Yes and as someone else on here mentioned - I'm not upset that they "filter" their news feed. I'm upset that they lie about it. As I said previously, everyone else does this but at least there is some transparency about it. Anyone that watches Fox News is expecting that it will have a right wing slant to it. Similarly, if you are watching MSNBC you're going to get a left wing slant. I don't see anything wrong with that. In fact I think it's a healthy thing. When you go to one of these outlets you know what to expect.
Facebook, on the other hand, makes no such claims. If you're going to be a left wing news outlet and present your "news" in such a way then fine. Just come out and say that you're a left wing news outlet. But don't try to pretend you are impartial when clearly you are not. That's where credibility ends and skepticism begins.
Zuckerberg is a leftist. He openly supports the Democrats. Now i don't have a problem with that but here's the problem: I think that a lot of people that get their news from Facebook truly believe it is unfiltered and crowd-sourced. If this allegation is true then it shows us that Facebook is no better or no worse than all the other news agencies.
Everyone - be it Fox News or the NY Times, or CNN - is selling an agenda. They choose the news they report and all of them put their own political spin on it to advance that agenda. The line between hard news and political commentary is blurred and has been for some time. I believe that the only way to get the real story is to view it from both a right wing and a left wing perspective. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
Nothing that Facebook does surprises me in the least. It's one of the reasons I don't use it. I don't trust them. Not with my personal information and not with news feeds either.
Well, that's a good question. I'm not sure that has been fully vetted yet. In fact, where I live the local utility company is playing tricks with the amount of money they will pay for solar customers that they buy excess power from. Hint - they want to pay less than what the solar customers have been told to expect. This alters the payback equation for solar customers and, as a result, the demand for new installations has dropped off.
If the utility were truly "public", and by extension for the public good, you would think this rate swapping discussion would not occur. Solar, after all, is for the public good. Unless it's in your interest to defeat it.
"If cars are pumping water into the atmosphere what do you think will happen?" - You are focusing on the byproduct of the car itself. I was focusing on coal pollution as a result of the process to produce the electricity in the first place. I am not disputing that what comes out the back of the Tesla is clean. My point was that the energy production itself is dirty. And that goes for both electric and conventional cars.
"Also, a note on subsidies, does the oil, and coal industries really need them? It flies in the face of common sense that any Billionaire needs a subsidy; for any reason." - No they don't and I don't believe in subsidies of any kind because it favors one industry over another. Having said that, I don't think that Telsa should be getting subsidies either. And for Musk to come out against the oil industry while accepting subsidies himself...well, that's what leads to my sanctimonious prick comment:-)
How convenient that he rails against the fossil fuel industry for getting subsidies. Isn't that exactly how he got Tesla (and Solar City for that matter) off the ground? And where does he think the electricity comes from to power his little hippy-mobiles? In the USA the majority of electricity is produced by burning coal. Yeah, the same fuel source that environmentalists are constantly telling us is too dirty and should outlawed. How about the batteries in all those cars that will some day be depleted? What about the environmental impact of dumping all those dead batteries and the toxic chemicals inside them?
Look - I'm all for a clean planet and I think we should be doing everything we can to make that happen. But this Musk guy is nothing more than a self serving, sanctimonious prick. If you want to do away with subsidies then fine but until you stop accepting money then you are part of the problem, not the solution.
The traditional bottleneck for any database is disk access speed. Adding RAM and processor speed helps but disk access is by far the slowest operation, even with SSD's. So they basically load the database stack into memory and, as you can imagine, it dramatically speeds things up.
Oracle has a similar feature, which I'm more familiar with than the SAP solution, in Oracle 12c. Basically what they do is separate transactions in two ways. Conventional data (i.e. transactional data - Employees, Chart of Accounts, Invoices, etc.) are maintained in rows and accessed as they normally would be.
Transactional data is represented in a "normalized" way. In other words, lots of small tables with indexes joining them together. This makes it quicker for data retrieval. Analytical data, on the other hand (think multi dimensional data models, star schemas), are typically "de-normalized" to allow the data to be modeled in multiple ways. This slows down data retrieval though because the data is "flatter" with fewer indexes.
