Break them up and let them compete with the fragments of themselves. Competition is the soul of capitalism, not monopolies.
Unfortunately, the situation with Goog and Facebook is not the same as with the old AT&T.
Break them up . . . into what?
Google and Facebook don't make money by selling any actual product. Google and Facebook make all of their money selling advertising. You've got a giant advertising business that generates tens of billions of dollars every year. And a bunch of other widgets, whose entire existence is secondary and completely financed by that advertising.
Whereas I don't approve of splitting them just because they're successful,you could break them up. Alphabet could be split along the lines of Google (web browser) on one side, and all their other projects on the other side.
Facebook could also be split in three. Facebook the social media platform as one company. Their other owned social media platforms as a second company. A third company could be the "add in tools" which could work on a license agreement with Facebook.
I don't approve of splitting the companies because they don't have monopolies- but it could be done.
All splitting up American tech companies will achieve would be to make Chinese tech companies the dominant players on the world market instead.
Sherman anti-trust act [wikipedia.org] gives all the needed legal cover.
Not really, they're not really monopolies in any given field. Twitter and snapchat come to mind as competing social media platforms. As for Google- last I heard they were slightly losing share in the search field and there are sizable alternatives: Bing and DuckDuckGo come to immediate mind.
If a company does anticompetitive practices (like Microsoft bundling or forcing IE, or Google forcing all their stuff on Android) then sure, fine them, like the EU did in both cases. Splitting them up? Nah, not justified. "I don't like them because they're successful" is not a valid reason to split up a company.
Only good bots that follow the THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS are allowed.
1) A bot may not tweet anything bad about a human being. 2) A bot must obey the rules and laws of twitter unless it counteracts the first law 3) A bot must not tweet anything that gets itself banned
I haven't really used Twitter in a long time, are bots not allowed now? In the early days it seemed like Twitter was encouraging them. There were tutorials on how to create your own bot. I remember some horse story bot was celebrated almost as a hero. Have they changed their mind about them now? Or does Twitter differentiate between malicious and non-malicious bots?
The problem with just internet (I'm one of those with just internet), is that the cost to have just internet has quadrupled in price over the same time period too.
I pay more for just internet than I paid for internet and cable back in 2010 (which is about when I cut out cable TV completely). If you're in an area with competition for broadband you have a little flexibility- for the majority of America living in cable monopolies- cost to get internet is ridiculously high for poor service.
2) No you didn't program "hello world" at 5, and you weren't programming any of your own unique programs -regardless how crappy- at that time. If you had said 7, I might have believed you. 10 is completely reasonable that an advanced student would could write unique programs. But you couldn't read at 5, much less write your own unique programs. Why lie?
I absolutely 100% was writing my own programs at 5. My mum was a stay at home mum, so I was reading simple baby books unassisted by the time I turned 4 (I was also speaking her native language which I have now almost entirely forgotten). They weren't great, they didn't do anything useful, but I was writing them. I didn't do things like moving graphics and stuff until I was 7 or 8. My programs were things like '10 Dim x 20 Input "What is your name?", x 30 Print x + " is an idiot.' 40 Goto 10". With the Spectrum you didn't have to load any special software for writing code- you just did it at the command prompt and it stored it in the memory.
Taking a tablet away completely isn't going to hurt the kid. 4 year olds aren't learning how to program apps,
Why not? I had only just turned 5 when I wrote my first program on an old Sinclair Spectrum 48K... OK so it was barely above "Hello World", but still. Playing games made me curious about them, being curious about them made my dad give me a book about BASIC for my 5th birthday. In under a year I was writing my own unique crappy programs- but they were all me. Not all kids are going to be reading as well as I did at that age, but nonetheless, some kids will want to learn how to do things their own way and not just follow the existing apps and programs.
Using apps, kids become understanding of the concept of menus and buttons and where things might logically be stored. A kid who grew up with a computer might flip through menus to find out how to do something. Grandma on the other hand will look at a screen baffled.
Kids who are comfortable with the technology are more likely to think "I wish it would do this?" or "I wonder how I can do this?"
Understanding a technology at an early age, the kid is more likely to think about "how can I hack this to do something different, that I want?" Someone who learns how to operate technology at 5 is going to be much more comfortable and likely to get competent with it at 25 than someone who was banned the technology as a child and didn't see it until they were already an adult.
That will develop their curiosity and their imagination - something electronic games don't do.
Variety of activity for children is important. Some games DO develop curiosity and imagination- more than traditional toys might. Limiting time on tablet is important- completely removing it from their lives isn't helping- it hurts. Most adults who are competent with technology grew up with some technology. There's a reason why your average 60 year old needs help setting an alarm on their phone.
