America is neither a country nor a continent when there is no context, and it is not the official name of any of those things. Mlts clarification was justified. To say that because you colloquially refer to yourself as America and therefore everyone else also must do so is... stereotypical I guess. I'm sure you'll assume I'm biased because I'm Canadian, but we don't normally refer to our southern neighbour as America either, we usually call it "the US" or even "the states". But then we probably do so just to piss off everyone that demands we call it America:)
Yes, the government can take your house from you. However, also consider that without the government enforcing property ownership rights, anybody could break into your house, change the locks, and claim they are the owner. Which does your friend think would work better?
I'm sure Apple's Irish divisions have great talent and produce great output, but I bet that those 4,000 employees do not work for the specific Apple subsidiary that is claiming the global profits. Even if it's the same company, claiming all the global revenues there is still a gross misrepresentation of Apple's business since 4000 employees would only account for 5% of Apple's global work force (60% are based in the US).
I also believe in Apple's case specifically, they don't even pay the normal Irish corporate tax rates due to some other loopholes or agreements. Forbes has a good write-up on it that is way over my head.
Ireland has corporate taxes, they are just MUCH lower than most other developed countries. So Ireland gains by taxing these corporations. It is extremely lucrative for Ireland because they get billions in tax dollars from the shell company that only has a few employees. The social cost to Ireland is nil compared to the tax revenue, but quite the opposite for Australia.
Also, to advance to management levels within the federal government a certain level of certified bilingualism is required. About 95% of management positions require it, regardless of whether or not your duties will require you to speak the other language to anyone. Full-time language training is provided for people who are lucky enough to get a position that will give it (i.e. they send you away for a concentrated year of learning), but that option is available less and less these days. I am not sure what the statistics on training are, but I have heard many times that the overwhelming majority of people being trained in an official language are anglophones learning french.
Personally I started taking some french courses when my work offered them, however the only offering was a 2 hour per week course which they ended after 6 months. I stopped going after it was clear that the course's pace would never get me anywhere since the knowledge needed to be applied to retain it, and I work in an IT shop where there are only one or two french people that are not on my team (though I'd have much more luck learning chinese). People who get sent to full-time language training learn french for 8 hours a day for an entire year, and even then many often fail the test a couple times before passing. The french oral test is notoriously difficult, though oddly the english equivalent is apparently quite easy. Anyway, this is just to reiterate that many anglophones are trying to learn french - they are only doing this to advance their career because the Official Languages Act made it a requirement, but they are still trying.
And to go off on another tangent, the Official Languages Act is a monumental waste of money, I would ballpark it as tens of billions yearly. I agree that francophones have rights, and should have those rights, but the current strategy of forcing the french language on majority english populations is an extremely inefficient use of resources at best. And I am not talking about within Quebec borders.
In the midst of a severe drug epidemic fueled by overprescribing of opioids, the very last thing the country needs is a new, dangerous, high-dose opioid
Seems to me that this line sums things up nicely. The problem is not the new drug, it is the over-prescribing of the existing drugs.
Very much agree! Regardless of the actual acceptance levels, one incident is statistically insignificant. If you replaced the gadget in this case with a hand-held camcorder, would you suggest that camcorders are not generally accepted? Or maybe just recording devices in general are not accepted in this context.
Also I would say that the number of Google Glass related violent incidents is over-reported compared to other tech-gadget related incidents, since this is only news because it involves Glass.
... they have also argued that because their trademark “Color Run” is in my photos they are entitled to them.
Is that true that there is a level of entitlement if your trademark is photographed in a public place? I recall that the IoC have successfully forced take-downs of videos that happened to have the olympic rings in the background of them, citing trademark protection even though the video had nothing to do with the Olympics.
Are you really suggesting that across the US, 11 times per day, people are organizing in protest against their societal plight by shining lasers at planes?
We, as a society, need to learn to be able to not give a damn about other people's wacky beliefs (unless you believe I need to be set on fire or something and then we have a problem). There are people in the world who believe that cows are sacred. We slaughter and eat these sacred cows daily.
Unfortunately unless we build some really high walls and segregate people by their beliefs, there will always be friction when the world has such widely varying values. From your own example, Group A thinks cows are sacred, but they are currently forced to live with watching Group B eat their sacred animals which they find horribly disturbing and cannot avoid it. It's shoved in their faces on TV commercials. It's in the food courts at the malls. Even if they didn't see it all the time, Group A feels that Group B is damaging their world by doing it. If Group A had the power, they would most certainly try to restrict the behavior of Group B to stop murdering and butchering their beloved cows, and Group B certainly will never relinquish such rights willingly.
Now, replace "cows" with any of the following and see if you always fall on the same side of the equation: chicken, fish, dolphin, baby cow, seal, baby seal, animal crackers, dead fetus.