What the in memory solution does is represent the analytical data in column mode rather than row mode and load it all into memory. This allows you to perform what is referred to as "Real Time" analytics. In the old days you would load a data warehouse with a nightly batch job, run the analytics reports, and view the results the next morning. Now with in memory databases you can do it more or less in real time. That's the big deal about it.
"From 2008 to 2013, while GE made over $33.9 billion in United States profits, it received a total tax refund of more than $2.9 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.".
Not only did GE not pay any corporate tax they got a $2.9 billion dollar REFUND from Uncle Sam (i.e. you and I).
I'm not blaming GE, or Apple for that matter, for trying to minimize their tax burden. But when politicians start jumping up and down about it - about a tax system that THEY crafted - it seems to me the blame is misplaced.
The whole system is rotten to the core and both Republicans and Democrats are to blame for this. It seems to me there are one of two ways to fix it. Either go to a flat tax system for both individuals and corporation or just outlaw lobbyists entirely and get the dirty money out of the system.
Sure, if YouTube manages to strike a deal with the networks and offer some cool content then it's worth a try. But it's just that I've seen some false starts on this thing over the years so I remain skeptical. That's the first hurdle. The second hurdle is to have the content available in hi-def. Anything less than 1080 is a non starter for me. Third hurdle - deliver it reliably with minimal buffering and that's easier said than done. Netflix does a pretty good job of it but I still get momentary buffering errors from time to time. Now that might have more to do with the pipe it travels on but it's all part of the experience. That's one advantage cable has - you almost never get an outage. Having said that it's the only advantage they have:-)
John Kasich had about as much chance of winning the Republican nomination as I do...which is to say zero chance. The fact that he even remained in this long is a testament to the mans ego more than anything else. What exactly was he hoping to accomplish? Was he hoping for a contested convention where somehow he was going to emerge the winner, despite the fact that he has won a grand total of one state so far (his home state)? Was his goal simply to block Trump? Or maybe emerge as the VP on the ticket?
Well it looks like all of those things have backfired. Time to go back to Ohio.
Love him or hate him - Trump has run a brilliant campaign. Personally I don't think he will be able to implement half of the policies he has promised but that doesn't seem to matter to his supporters. I think it comes down to this - a lot of people are pissed off right now. Some people are pissed off about the economy, some about ISIS, some about immigration, you name it. Somehow he has managed to unite these groups.
I think a lot of people are tired of the same old political BS we get every election cycle and are not in a hurry to have another lawyer in the White House. Trump represents the anti-politician. Is he full of shit too? Yeah, probably. Time will tell. But some people are willing to take that chance.
I never saw Cruz as a viable candidate in the first place. His appeal is too narrow. In a general election he would be nothing more than a bible belt candidate. We saw this in how poorly he did in the north east. That pitch to include Fiorina was pure desperation. How can you even announce a running mate before you have won the nomination? The fact that she would even accept it probably speaks more to her desperation than his.
I remember back when the first iPhone came out. I just had to have one and it was miles ahead of anything else out there. Then everyone caught up to them. Same thing with the first iPods and iPads. Not just in terms of build quality but ease of use and just really nicely packaged.
Now you have Macbooks that you can't add memory to. And phones and tablets that you cannot add storage to. The Android devices have caught up, and in many cases, surpassed the Apple offerings. Apple has always traditionally been a hardware company. But I think the days of selling devices at big premiums are numbered. For a lot of people, the phone or tablet they have now is good enough. The growth is in India and China and for those markets asking people to shell out $600 for a phone is a tough sell.
The question for Apple is what's next? The music streaming seems to be doing well. Maybe they should buy Netflix and really get a foothold in the streaming content business.
No thanks. I'll stick with the real thing. I'm not eating anything that was born in a petri dish. How many times have we heard over the years that this or that man made thing (ex. margarine) is supposed to be better for you only to find out the opposite? Yeah....gimme a grass fed steak any day.
