personally, I'd prefer my government a little more transparent: if they need funds to operate government, then tax me and show me what it's going for. If they want to punish particular behaviors, make it clear that the fee being applied is for that purpose - don't cloak it in a mask of 'necessary' taxation when it isn't.
You either missed or are avoiding my point. I don't have an issue with taxes per se.
My question was about ONLINE sales.
So for your example: the locality has a 2% bump to sales tax on food in that municipal region to pay for their stadium. Great, presumably democratically-elected representatives agreed to that, on the premise that the increased consumer traffic in the area will benefit everyone generally - restaurants, bookstores, car dealers, all commercial enterprises, which will improve the community generally. No problem there. The stadium is what the community "gets" for the increased taxes.
But if I *happen* to be riding in a car through that community and using my laptop, and I buy a book on Amazon - why in the HECK should I (morally) pay any sales tax at all? It's no longer a democratic quid-pro-quo.
Unfortunately, you're incorrect: the IRS even taxes BARTERING at a calculated value.
http://money.howstuffworks.com/bartering4.htm "In a swap, both parties have to list the market value of what they received as taxable income. This means that commercial and corporate bartering exchanges require filing a tax form -- a 1099-B, "Proceeds from Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions""
I'm not saying that taxation is intrinsically unfair, that would be crazy. We have to pay for the services and things that government provides. What I object to is the ability of our legislators to add a tax here, a user fee there, and another tax there, without ever being called to JUSTIFY it with something more substantial than "...all those services government provides..."
In case anyone forgot, the US gov't - and by extension the states - aren't automagically entitled to a piece of everything.
Property taxes are generally to provide for local services, police, fire, streets, education. Income taxes are generally meant to fund the operation of government, and its (allegedly) limited functions. Gas taxes are essentially a user fee, to fund use of the highway system (and ironically to help fund the poor struggling oil companies through tax breaks). Sales taxes are likewise LOCAL in function - they're justified by the 'infrastructure' that allows commerce to happen.
So why should internet retailers pay local or state sales tax? Everything's already been paid for at least once.
In terms of the bandwidth needed to secure the transaction and the shopper, both the shopper (through his internet fees) and the vendor (through his bandwidth charges, etc) are already paying for the hardware - wires, property easements, hefty communication taxes. In terms of shipping the goods from the vendor to the customer, someone on one end or the other is paying postage that supposedly already covers this. The seller, through the price of his goods, covers his business costs, property taxes (and the concomitant services already covered therein), etc.
About the only thing that isn't explicitly or implicitly paid for in an internet sale is the bureaucracy involved in administering, levying, and collecting the tax. Put another way: without internet sales existing, government operates, and provides a certain level of services to the public. This should be covered by tax revenues. Now add internet sales to the picture. What specific service is the state providing that it didn't provide before? I can't think of a one. Sure, the police have started branching out their pedo squads to the interwebs, and the state Attorneys General have some more fraud cases to investigate, but I doubt either of those functions have been a net increase in manpower or services - rather, they've drawn resources from other functions already performed to add these to the mix.
Yes, cue the Liberal Left posters who cheerfully want to pay more taxes. I invite them to do so. But the fact is that the US and State governments are not entitled by their very existence to a piece of every transaction that takes place in this country.
We the people need to fund our government adequately, and we do so through a varied panoply of taxes. But a bewildering array of taxes doesn't mean that we need to sit back passively and let ourselves be double-dipped just because legislators have built too confusing a structure to figure out.
Marx was right? Unless you specify about what, that's an empty statement, meaning nothing.
He made a lot of statements and drew lots of conclusions. Even diehard antiCommunists have always agreed that he got SOME things right - in fact, his insight of looking at societies from the perspective of economic strata was brilliant. Nobody's argued that, I believe.
But his ultimate assertion that societies would evolve inexorably toward a communist utopia remains absurd.
How will they actually test the viability of 'intelligent traffic systems' with no traffic?
In fact, most of those mentioned systems are about the interaction of that technology WITH PEOPLE in an urban environment. Just an empty urban environment doesn't get you much?
We will replicate ourselves until we exhaust the ability of our niche to sustain us (in which case we die off down to a sustainable level), or some sort of predation takes place (disease, vampires, zombies, aliens) to do the same thing.
Or, until Disney cameramen chase us off a cliff into the sea.