This is so true. I work for a Canadian agency and just 4 months ago we upgraded away from IE6 finally. To IE8. I am sure a significant portion of our traffic is from internal sources so our data would be skewed as well. As a developer I am one of the few with the local permissions to install another browser, but the other 99% of the agency are stuck with the ridiculous standard.
So by 2030 we'll be powering all the large skyscraper office-towers with just local solar panels? And all those electric vehicles plugging in at the office will get their power from the same solar panels? Even if the entire network is powered by solar panels, there's no way (today) that they can generate enough capacity within city centers to power those areas. They would need to lay panels in less dense areas and transport it to the city center. And since that would still require public infrastructure, the utilities would still be the ones managing it.
Exactly this. I eat the same meal for breakfast every day (bowl of Shreddies). I do enjoy it, but mostly because it is my morning ritual. Beyond that, I find eating is a chore. I vary my intake for dinners to ensure I'm getting a diverse set of nutrients (plus a vitamin supplement), but I find it all rather tasteless and it is just something I do to stay healthy. If I am already not enjoying eating a meal, it might as well be made more convenient by eating it as a slurry of nutrients in a convenient package.
Why would you never want to again? I enjoy.
FTFY. Different strokes for different folks, obviously.
To be fair, the early food-marketed versions of canola oil were arguably unhealthy and its sale was the result of people whose livelihoods depended on selling the product when it was no longer needed in vast quantities for machine oil (i.e after the war).
Today's versions actually are pretty healthy, but I bet the original product wasn't any more harmful than today's usual fare at MacDonald's.:P
By that logic is it ok to drive on public roads at 200MPH as long as nobody gets harmed? It's about risk, and her actions were perceived to expose the public to unnecessary risk of injury (speeding yes, device arguable), hence she was appropriately cited based on existing laws.
Is there a requirement for a corporate entity to engage in commerce, or otherwise lose their corporate personhood? It would be nice if the individuals involved lost that protection and could be sued/charged directly...
I don't see how that would work out. If a garden shed based inventor comes up with a novel, useful nuclear reactor design and patents it, your law would ensure that he'd have to go into the energy business.
And what's wrong with that? He can use it, or he can sell it to a company that will use it. Either way he profits and the technology is used and society benefits. Maybe he could've made more money licensing it, but I don't see the societal benefit of maximizing this one person's profit when it enables other entities to do so much rent-seeking.
The government is discontinuing rural home postal delivery and moving to community boxes. This is no different than most Canadian cities have done for years already. They are doing this because the traditional mail volumes are so low that the service has become very expensive to provide. There is no doubt some will be inconvenienced, but it's not like they are discontinuing mail service entirely. I prefer a government that adapts to changes in society, rather than wasting money to keep "feel-good" services running.
That being said, I hate Harper as much as the next guy, but the postal decision makes sense.
I say take it to the farthest level. Let's say he was smoking and taking a phone call during the climax of the movie. Is it justified now? Still no, of course.
And I call bullshit on the shooter feeling physically threatened, which was reported in one article. A popped bag of microwave popcorn weighs about 65 grams, the potential for actual harm is laughable (unless you consider trans-fats). Even if he didn't know what hit him, I bet it sure as hell didn't hurt him. No - the only thing threatened was the shooter's ego. After being hit with the popcorn he became enraged and shot the guy. We'll see what comes to light.
I don't think it is actual application of the law that is the perceived issue. The fact that it exists and is widely known (though maybe not by its technical definitions) could conceivably lead people to use lethal force in a situation that they otherwise would not have, thinking that the Stand Your Ground law somehow applies and allows for the action. But, I am not an American nor do I know much about the law beyond what is in the media.
This article would be better suited as a comment on the older story. It adds very little to the discussion given that everybody already knows it wasn't for an actual traffic study. That is, unless the nutjobs are still trying to argue that it was a traffic study? (I didn't RTFA...)
Please enlighten me, because I don't understand the arguments against this.
Today Netflix pays some ISP to make their content available, and today I pay my ISP to be able to download content. The service being offered would allow Netflix to pay my ISP my side of that transaction where their content is concerned. From the information available, this is not rent-seeking or removing my ability to choose what I want to download with my available bandwidth, nor is it degrading the Netflix offerings because if Netflix doesn't use that service then everything is status quo. This doesn't seem like blackmailing content providers into paying premiums for normal service levels.
So if there is some compelling reason why Netflix should not have the option to pay my ISP for my bandwidth if they choose, please explain to me how this is different and worse than Netflix's current practice of providing OpenConnect to my ISP to lower my ISP's costs (which theoretically lowers my bandwidth costs)? Is it not the same thing in principle - giving money/resources to the ISP to increase the value of the service?