I think what doomed Carson was his poor understanding of foreign policy. I don't remember which debate it was but the topic came up and Carson didn't seem well prepared. The other thing is that he is soft spoken and never really was able to rise above the noise.
I'm not a Carson supporter but I do admire him in many ways. Coming from a very poor background and a broken home to become a world renowned neurosurgeon is no small feat. To me he's more of a role model than a politician.
They need to control Trump in order to further the establishment agenda. I disagree that Trump is not at war with the RNC. He and Priebus have been going at it ever since there was talk of a contested convention.
Exactly right. The only person that the Establishment Republicans hate more than Cruz is Trump. But at least with Cruz they can control him because Cruz needs their money.
Jeb was their guy all along. He had all the money but proved to be one of the blandest candidates in recent memory. He couldn't get elected Cub Scout leader never mind presidential candidate. They probably flirted briefly with Dr. Ben Carson. After all, he's black and successful and conservative so that had potential. Until they found out that he actually had principles and wasn't going to be their puppet on a string so that immediately disqualified him from further consideration.
Next up - Rubio. Hispanic, good hair (hey it worked for Mitt Romney), malleable, more than willing to be a puppet on a string as long as it led to power. Perfect establishment candidate. Except that he stumbled with the "little hands" comment about Trump and those goofy boots.
Things are starting to look desperate for the Establishment Republicans. Kasich and Carly are non-starters. VP material at best. And even that is a stretch. So they hold their noses and go with Cruz. They hate his guts but the enemy of my enemy is my friend as the saying goes. Trump is uncontrollable. At this point he's basically in an all out war with the RNC. At least with Cruz they feel they can control him.
That's one of the reasons I switched to VirtualBox. The other reason was that VMWare pushed me to a new version that would not work on my upgraded Mac unless I paid again to upgrade the VMWare license. It's been on the shelf ever since:-)
OK - now we're getting somewhere. I think it all boils down to accountability. If regulators are not doing their job then they need to be held accountable for it. In instances where there appears to be misconduct then an investigation should be held and appropriate steps taken. Maybe the regulator is just doing what their boss told them to do. Fine. Then the boss takes the hit.
In short, if they are not doing their job they should be suspended or fired. Just like, you know, a real job. If one of my clients doesn't think I'm getting it done then my ass is out the door. Why should it be any different for government employees? It is this lack of accountability that fosters a climate of apathy. Believe me, I have done plenty of work for government clients and sadly this is the prevailing attitude. Sure there are some dedicated hard working civil servants. I just haven't seen many. The good ones get fed up and leave and the other ones don't give a shit.
Ok I'm going to slow it down for you so you can follow....
"Effective government oversight IS needed" - The key word here is effective. We have plenty of government oversight (too much in the eyes of small, but I digress). The problem is that they are not effective.
Which leads us to...."Government - with few exceptions - is the problem not the solution". And why are they the problem, you might ask? Because the government KNOWS that the regulators are ineffective and yet nothing substantial is done to address it. Every time something like this happens they parade all the corporate fat cats in front of Congress and make a spectacle of it. All the while knowing that they (the government) is at least partly to blame for these messes.
Again, effective regulation IS necessary. The question is who is going to provide it?
No - exactly the opposite. I'm suggesting that effective government oversight IS needed. Many people, when left to their own devices, will cheat. Its human nature. The problem is that the oversight is NOT effective. The problem is that these government bunglers are NOT doing their jobs. And don't tell me that they are underfunded and if only we had more money.....etc, etc, etc.
I'm not suggesting either that the bankers and car makers and oil people are without blame here. Obviously they are largely to blame. That's why we have government regulators.....oh, but they aren't doing their job. But that's ok we'll just throw more money at it...then everything will be fine. Except that we keep trying that for every other failed government initiative and they don't get any better either.
Government. Just like the MPG tests, the emissions tests are created and regulated by government agencies (EPA in the USA). Recently there was somewhat of a scandal involving Hyundai goosing the mileage figures; http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-ec...
But it took the EPA 2 years, even after hundreds of consumer complaints, to respond to it. And the EPA allows the car companies to conduct their own tests using EPA guidelines. So the agency set up to provide government oversight is providing basically no oversight.