Obviously, some things shouldn't be on a kids application; but it is understandable these apps finance themselves through ads.
Kids don't have money typically- they can't go to the store and buy games by themselves. (they shouldn't be installing apps by themselves either- but I'm sure it happens).
Kids can't buy apps but they sure can see ads and then go to the parental units afterwards and beg for whatever toy, game, or erectile performance product they saw on an ad.
DO NOT ALLOW YOUR KIDS TO GROW-UP USING SMARTPHONE/TABLET/IOT!!!
Make them grow-up (tried and true!) good old fashioned way: Books/toys (but NOT internet connected ones)!!!
Books and toys are important; but so is technology. I wouldn't want my kids growing up as luddites and unable to understand basic technology that others in their age range were competent at. Limiting tablet time is very important- but taking them away completely is a way to harm your child's chance at future successes.
Is it illegal to use a false identity to post an ad. No doubt it is against Facebooks Terms and Services- but could one be arrested for posting a fake ad on Facebook? What charge?
I have no intention of posting fake ads myself, but would there be repercussions if an individual on these shores posted a fake ad and got caught?
I find it frustrating how many books I can only find as trade paperbacks rather than mass market paperbacks. They are less convenient and more expensive.
And that answers why they do trade paperbacks more often. More expensive so they make more money. It also looks more "premium" so people will assume it is a better read. (even though that is rubbish and you shouldn't judge the book by it's cover: it's all part of the marketing).
Alas, as long as people cater to quaint historical customs like making books out of paper, not much will change in the big picture....
I quite like physical media. We're leaving a permanent record for distant generations to look back on us and understand us. Once everything goes digital a lot of that will be lost- or at least more prone to being wiped out or deteriorated or not known how to access.
If we have another dark ages- everything digitally stored could be lost if we have to build up society from scratch again.
...that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all resources go directly towards sustaining human life.
I consider pigs, chickens, and cattle resources for humans.
Not 100% efficient resources though. They use up energy and resources. For us to be 100% efficient we would need to get rid of food animals too... perhaps a pure plant or bacterial solution would be most efficient way to use up 100% of all energy... either that or find a way to photosynthesize for ourselves...
Here in Texas, the rattlesnakes are about the only predators that keep the mice and rat populations down. Coyotes assist, but the rodents are in the billions.
No owls or other predatory birds in Texas? Foxes? No Domestic Cats? No other species of snake? No raccoons or opossum to eat the young mice? No bullfrogs? Nothing like a mink/polecat/weasel/stoat?
It would be very unusual indeed for a rattlesnake to be the only predator of mice in most ecosystems. If rattlesnakes died off, no doubt another species of snake could move in and take over rodent eating. Here on the East Coast black snakes do a great job.
I assume they mean 60% of species, not 60% total individuals of animals. Bugs are animals, and many of them are thriving on our leftovers, processing, and farming leftoves. We've spread ants around the globe. They already were there- but we've spread more invasive ones that have huge numbers in colonies.
Now, if we ever want to become 100% efficient as a species (meaning utilizing 100% of resources and not letting any skip through the cracks)- that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all resources go directly towards sustaining human life. If any animal can survive it means we're not using 100% of the resources. Thankfully, no one really wants to live in a 100% efficient world.
That's the part that annoys me. The poor always get away with not paying their fair share despite receiving every benefit..
That's not true. If we took away government what would happen- chaos, anarchy.. every man for himself. True anarchy can never last- gangs would form and it would be the right of might ruling the land... gangs would run through those wealthier suburban neighbourhoods and mansions and pillage... sure the rich might try buying guards- but wealth and holding on to it would be more perilous- it would eventually run out without a stable platform.
The poor would come take the riches from the rich. If government collapsed- the rich have far more to lose. A steady stable country benefits the rich more than the poor. It is in the rich's best interest that they keep the government afloat and finance it- the poor have much less to lose if government ceased to function.
Slashdot Mirror
Break them up and let them compete with the fragments of themselves. Competition is the soul of capitalism, not monopolies.
Unfortunately, the situation with Goog and Facebook is not the same as with the old AT&T.
Break them up . . . into what?
Google and Facebook don't make money by selling any actual product. Google and Facebook make all of their money selling advertising. You've got a giant advertising business that generates tens of billions of dollars every year. And a bunch of other widgets, whose entire existence is secondary and completely financed by that advertising.
Whereas I don't approve of splitting them just because they're successful,you could break them up. Alphabet could be split along the lines of Google (web browser) on one side, and all their other projects on the other side.
Facebook could also be split in three. Facebook the social media platform as one company. Their other owned social media platforms as a second company. A third company could be the "add in tools" which could work on a license agreement with Facebook.