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America is neither a country nor a continent when there is no context, and it is not the official name of any of those things. Mlts clarification was justified. To say that because you colloquially refer to yourself as America and therefore everyone else also must do so is... stereotypical I guess. I'm sure you'll assume I'm biased because I'm Canadian, but we don't normally refer to our southern neighbour as America either, we usually call it "the US" or even "the states". But then we probably do so just to piss off everyone that demands we call it America :)
This is already being abused by phishing and scam sites.
How exactly are phishing/scam sites abusing a stylesheet change in google search results?
Yes, the government can take your house from you. However, also consider that without the government enforcing property ownership rights, anybody could break into your house, change the locks, and claim they are the owner. Which does your friend think would work better?
I'm sure Apple's Irish divisions have great talent and produce great output, but I bet that those 4,000 employees do not work for the specific Apple subsidiary that is claiming the global profits. Even if it's the same company, claiming all the global revenues there is still a gross misrepresentation of Apple's business since 4000 employees would only account for 5% of Apple's global work force (60% are based in the US). I also believe in Apple's case specifically, they don't even pay the normal Irish corporate tax rates due to some other loopholes or agreements. Forbes has a good write-up on it that is way over my head.
Ireland has corporate taxes, they are just MUCH lower than most other developed countries. So Ireland gains by taxing these corporations. It is extremely lucrative for Ireland because they get billions in tax dollars from the shell company that only has a few employees. The social cost to Ireland is nil compared to the tax revenue, but quite the opposite for Australia.
Also, to advance to management levels within the federal government a certain level of certified bilingualism is required. About 95% of management positions require it, regardless of whether or not your duties will require you to speak the other language to anyone. Full-time language training is provided for people who are lucky enough to get a position that will give it (i.e. they send you away for a concentrated year of learning), but that option is available less and less these days. I am not sure what the statistics on training are, but I have heard many times that the overwhelming majority of people being trained in an official language are anglophones learning french.
Personally I started taking some french courses when my work offered them, however the only offering was a 2 hour per week course which they ended after 6 months. I stopped going after it was clear that the course's pace would never get me anywhere since the knowledge needed to be applied to retain it, and I work in an IT shop where there are only one or two french people that are not on my team (though I'd have much more luck learning chinese). People who get sent to full-time language training learn french for 8 hours a day for an entire year, and even then many often fail the test a couple times before passing. The french oral test is notoriously difficult, though oddly the english equivalent is apparently quite easy. Anyway, this is just to reiterate that many anglophones are trying to learn french - they are only doing this to advance their career because the Official Languages Act made it a requirement, but they are still trying.
And to go off on another tangent, the Official Languages Act is a monumental waste of money, I would ballpark it as tens of billions yearly. I agree that francophones have rights, and should have those rights, but the current strategy of forcing the french language on majority english populations is an extremely inefficient use of resources at best. And I am not talking about within Quebec borders.
In the midst of a severe drug epidemic fueled by overprescribing of opioids, the very last thing the country needs is a new, dangerous, high-dose opioid
Seems to me that this line sums things up nicely. The problem is not the new drug, it is the over-prescribing of the existing drugs.
Very much agree! Regardless of the actual acceptance levels, one incident is statistically insignificant. If you replaced the gadget in this case with a hand-held camcorder, would you suggest that camcorders are not generally accepted? Or maybe just recording devices in general are not accepted in this context.
Also I would say that the number of Google Glass related violent incidents is over-reported compared to other tech-gadget related incidents, since this is only news because it involves Glass.
... they have also argued that because their trademark “Color Run” is in my photos they are entitled to them.
Is that true that there is a level of entitlement if your trademark is photographed in a public place? I recall that the IoC have successfully forced take-downs of videos that happened to have the olympic rings in the background of them, citing trademark protection even though the video had nothing to do with the Olympics.
Are you really suggesting that across the US, 11 times per day, people are organizing in protest against their societal plight by shining lasers at planes?
Which is also correct. Your point?
We, as a society, need to learn to be able to not give a damn about other people's wacky beliefs (unless you believe I need to be set on fire or something and then we have a problem). There are people in the world who believe that cows are sacred. We slaughter and eat these sacred cows daily.
Unfortunately unless we build some really high walls and segregate people by their beliefs, there will always be friction when the world has such widely varying values. From your own example, Group A thinks cows are sacred, but they are currently forced to live with watching Group B eat their sacred animals which they find horribly disturbing and cannot avoid it. It's shoved in their faces on TV commercials. It's in the food courts at the malls. Even if they didn't see it all the time, Group A feels that Group B is damaging their world by doing it. If Group A had the power, they would most certainly try to restrict the behavior of Group B to stop murdering and butchering their beloved cows, and Group B certainly will never relinquish such rights willingly.
Now, replace "cows" with any of the following and see if you always fall on the same side of the equation: chicken, fish, dolphin, baby cow, seal, baby seal, animal crackers, dead fetus.