Look back at every major oil spill over the past 20 years and in each and every case the government regulators charged with providing oversight failed to do so in a timely and effective manner. The same holds true in the Financials markets. Banks were able to get away with things because irregularities were either not detected or not acted upon.
The moral of the story? Government - with few exceptions - is the problem not the solution.
Obama has now declared that he is willing to bend (or break) as many laws as necessary to make sure that Clinton is the nominee. Much like Trump is for the Republicans, Bernie Sanders is the Democrats worst nightmare. Obama loves to talk about "change" but everything just stays the same. The same corruption, consultants and political hacks. Nothing changes at all.
If either Trump or Sanders get elected President the entire Washington apple cart gets turned on its ear. The establishment Democrats don't want that and neither do the Republicans. Because all those cushy lobbyist jobs will disappear, or at least get reigned in. The legalized bribery as we know it will come to an end. Good for Americans...not so good for sleazy lobbyists.
Obama is basically telling the FBI Director, in political-eze, to sweep the Clinton investigation under the rug. Nothing to see here. Clear the path for more business as usual. It's a fucking outrage is what it is.
So would I. Same goes for sporting events. I can't remember the last time I attended a baseball or football game in person. Much better experience at home, mainly for the reasons you listed.
But having said that, I could not envision shelling out $30 for a movie. Even if it is in the comfort of my home. I kind of feel the same way about those pay per view events. I suppose if you have some people come over and we all chip in for the cost then it's not so bad. But at least with a movie I'm pretty sure it's going to last for 2 hours. With an MMA match or boxing match it could be over in 30 seconds.
If I'm going to drop $30 on a movie I want to see it on a huge screen with a colossal sound system - in other words in a movie theater. Currently I'm paying about $9 a month for Netflix. I think I'll stay with that.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes and as someone else on here mentioned - I'm not upset that they "filter" their news feed. I'm upset that they lie about it. As I said previously, everyone else does this but at least there is some transparency about it. Anyone that watches Fox News is expecting that it will have a right wing slant to it. Similarly, if you are watching MSNBC you're going to get a left wing slant. I don't see anything wrong with that. In fact I think it's a healthy thing. When you go to one of these outlets you know what to expect.
Facebook, on the other hand, makes no such claims. If you're going to be a left wing news outlet and present your "news" in such a way then fine. Just come out and say that you're a left wing news outlet. But don't try to pretend you are impartial when clearly you are not. That's where credibility ends and skepticism begins.
Zuckerberg is a leftist. He openly supports the Democrats. Now i don't have a problem with that but here's the problem: I think that a lot of people that get their news from Facebook truly believe it is unfiltered and crowd-sourced. If this allegation is true then it shows us that Facebook is no better or no worse than all the other news agencies.
Everyone - be it Fox News or the NY Times, or CNN - is selling an agenda. They choose the news they report and all of them put their own political spin on it to advance that agenda. The line between hard news and political commentary is blurred and has been for some time. I believe that the only way to get the real story is to view it from both a right wing and a left wing perspective. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
Nothing that Facebook does surprises me in the least. It's one of the reasons I don't use it. I don't trust them. Not with my personal information and not with news feeds either.
Well, that's a good question. I'm not sure that has been fully vetted yet. In fact, where I live the local utility company is playing tricks with the amount of money they will pay for solar customers that they buy excess power from. Hint - they want to pay less than what the solar customers have been told to expect. This alters the payback equation for solar customers and, as a result, the demand for new installations has dropped off.
If the utility were truly "public", and by extension for the public good, you would think this rate swapping discussion would not occur. Solar, after all, is for the public good. Unless it's in your interest to defeat it.
"If cars are pumping water into the atmosphere what do you think will happen?" - You are focusing on the byproduct of the car itself. I was focusing on coal pollution as a result of the process to produce the electricity in the first place. I am not disputing that what comes out the back of the Tesla is clean. My point was that the energy production itself is dirty. And that goes for both electric and conventional cars.