I'm not sure why we are so certain that we're "different" from every other animal. As far as I can tell, despite a very thin veneer of non-instinctual behavior that we call "civilization" we respond in large scales predictably like most other social animals. (shrug)
Look at the bulk of mail you get over the week in the mailbox.
For us, it's about 80% junkmail. Of the 20% that matters, probably 17-18 points of that are bills, which could easily come as email, but in any case don't (or shouldn't) require first-class handling. The other 2 points are miscellaneous mail that matters for one reason or another - magazines, notifications, netflix, etc.
Do the postage charges for junk mail really cover the costs? I'd definitely agree that the bulk rates can float above inflation - that's a commercial enterprise.
NONE of our mail is urgent enough that we need daily delivery. We could easily live with 1/week. In fact, we personally have discussed that we wouldn't be put out if mail delivery stopped entirely - we could stop by the post office on the way home from work 1/week.
Now, I understand that knocking off deliveries 6 days a week will NOT eliminate 6/7ths of the costs....with the fixed costs of buildings, trucks, etc. I'd guess that a 80% reduction in deliveries probably will only net a savings of 50%. But that's 50%.
Sophomoric philosophy is still sophomoric when spouted by a game designer.
Microtransaction systems are morally wrong? Who even suggested such a thing? It's like suggesting a hammer is morally wrong, or the idea of barter is morally wrong.
My goodness, I guess when I wasn't looking, computer games became "srs bznss"?
...at least locally, we have a number of Hmong and Somali immigrants (quick, guess which US city!) who for various reasons refuse to be vaccinated - cultural, religious, etc. that have nothing to do with the autism nonsense.
I enjoy minecraft, albeit not nearly as much as some.
The thing about minecraft is that a) it's an individual developer, not a giant studio b) it's 99.9% sandbox, where you can do whatever you want. It's just basically pieces with a basic set of physics. c) it's free/cheap. Dunno what it is now, but I think I paid $5 when it was in beta.
It's fun to build things (think - unlimited lego set), plus it hearkens back to the halcyon days when gameplay was more important than polished graphics (fwiw I think that's just rose-colored glasses).
It's simple, fun, and cheap, putting essentially no limits on what you can do.
Considering that at least 99% of the world population doesn't ever leave their own time zone, particularly on a regular basis, no, I think we'll avoid INconveniencing 5.95 billion people in order to make life a teensy bit easier for the 50 million who are probably educated enough for it not to really be an inconvenience, or wealthy enough to just buy another damn watch (if it is).
OK, I presume the slashdot editor that posted this ADDED the link to the actual website - for which we're grateful - but why even bother to include the original submitter's link to (presumably his own) blog?
Many people have posted to say that I was misinformed (or that I'm an evil "denier" for gullibly believing the disinformers' reports that the data was gone).
SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
The UEAâ(TM)s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals â" stored on paper and magnetic tape â" were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.
(emphases mine)
Would you have believed it if Nixon said he dumped some of the Watergate tapes "to save space"? There is no way we can determine objectively - divorced from our native proclivities - the real reason WHY the original data was destroyed; saying it was done to save space might be credible, or it might be a cover-up.
Slashdot Mirror
...have people already forgotten that they have pretty much NEVER led the development of anything in terms of web browsers?
So IE8 won't support flash. So? That's like saying 'Disney won't support (random new movie format)'. Sounds impressive, unless you actually know that they've never led tech development...ever.
In the history of web clients, MS has constantly dragged their feet and been a reluctant clumsy participant, adopting technology and systems well after everyone else has done so, and then doing it poorly for at least a few iterations.
It ultimately depends if the porn industry accepts that html5 is more advantageous for them, or if flash works well enough. If porn is delivered by flash, flash will live on.
I know it seems like an odd complaint these days, but my issue with USB connectors - pretty much all of them - is that I don't understand why they don't have a more obvious bias.
It's not clear which side of the plug is up.
Oh sure, if you are looking at it in bright light, you can USUALLY tell clearly.
But if you have bad vision, or are trying to put the cable in a blind spot (we're never plugging in cables that are hard to see, under desks, in the dark, or all three, are we?) it's pretty much a 50% chance if you have the plug right side up.
With the micro usb it's even worse, given their delicacy putting them into a phone, and the ease that one might misinterpret the "not fitting this way" with "not fitting because I'm not pushing hard enough".
Why didn't they make the USB plug format a triangle or some other shape that has a clear "top" and "bottom".?
Let's see.