I don't approve of splitting the companies because they don't have monopolies- but it could be done.
All splitting up American tech companies will achieve would be to make Chinese tech companies the dominant players on the world market instead.
Sherman anti-trust act [wikipedia.org] gives all the needed legal cover.
Not really, they're not really monopolies in any given field. Twitter and snapchat come to mind as competing social media platforms. As for Google- last I heard they were slightly losing share in the search field and there are sizable alternatives: Bing and DuckDuckGo come to immediate mind.
If a company does anticompetitive practices (like Microsoft bundling or forcing IE, or Google forcing all their stuff on Android) then sure, fine them, like the EU did in both cases. Splitting them up? Nah, not justified. "I don't like them because they're successful" is not a valid reason to split up a company.
Only good bots that follow the THREE LAWS OF ROBOTICS are allowed.
1) A bot may not tweet anything bad about a human being.
2) A bot must obey the rules and laws of twitter unless it counteracts the first law
3) A bot must not tweet anything that gets itself banned
I haven't really used Twitter in a long time, are bots not allowed now? In the early days it seemed like Twitter was encouraging them. There were tutorials on how to create your own bot. I remember some horse story bot was celebrated almost as a hero. Have they changed their mind about them now? Or does Twitter differentiate between malicious and non-malicious bots?
^^^^^ THIS :)
I cancelled my cable TV subscription and discovered I have a WIFE!?
The same thing happened to me. I'm considering getting a cable TV subscription again.
We don't get cable TV along with it.
The problem with just internet (I'm one of those with just internet), is that the cost to have just internet has quadrupled in price over the same time period too.
I pay more for just internet than I paid for internet and cable back in 2010 (which is about when I cut out cable TV completely). If you're in an area with competition for broadband you have a little flexibility- for the majority of America living in cable monopolies- cost to get internet is ridiculously high for poor service.
Ah, I found the 12 year old on daddy's computer.
1) A 4 year old isn't a 5 year old.
2) No you didn't program "hello world" at 5, and you weren't programming any of your own unique programs -regardless how crappy- at that time. If you had said 7, I might have believed you. 10 is completely reasonable that an advanced student would could write unique programs. But you couldn't read at 5, much less write your own unique programs. Why lie?
I absolutely 100% was writing my own programs at 5. My mum was a stay at home mum, so I was reading simple baby books unassisted by the time I turned 4 (I was also speaking her native language which I have now almost entirely forgotten). They weren't great, they didn't do anything useful, but I was writing them. I didn't do things like moving graphics and stuff until I was 7 or 8. My programs were things like '10 Dim x 20 Input "What is your name?", x 30 Print x + " is an idiot.' 40 Goto 10". With the Spectrum you didn't have to load any special software for writing code- you just did it at the command prompt and it stored it in the memory.
Taking a tablet away completely isn't going to hurt the kid. 4 year olds aren't learning how to program apps,
Why not? I had only just turned 5 when I wrote my first program on an old Sinclair Spectrum 48K... OK so it was barely above "Hello World", but still. Playing games made me curious about them, being curious about them made my dad give me a book about BASIC for my 5th birthday. In under a year I was writing my own unique crappy programs- but they were all me. Not all kids are going to be reading as well as I did at that age, but nonetheless, some kids will want to learn how to do things their own way and not just follow the existing apps and programs.
Using apps, kids become understanding of the concept of menus and buttons and where things might logically be stored. A kid who grew up with a computer might flip through menus to find out how to do something. Grandma on the other hand will look at a screen baffled.
Kids who are comfortable with the technology are more likely to think "I wish it would do this?" or "I wonder how I can do this?"
Understanding a technology at an early age, the kid is more likely to think about "how can I hack this to do something different, that I want?" Someone who learns how to operate technology at 5 is going to be much more comfortable and likely to get competent with it at 25 than someone who was banned the technology as a child and didn't see it until they were already an adult.
That will develop their curiosity and their imagination - something electronic games don't do.
Variety of activity for children is important. Some games DO develop curiosity and imagination- more than traditional toys might. Limiting time on tablet is important- completely removing it from their lives isn't helping- it hurts. Most adults who are competent with technology grew up with some technology. There's a reason why your average 60 year old needs help setting an alarm on their phone.
Obviously, some things shouldn't be on a kids application; but it is understandable these apps finance themselves through ads.
Kids don't have money typically- they can't go to the store and buy games by themselves. (they shouldn't be installing apps by themselves either- but I'm sure it happens).
Kids can't buy apps but they sure can see ads and then go to the parental units afterwards and beg for whatever toy, game, or erectile performance product they saw on an ad.