"Also, a note on subsidies, does the oil, and coal industries really need them? It flies in the face of common sense that any Billionaire needs a subsidy; for any reason." - No they don't and I don't believe in subsidies of any kind because it favors one industry over another. Having said that, I don't think that Telsa should be getting subsidies either. And for Musk to come out against the oil industry while accepting subsidies himself...well, that's what leads to my sanctimonious prick comment :-)
How convenient that he rails against the fossil fuel industry for getting subsidies. Isn't that exactly how he got Tesla (and Solar City for that matter) off the ground? And where does he think the electricity comes from to power his little hippy-mobiles? In the USA the majority of electricity is produced by burning coal. Yeah, the same fuel source that environmentalists are constantly telling us is too dirty and should outlawed. How about the batteries in all those cars that will some day be depleted? What about the environmental impact of dumping all those dead batteries and the toxic chemicals inside them?
Look - I'm all for a clean planet and I think we should be doing everything we can to make that happen. But this Musk guy is nothing more than a self serving, sanctimonious prick. If you want to do away with subsidies then fine but until you stop accepting money then you are part of the problem, not the solution.
The traditional bottleneck for any database is disk access speed. Adding RAM and processor speed helps but disk access is by far the slowest operation, even with SSD's. So they basically load the database stack into memory and, as you can imagine, it dramatically speeds things up.
Oracle has a similar feature, which I'm more familiar with than the SAP solution, in Oracle 12c. Basically what they do is separate transactions in two ways. Conventional data (i.e. transactional data - Employees, Chart of Accounts, Invoices, etc.) are maintained in rows and accessed as they normally would be.
Transactional data is represented in a "normalized" way. In other words, lots of small tables with indexes joining them together. This makes it quicker for data retrieval. Analytical data, on the other hand (think multi dimensional data models, star schemas), are typically "de-normalized" to allow the data to be modeled in multiple ways. This slows down data retrieval though because the data is "flatter" with fewer indexes.
What the in memory solution does is represent the analytical data in column mode rather than row mode and load it all into memory. This allows you to perform what is referred to as "Real Time" analytics. In the old days you would load a data warehouse with a nightly batch job, run the analytics reports, and view the results the next morning. Now with in memory databases you can do it more or less in real time. That's the big deal about it.
Apple seems to be front and center in this debate but what about General Electric? http://www.sanders.senate.gov/...
"From 2008 to 2013, while GE made over $33.9 billion in United States profits, it received a total tax refund of more than $2.9 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.".
Not only did GE not pay any corporate tax they got a $2.9 billion dollar REFUND from Uncle Sam (i.e. you and I).
I'm not blaming GE, or Apple for that matter, for trying to minimize their tax burden. But when politicians start jumping up and down about it - about a tax system that THEY crafted - it seems to me the blame is misplaced.
The whole system is rotten to the core and both Republicans and Democrats are to blame for this. It seems to me there are one of two ways to fix it. Either go to a flat tax system for both individuals and corporation or just outlaw lobbyists entirely and get the dirty money out of the system.
Sure, if YouTube manages to strike a deal with the networks and offer some cool content then it's worth a try. But it's just that I've seen some false starts on this thing over the years so I remain skeptical. That's the first hurdle. The second hurdle is to have the content available in hi-def. Anything less than 1080 is a non starter for me. Third hurdle - deliver it reliably with minimal buffering and that's easier said than done. Netflix does a pretty good job of it but I still get momentary buffering errors from time to time. Now that might have more to do with the pipe it travels on but it's all part of the experience. That's one advantage cable has - you almost never get an outage. Having said that it's the only advantage they have :-)
"but have yet to secure any rights" - In other words, it's just a bunch of hot air. On to the next story...
John Kasich had about as much chance of winning the Republican nomination as I do...which is to say zero chance. The fact that he even remained in this long is a testament to the mans ego more than anything else. What exactly was he hoping to accomplish? Was he hoping for a contested convention where somehow he was going to emerge the winner, despite the fact that he has won a grand total of one state so far (his home state)? Was his goal simply to block Trump? Or maybe emerge as the VP on the ticket?