This is so true. I work for a Canadian agency and just 4 months ago we upgraded away from IE6 finally. To IE8. I am sure a significant portion of our traffic is from internal sources so our data would be skewed as well. As a developer I am one of the few with the local permissions to install another browser, but the other 99% of the agency are stuck with the ridiculous standard.
So by 2030 we'll be powering all the large skyscraper office-towers with just local solar panels? And all those electric vehicles plugging in at the office will get their power from the same solar panels? Even if the entire network is powered by solar panels, there's no way (today) that they can generate enough capacity within city centers to power those areas. They would need to lay panels in less dense areas and transport it to the city center. And since that would still require public infrastructure, the utilities would still be the ones managing it.
Why would you never want to [random_activity] again? I enjoy [random activity].
FTFY. Different strokes for different folks, obviously.
Exactly this. I eat the same meal for breakfast every day (bowl of Shreddies). I do enjoy it, but mostly because it is my morning ritual. Beyond that, I find eating is a chore. I vary my intake for dinners to ensure I'm getting a diverse set of nutrients (plus a vitamin supplement), but I find it all rather tasteless and it is just something I do to stay healthy. If I am already not enjoying eating a meal, it might as well be made more convenient by eating it as a slurry of nutrients in a convenient package.
Why would you never want to again? I enjoy .
FTFY. Different strokes for different folks, obviously.
To be fair, the early food-marketed versions of canola oil were arguably unhealthy and its sale was the result of people whose livelihoods depended on selling the product when it was no longer needed in vast quantities for machine oil (i.e after the war).
:P
Today's versions actually are pretty healthy, but I bet the original product wasn't any more harmful than today's usual fare at MacDonald's.
By that logic is it ok to drive on public roads at 200MPH as long as nobody gets harmed? It's about risk, and her actions were perceived to expose the public to unnecessary risk of injury (speeding yes, device arguable), hence she was appropriately cited based on existing laws.
Is there a requirement for a corporate entity to engage in commerce, or otherwise lose their corporate personhood? It would be nice if the individuals involved lost that protection and could be sued/charged directly...
I don't see how that would work out. If a garden shed based inventor comes up with a novel, useful nuclear reactor design and patents it, your law would ensure that he'd have to go into the energy business.
And what's wrong with that? He can use it, or he can sell it to a company that will use it. Either way he profits and the technology is used and society benefits. Maybe he could've made more money licensing it, but I don't see the societal benefit of maximizing this one person's profit when it enables other entities to do so much rent-seeking.
The government is discontinuing rural home postal delivery and moving to community boxes. This is no different than most Canadian cities have done for years already. They are doing this because the traditional mail volumes are so low that the service has become very expensive to provide. There is no doubt some will be inconvenienced, but it's not like they are discontinuing mail service entirely. I prefer a government that adapts to changes in society, rather than wasting money to keep "feel-good" services running.
That being said, I hate Harper as much as the next guy, but the postal decision makes sense.
I say take it to the farthest level. Let's say he was smoking and taking a phone call during the climax of the movie. Is it justified now? Still no, of course.
And I call bullshit on the shooter feeling physically threatened, which was reported in one article. A popped bag of microwave popcorn weighs about 65 grams, the potential for actual harm is laughable (unless you consider trans-fats). Even if he didn't know what hit him, I bet it sure as hell didn't hurt him. No - the only thing threatened was the shooter's ego. After being hit with the popcorn he became enraged and shot the guy. We'll see what comes to light.
I don't think it is actual application of the law that is the perceived issue. The fact that it exists and is widely known (though maybe not by its technical definitions) could conceivably lead people to use lethal force in a situation that they otherwise would not have, thinking that the Stand Your Ground law somehow applies and allows for the action. But, I am not an American nor do I know much about the law beyond what is in the media.
This article would be better suited as a comment on the older story. It adds very little to the discussion given that everybody already knows it wasn't for an actual traffic study. That is, unless the nutjobs are still trying to argue that it was a traffic study? (I didn't RTFA...)
Please enlighten me, because I don't understand the arguments against this.
Today Netflix pays some ISP to make their content available, and today I pay my ISP to be able to download content. The service being offered would allow Netflix to pay my ISP my side of that transaction where their content is concerned. From the information available, this is not rent-seeking or removing my ability to choose what I want to download with my available bandwidth, nor is it degrading the Netflix offerings because if Netflix doesn't use that service then everything is status quo. This doesn't seem like blackmailing content providers into paying premiums for normal service levels.
So if there is some compelling reason why Netflix should not have the option to pay my ISP for my bandwidth if they choose, please explain to me how this is different and worse than Netflix's current practice of providing OpenConnect to my ISP to lower my ISP's costs (which theoretically lowers my bandwidth costs)? Is it not the same thing in principle - giving money/resources to the ISP to increase the value of the service?