Middle income Americans go to Canada for their pharmaceuticals.
Thousands of US patients of all types go to Mexico and points south for all sorts of surgeries that aren't (yet, or ever) available in the US.
This story points to wealthy Americans going elsewhere for not-yet-approved 'edgy' radiological treatments, or stem cell therapies not practiced here.
Some on the left are going to see only that last one, and once again blame Bush for crippling US stem cell research. The fact is that is only seeing a single symptom of a more chronic condition: when you have a system crippled by politics and paralyzed by excessive litigation. when ideas, procedures, and research is circumscribed not by practicality or technology, but by policy set by science-illiterate representatives voted into their positions by a science-ignorant public for decades...well, what did we expect?
Clearly, some Americans are choosing with their WALLETS that value is more important than litiginous recourse - if you're buying a cut-rate surgery in Mexico, you're not really scrutinizing their malpractice coverage. If you're buying your heart medication from some website *.ca, FDA approval is clearly not your primary concern.
Don't get me wrong; anyone conversant with US history will recognize the consistency here. The US has always has a population that is non-intellectual, I believe even de Tocqueville commented on that in 1830. But like so many things in American popular culture, it seems the currents have somehow lately surged to tidal waves that threaten to swamp the whole boat.
Then again, that could just be me shouting "get off my lawn" like so many generations before ...
....if psychology is even a science.
A 'scientific' survey that's measuring whether "feel sharper" or think they did better at something?
Um, all you're measuring is confidence levels, and/or the placebo effect. There's no data there about whether games actually DO anything.
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/09/13/2111210/Ask-Slashdot-Best-Use-For-a-New-Supercomputing-Cluster ...who posted that he was allegedly just getting the budget to build "...the largest x86_64-based supercomputer on the east coast of the U.S. (at least until someone takes the title away from us). It's spec'ed to start with 1200 dual-socket six-core servers..." but apparently has no idea what he's going to use it for.
If true, he'll have lots of cycles to sell for cheap and/or his organization is clearly not value-oriented so he'll probably sell time without much concern over price.
I don't recall an entire political class of eco-marxists being validated by an astronomer's theory (after being wrong so very many times about their eco-eschatological predictions regarding DDT, fresh water, oil, landfill space, population, food, etc.)
I don't recall ever reading emails from astronomers colluding to manipulate the peer-review process. Nor do I recall astronomers hiding their algorithms, or threatening to delete files in case of a FOIA inquiry.
I don't recall astronomers ever making extraordinary claims...and then "accidentally losing" the raw data, yet still insisting that they be taken seriously.
I don't recall that if someone did disagree with an astronomer's interpretation, that he was immediately pilloried as some sort of shill for some vague 'corporate interest'.
I don't recall that a leading European lab tested a major critique of an astronomer's theory, and when finding the critique was in fact spot-on, the lab's director suddenly instructed the scientists involved "not to draw conclusions".
I was somewhat with you, up until this statement:
"But remember that we still live in the amazing times when the mention of undisputed facts about civilian deaths is done only by protesters and other marginalized people. Some undisputed facts are just too inconvenient when we want to live with our delusions, so they become unmentionable. "
Would that be the 'undisputed fact' that war and violence is an unavoidable part of the human condition? This is historical fact, and undisputable. So would the people in denial really be the ones that are making and enjoying video games whose subject is war, or would it be the strident whiners who somehow* hold the belief that one can live a human life without violence, without war?
*most likely an attitude only allowed by the luxury of living in a society protected by the overwhelming might of the US military (whether you're American, or European/Japanese/Taiwanese/Canadian who all are directly protected, or people generally across the rest of the world who benefit by and large from the Pax Americana) - a 60-year span absent great-power war that is unmatched in modern history, and made possible by weapons of such staggering violence that they could literally end the human species.
To suggest something so intrinsic to human nature wouldn't be reflected in our entertainment is farcical.
Personally, I think "war" games are more generally about entertainment, and less about the "glorification" of war than you apparently do, but I concede that you are indeed correct for a segment of society.
So in essence you're simply agreeing - that sales taxes on internet sales are a socialistic 'field-leveler' at best, or punitive behavior-modifier at worst. In no case is the tax simply a tax: something taken in small amounts from the mass population to pay for a necessary function of government.