Well it looks like all of those things have backfired. Time to go back to Ohio.
Love him or hate him - Trump has run a brilliant campaign. Personally I don't think he will be able to implement half of the policies he has promised but that doesn't seem to matter to his supporters. I think it comes down to this - a lot of people are pissed off right now. Some people are pissed off about the economy, some about ISIS, some about immigration, you name it. Somehow he has managed to unite these groups.
I think a lot of people are tired of the same old political BS we get every election cycle and are not in a hurry to have another lawyer in the White House. Trump represents the anti-politician. Is he full of shit too? Yeah, probably. Time will tell. But some people are willing to take that chance.
I never saw Cruz as a viable candidate in the first place. His appeal is too narrow. In a general election he would be nothing more than a bible belt candidate. We saw this in how poorly he did in the north east. That pitch to include Fiorina was pure desperation. How can you even announce a running mate before you have won the nomination? The fact that she would even accept it probably speaks more to her desperation than his.
I remember back when the first iPhone came out. I just had to have one and it was miles ahead of anything else out there. Then everyone caught up to them. Same thing with the first iPods and iPads. Not just in terms of build quality but ease of use and just really nicely packaged.
Now you have Macbooks that you can't add memory to. And phones and tablets that you cannot add storage to. The Android devices have caught up, and in many cases, surpassed the Apple offerings. Apple has always traditionally been a hardware company. But I think the days of selling devices at big premiums are numbered. For a lot of people, the phone or tablet they have now is good enough. The growth is in India and China and for those markets asking people to shell out $600 for a phone is a tough sell.
The question for Apple is what's next? The music streaming seems to be doing well. Maybe they should buy Netflix and really get a foothold in the streaming content business.
No thanks. I'll stick with the real thing. I'm not eating anything that was born in a petri dish. How many times have we heard over the years that this or that man made thing (ex. margarine) is supposed to be better for you only to find out the opposite? Yeah....gimme a grass fed steak any day.
I think what doomed Carson was his poor understanding of foreign policy. I don't remember which debate it was but the topic came up and Carson didn't seem well prepared. The other thing is that he is soft spoken and never really was able to rise above the noise.
I'm not a Carson supporter but I do admire him in many ways. Coming from a very poor background and a broken home to become a world renowned neurosurgeon is no small feat. To me he's more of a role model than a politician.
They need to control Trump in order to further the establishment agenda. I disagree that Trump is not at war with the RNC. He and Priebus have been going at it ever since there was talk of a contested convention.
Exactly right. The only person that the Establishment Republicans hate more than Cruz is Trump. But at least with Cruz they can control him because Cruz needs their money.
Jeb was their guy all along. He had all the money but proved to be one of the blandest candidates in recent memory. He couldn't get elected Cub Scout leader never mind presidential candidate. They probably flirted briefly with Dr. Ben Carson. After all, he's black and successful and conservative so that had potential. Until they found out that he actually had principles and wasn't going to be their puppet on a string so that immediately disqualified him from further consideration.
Next up - Rubio. Hispanic, good hair (hey it worked for Mitt Romney), malleable, more than willing to be a puppet on a string as long as it led to power. Perfect establishment candidate. Except that he stumbled with the "little hands" comment about Trump and those goofy boots.
Things are starting to look desperate for the Establishment Republicans. Kasich and Carly are non-starters. VP material at best. And even that is a stretch. So they hold their noses and go with Cruz. They hate his guts but the enemy of my enemy is my friend as the saying goes. Trump is uncontrollable. At this point he's basically in an all out war with the RNC. At least with Cruz they feel they can control him.
That's one of the reasons I switched to VirtualBox. The other reason was that VMWare pushed me to a new version that would not work on my upgraded Mac unless I paid again to upgrade the VMWare license. It's been on the shelf ever since :-)
OK - now we're getting somewhere. I think it all boils down to accountability. If regulators are not doing their job then they need to be held accountable for it. In instances where there appears to be misconduct then an investigation should be held and appropriate steps taken. Maybe the regulator is just doing what their boss told them to do. Fine. Then the boss takes the hit.