DO NOT ALLOW YOUR KIDS TO GROW-UP USING SMARTPHONE/TABLET/IOT!!!
Make them grow-up (tried and true!) good old fashioned way: Books/toys (but NOT internet connected ones)!!!
Books and toys are important; but so is technology. I wouldn't want my kids growing up as luddites and unable to understand basic technology that others in their age range were competent at. Limiting tablet time is very important- but taking them away completely is a way to harm your child's chance at future successes.
Everything in moderation.
I can haz literacy?!?!
Apparently not since I asked "Is It" and did not make a statement saying "It Is".
Is it illegal to use a false identity to post an ad. No doubt it is against Facebooks Terms and Services- but could one be arrested for posting a fake ad on Facebook? What charge?
I have no intention of posting fake ads myself, but would there be repercussions if an individual on these shores posted a fake ad and got caught?
Man, it's not easy being green.
At least if it is for people with tiny hands our President might start to read something.
This was done previous with Armed_Services_Editions, meant to provide compact books for soldiers in WWII.
An interesting idea but I don't see this enticing many people away from the traditional paperback form factor which is already a nice size.
The only real improvement would be if you could make the paper thinner without significantly weakening it or making it hard to turn pages.
are:
1) It's less messy than having authors sign tablets.
2) When the power fails for a few days, paper books still work if you have sunlight, or a lamp or flashlight.
3) You probably don't want to swat bugs with a tablet or phone.
4) You can't store as much booty in a hallowed out tablet.
1) Get it e-signed
2) Battery Life is very long in a kindle
3) In the future you'll be able to roll a kindle up like a magazine and swat bugs with it.
4) BOOTY!
I find it frustrating how many books I can only find as trade paperbacks rather than mass market paperbacks. They are less convenient and more expensive.
And that answers why they do trade paperbacks more often. More expensive so they make more money. It also looks more "premium" so people will assume it is a better read. (even though that is rubbish and you shouldn't judge the book by it's cover: it's all part of the marketing).
Alas, as long as people cater to quaint historical customs like making books out of paper, not much will change in the big picture....
I quite like physical media. We're leaving a permanent record for distant generations to look back on us and understand us. Once everything goes digital a lot of that will be lost- or at least more prone to being wiped out or deteriorated or not known how to access.
If we have another dark ages- everything digitally stored could be lost if we have to build up society from scratch again.
But you're not appreciating the innovation:
the text flows horizontally
I mean, with an idea like that, it'll revolutionize reading in Latin and Cyrillic alphabets!
Bad news for the Japanese. These books won't work as well for Japanese readers- and they're typically the ones most into miniaturizing things.
...that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all resources go directly towards sustaining human life.
I consider pigs, chickens, and cattle resources for humans.
Not 100% efficient resources though. They use up energy and resources. For us to be 100% efficient we would need to get rid of food animals too... perhaps a pure plant or bacterial solution would be most efficient way to use up 100% of all energy... either that or find a way to photosynthesize for ourselves...
Here in Texas, the rattlesnakes are about the only predators that keep the mice and rat populations down. Coyotes assist, but the rodents are in the billions.
No owls or other predatory birds in Texas? Foxes? No Domestic Cats? No other species of snake? No raccoons or opossum to eat the young mice? No bullfrogs? Nothing like a mink/polecat/weasel/stoat?
It would be very unusual indeed for a rattlesnake to be the only predator of mice in most ecosystems. If rattlesnakes died off, no doubt another species of snake could move in and take over rodent eating. Here on the East Coast black snakes do a great job.
I assume they mean 60% of species, not 60% total individuals of animals. Bugs are animals, and many of them are thriving on our leftovers, processing, and farming leftoves. We've spread ants around the globe. They already were there- but we've spread more invasive ones that have huge numbers in colonies.
Now, if we ever want to become 100% efficient as a species (meaning utilizing 100% of resources and not letting any skip through the cracks)- that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all resources go directly towards sustaining human life. If any animal can survive it means we're not using 100% of the resources. Thankfully, no one really wants to live in a 100% efficient world.
That's the part that annoys me. The poor always get away with not paying their fair share despite receiving every benefit..
That's not true. If we took away government what would happen- chaos, anarchy.. every man for himself. True anarchy can never last- gangs would form and it would be the right of might ruling the land... gangs would run through those wealthier suburban neighbourhoods and mansions and pillage... sure the rich might try buying guards- but wealth and holding on to it would be more perilous- it would eventually run out without a stable platform.
The poor would come take the riches from the rich. If government collapsed- the rich have far more to lose. A steady stable country benefits the rich more than the poor. It is in the rich's best interest that they keep the government afloat and finance it- the poor have much less to lose if government ceased to function.