Is that even constitutional? I'd suggest that there's at least an interpretation of the commerce clause that would recognize ANY state's action to disincline a private citizen from doing business with a firm in another state SOLELY because that business isn't a "local" business is utterly unconstitutional. In that sense, it's a sort of systemic internal tariff on business from any of the 49 other states, and I'm pretty certain internal tariffs are absolutely prohibited. (State sales taxes are a case of taxation with representation - the citizens have directly or indirectly through their representatives voted for the imposition of their own sales taxes; extra-state entities are having it applied through force of law, with no such recourse, thus they are critically different circumstances, even though they are simply the broad application of a local rule.)
Is that really what we want our tax policy to do?
I'm sure many of readers will agree that's a legitimate role of tax policy. Personally, I'd prefer my government a little more transparent: if they need funds to operate government, then tax me and show me what it's going for. If they want to punish particular behaviors, make it clear that the fee being applied is for that purpose - don't cloak it in a mask of 'necessary' taxation when it isn't.
It sounds about as credible as phrenology, so I'll await confirmation.
But in the meantime, think about the impact this would have on society if there was truly a way (temporary, harmless) to prevent people from lying.
How many marriages would survive?
What would happen if 435 congressmen simultaneously "decided to retire...immediately"?
Would the resulting society even be recognizable?
You either missed or are avoiding my point. I don't have an issue with taxes per se.
My question was about ONLINE sales.
So for your example: the locality has a 2% bump to sales tax on food in that municipal region to pay for their stadium. Great, presumably democratically-elected representatives agreed to that, on the premise that the increased consumer traffic in the area will benefit everyone generally - restaurants, bookstores, car dealers, all commercial enterprises, which will improve the community generally. No problem there. The stadium is what the community "gets" for the increased taxes.
But if I *happen* to be riding in a car through that community and using my laptop, and I buy a book on Amazon - why in the HECK should I (morally) pay any sales tax at all? It's no longer a democratic quid-pro-quo.
Unfortunately, you're incorrect: the IRS even taxes BARTERING at a calculated value.
http://money.howstuffworks.com/bartering4.htm
"In a swap, both parties have to list the market value of what they received as taxable income. This means that commercial and corporate bartering exchanges require filing a tax form -- a 1099-B, "Proceeds from Broker and Barter Exchange Transactions""
I'm not saying that taxation is intrinsically unfair, that would be crazy. We have to pay for the services and things that government provides. What I object to is the ability of our legislators to add a tax here, a user fee there, and another tax there, without ever being called to JUSTIFY it with something more substantial than "...all those services government provides..."
In case anyone forgot, the US gov't - and by extension the states - aren't automagically entitled to a piece of everything.
Property taxes are generally to provide for local services, police, fire, streets, education.
Income taxes are generally meant to fund the operation of government, and its (allegedly) limited functions.
Gas taxes are essentially a user fee, to fund use of the highway system (and ironically to help fund the poor struggling oil companies through tax breaks).
Sales taxes are likewise LOCAL in function - they're justified by the 'infrastructure' that allows commerce to happen.
So why should internet retailers pay local or state sales tax? Everything's already been paid for at least once.
In terms of the bandwidth needed to secure the transaction and the shopper, both the shopper (through his internet fees) and the vendor (through his bandwidth charges, etc) are already paying for the hardware - wires, property easements, hefty communication taxes. In terms of shipping the goods from the vendor to the customer, someone on one end or the other is paying postage that supposedly already covers this. The seller, through the price of his goods, covers his business costs, property taxes (and the concomitant services already covered therein), etc.
About the only thing that isn't explicitly or implicitly paid for in an internet sale is the bureaucracy involved in administering, levying, and collecting the tax. Put another way: without internet sales existing, government operates, and provides a certain level of services to the public. This should be covered by tax revenues. Now add internet sales to the picture. What specific service is the state providing that it didn't provide before? I can't think of a one. Sure, the police have started branching out their pedo squads to the interwebs, and the state Attorneys General have some more fraud cases to investigate, but I doubt either of those functions have been a net increase in manpower or services - rather, they've drawn resources from other functions already performed to add these to the mix.
Yes, cue the Liberal Left posters who cheerfully want to pay more taxes. I invite them to do so. But the fact is that the US and State governments are not entitled by their very existence to a piece of every transaction that takes place in this country.
We the people need to fund our government adequately, and we do so through a varied panoply of taxes. But a bewildering array of taxes doesn't mean that we need to sit back passively and let ourselves be double-dipped just because legislators have built too confusing a structure to figure out.