In short, if they are not doing their job they should be suspended or fired. Just like, you know, a real job. If one of my clients doesn't think I'm getting it done then my ass is out the door. Why should it be any different for government employees? It is this lack of accountability that fosters a climate of apathy. Believe me, I have done plenty of work for government clients and sadly this is the prevailing attitude. Sure there are some dedicated hard working civil servants. I just haven't seen many. The good ones get fed up and leave and the other ones don't give a shit.
Ok I'm going to slow it down for you so you can follow....
"Effective government oversight IS needed" - The key word here is effective. We have plenty of government oversight (too much in the eyes of small, but I digress). The problem is that they are not effective.
Which leads us to...."Government - with few exceptions - is the problem not the solution". And why are they the problem, you might ask? Because the government KNOWS that the regulators are ineffective and yet nothing substantial is done to address it. Every time something like this happens they parade all the corporate fat cats in front of Congress and make a spectacle of it. All the while knowing that they (the government) is at least partly to blame for these messes.
Again, effective regulation IS necessary. The question is who is going to provide it?
No - exactly the opposite. I'm suggesting that effective government oversight IS needed. Many people, when left to their own devices, will cheat. Its human nature. The problem is that the oversight is NOT effective. The problem is that these government bunglers are NOT doing their jobs. And don't tell me that they are underfunded and if only we had more money.....etc, etc, etc.
I'm not suggesting either that the bankers and car makers and oil people are without blame here. Obviously they are largely to blame. That's why we have government regulators.....oh, but they aren't doing their job. But that's ok we'll just throw more money at it...then everything will be fine. Except that we keep trying that for every other failed government initiative and they don't get any better either.
Government. Just like the MPG tests, the emissions tests are created and regulated by government agencies (EPA in the USA). Recently there was somewhat of a scandal involving Hyundai goosing the mileage figures; http://www.edmunds.com/fuel-ec...
But it took the EPA 2 years, even after hundreds of consumer complaints, to respond to it. And the EPA allows the car companies to conduct their own tests using EPA guidelines. So the agency set up to provide government oversight is providing basically no oversight.
Look back at every major oil spill over the past 20 years and in each and every case the government regulators charged with providing oversight failed to do so in a timely and effective manner. The same holds true in the Financials markets. Banks were able to get away with things because irregularities were either not detected or not acted upon.
The moral of the story? Government - with few exceptions - is the problem not the solution.
Obama has now declared that he is willing to bend (or break) as many laws as necessary to make sure that Clinton is the nominee. Much like Trump is for the Republicans, Bernie Sanders is the Democrats worst nightmare. Obama loves to talk about "change" but everything just stays the same. The same corruption, consultants and political hacks. Nothing changes at all.
If either Trump or Sanders get elected President the entire Washington apple cart gets turned on its ear. The establishment Democrats don't want that and neither do the Republicans. Because all those cushy lobbyist jobs will disappear, or at least get reigned in. The legalized bribery as we know it will come to an end. Good for Americans...not so good for sleazy lobbyists.
Obama is basically telling the FBI Director, in political-eze, to sweep the Clinton investigation under the rug. Nothing to see here. Clear the path for more business as usual. It's a fucking outrage is what it is.
You have the option of not sending the key to MS. Granted, the default is to send it but you do have the choice.
So would I. Same goes for sporting events. I can't remember the last time I attended a baseball or football game in person. Much better experience at home, mainly for the reasons you listed.
But having said that, I could not envision shelling out $30 for a movie. Even if it is in the comfort of my home. I kind of feel the same way about those pay per view events. I suppose if you have some people come over and we all chip in for the cost then it's not so bad. But at least with a movie I'm pretty sure it's going to last for 2 hours. With an MMA match or boxing match it could be over in 30 seconds.
If I'm going to drop $30 on a movie I want to see it on a huge screen with a colossal sound system - in other words in a movie theater. Currently I'm paying about $9 a month for Netflix. I think I'll stay with that.