I'm pretty sure there's a non-trivial gap between "company releasing a product" and "making a comeback".
"...My favorite example is teenage girls being charged with distributing child porn for sending pictures of themselves to friends."
When in fact that should be something we logically shouldn't punish, nay, we should be ENCOURAGING.
...for being equipped with an internal compartment capable of carrying explosives.
Plus, what was a TSA worker doing in the kitchen anyway? Oh wait, she was female too.
I kid, I kid.
Marx was right? Unless you specify about what, that's an empty statement, meaning nothing.
He made a lot of statements and drew lots of conclusions. Even diehard antiCommunists have always agreed that he got SOME things right - in fact, his insight of looking at societies from the perspective of economic strata was brilliant. Nobody's argued that, I believe.
But his ultimate assertion that societies would evolve inexorably toward a communist utopia remains absurd.
How will they actually test the viability of 'intelligent traffic systems' with no traffic?
In fact, most of those mentioned systems are about the interaction of that technology WITH PEOPLE in an urban environment. Just an empty urban environment doesn't get you much?
....we have our gonad-driven destiny.
We will replicate ourselves until we exhaust the ability of our niche to sustain us (in which case we die off down to a sustainable level), or some sort of predation takes place (disease, vampires, zombies, aliens) to do the same thing.
Or, until Disney cameramen chase us off a cliff into the sea.
I'm not sure why we are so certain that we're "different" from every other animal. As far as I can tell, despite a very thin veneer of non-instinctual behavior that we call "civilization" we respond in large scales predictably like most other social animals. (shrug)
Look at the bulk of mail you get over the week in the mailbox.
For us, it's about 80% junkmail.
Of the 20% that matters, probably 17-18 points of that are bills, which could easily come as email, but in any case don't (or shouldn't) require first-class handling.
The other 2 points are miscellaneous mail that matters for one reason or another - magazines, notifications, netflix, etc.
Do the postage charges for junk mail really cover the costs? I'd definitely agree that the bulk rates can float above inflation - that's a commercial enterprise.
NONE of our mail is urgent enough that we need daily delivery. We could easily live with 1/week.
In fact, we personally have discussed that we wouldn't be put out if mail delivery stopped entirely - we could stop by the post office on the way home from work 1/week.
Now, I understand that knocking off deliveries 6 days a week will NOT eliminate 6/7ths of the costs....with the fixed costs of buildings, trucks, etc. I'd guess that a 80% reduction in deliveries probably will only net a savings of 50%. But that's 50%.
Sophomoric philosophy is still sophomoric when spouted by a game designer.
Microtransaction systems are morally wrong? Who even suggested such a thing? It's like suggesting a hammer is morally wrong, or the idea of barter is morally wrong.
My goodness, I guess when I wasn't looking, computer games became "srs bznss"?
...at least locally, we have a number of Hmong and Somali immigrants (quick, guess which US city!) who for various reasons refuse to be vaccinated - cultural, religious, etc. that have nothing to do with the autism nonsense.
I enjoy minecraft, albeit not nearly as much as some.
The thing about minecraft is that
a) it's an individual developer, not a giant studio
b) it's 99.9% sandbox, where you can do whatever you want. It's just basically pieces with a basic set of physics.
c) it's free/cheap. Dunno what it is now, but I think I paid $5 when it was in beta.
It's fun to build things (think - unlimited lego set), plus it hearkens back to the halcyon days when gameplay was more important than polished graphics (fwiw I think that's just rose-colored glasses).
It's simple, fun, and cheap, putting essentially no limits on what you can do.
Considering that at least 99% of the world population doesn't ever leave their own time zone, particularly on a regular basis, no, I think we'll avoid INconveniencing 5.95 billion people in order to make life a teensy bit easier for the 50 million who are probably educated enough for it not to really be an inconvenience, or wealthy enough to just buy another damn watch (if it is).
OK, I presume the slashdot editor that posted this ADDED the link to the actual website - for which we're grateful - but why even bother to include the original submitter's link to (presumably his own) blog?
Many people have posted to say that I was misinformed (or that I'm an evil "denier" for gullibly believing the disinformers' reports that the data was gone).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
(emphases mine)
Would you have believed it if Nixon said he dumped some of the Watergate tapes "to save space"? There is no way we can determine objectively - divorced from our native proclivities - the real reason WHY the original data was destroyed; saying it was done to save space might be credible, or it might be a cover-up.