The MP3 format is closed and proprietary - owned by Fraunhoffer, if I recall correctly. It hasn't been legal without some sort of licensing agreement in place, and the community won't pay to license.
When I was there, it was definitely not easy to circumvent. I tried multiple VPNs, dns tricks, all kinds of things, but my internet coverage was spotty at best. If I tried to go to any western news site for any reason, I'd find my phone either throttled to nothing or completely offline for hours or days.
They seemed to be cracking down on VPN usage via deep packet inspection and/or whack-a-mole with overseas endpoints.
I was there in November of 2014, so I can't imagine things have gotten much better.
They charged me an extra ~$100 one month and ~$50 another. Just charged my card and left me wondering wtf happened until I called them.
Never ever EVER give a company your credit card number for automated billing. NEVER EVER EVER give them your bank account information for automated billing.
By your logic, we'd be at 75% unemployment (figure pulled out of my ass, admittedly, but just making a point here...) right now with all the technological advances since the 1970s. What do you think happened to our economy to achieve our current 5% unemployment rate? Are all those file clerks and bookkeepers still out of work or did they find something else to do?
People made the same arguments you're making for every technological leap forward. The net result has always been people thrown out of low wage, miserable jobs have found higher wage, less miserable jobs, given enough time.
It's called Structural Unemployment. It is a problem for workers who are too old to retrain - think people in their upper 50's trying to sprint to retirement - but for the vast majority of the workforce, it's a net benefit in the long run at the cost of a little short term pain.
This entire thread is based on a false idea that if people are thrown out of minimum wage jobs that they'll be unemployed forever.
This has been proven countless times since the 1700's to be absolutely false.
Once a technological innovation disrupts employment - the loom, the cotton gin, the computer, the combine planter/harvester, the robot - those who were displaced from employment find new jobs in higher paying sectors, at least in the aggregate. How many file clerks do you know? Know anybody picking corn, wheat, or soybeans by hand? Yet unemployment is around 5%.
The people slinging burgers will find new work. They'll have to. New employment opportunities will open up; they always have.
False dichotomy. There are lots of options that don't involve any of those things --
How about making it cheaper for employers to hire people by cutting the payroll tax? How about creating a climate of entrepreneurship which creates jobs? How about reducing the cost of living by eliminating expensive regulation? How about making it attractive to the private sector to start projects such as construction or the like that result in more and more jobs being created?
There are lots of ways to get people out of poverty that don't involve giving people money.
Actually, I've seen answers to all of those questions.
> If I own a self driving car, is my insurance insuring the AI as the driver?
Yes. Google has stated they will assume liability. Other companies pursuing this say the same.
> Is the driving record of that AI individual to my car, or to AI's of that software version ?
This one is actually easier. The insurance industry will have much better figures on the probability of having a claim to pay for the AI drivers, since all those drivers will drive the 'same'. They will be able to say that cars of model X get into.00001 accidents per car per year (or whatever) resulting in $2000 payouts per accident on average (or whatever) and thus will be expected to pay.00001 x $2000 x $INDUSTRY_MARKUP for insurance. Of course it gets a lot more complicated when you have to weigh in modifiers such as the weight of the vehicle (heavier cars cause more damage), the paint job (red cars get more tickets), the environment the car is in (urban cars get hit more), and etc.
> Can I sue the AI, or am I suing the AI manufacturer. Is the AI the car, or separate from the car?
The manufacturer gets sued. The manufacturer would keep insurance and lawyers for these lawsuits.
> am I suing Google or Ford ?
You sue whoever sold you the car. One throat to choke.
Yep. I'll never forget that first paycheck I got from the grocery store I worked at in high school. "What the hell is FICA and why are they taking so much of my money?"
Net effect on tax revenue should be positive in favor of the government - this effectively raises taxes on the super rich who make all their money through capital gains. Net effect on corporations will be positive - no more taxes for them to pay. Corporations can repatriate all that money they have sitting overseas. Corporations offshoring due to tax reasons will be screaming to come here instead.
As a conservative, I do somewhat like your ideas. However, a couple of tweaks --
Taxation -
A. Don't repeal the individual income tax. Leave it in place. Tweak the brackets as necessary.
B. Repeal the *corporate* income tax (yes, that one).
C. Remove the 'Capital Gains' rate and tax capital gains to individuals at the income rate. CEOs and trust funders will now pay the same rates as the rest of us.
D. Tax expenses paid to foreign entities (not quite sure how to make this work, but perhaps someone smarter than me can think of something)
---This is to prevent foreign individuals from dodging taxes on income earned in the USA.
The point of all of this is to tax income when it's extracted from corporations. When the money is within a corporation, it is used as investment - hiring, R&D, capital expenses, stuff that pays employees. When the money is paid out to investors or employees (or especially hybrids of the two like CEOs), that's when it's taxed.
What this will do is allow all those corporations with money overseas to repatriate the funds and invest in hiring, R&D, etc. If that money is paid out to investors or as bonuses to employees, it's taxed at a higher rate because of the elimination of the capital gains rate.
There will also be benefits to small businesses as their corporate tax rate is eliminated - they're only taxed on what they pull out of the business.
Problem is, we're fresh out of Saturn V's with which to obtain the upper stages.
No, we're going to need something new and inventive - perhaps an inflatable module of some sort. Something small enough to launch but big enough in space. Or perhaps something that can be assembled to give enough room in space while requiring multiple launches, akin to the ISS.
> it would make FAR more sense to colonize Antarctica,
We already have multiple research stations there. The difference is, they're not self-sufficient to my knowledge - they're dependent on supply runs from the rest of the world - nor do the people live there forever.
For every 100,000 people in the USA who sign a petition on this website, there are 318.76 Million people who did not sign it. Trying to come up with why they didn't - are they indifferent? Opposed? Ignorant? - is an exercise they need to go through for every petition with significant support. As a result, they will respond, but not necessarily take action, unless it makes sense to them, i.e. conforms to, or is at least compatible with, their agenda.
Slashdot Mirror
The MP3 format is closed and proprietary - owned by Fraunhoffer, if I recall correctly. It hasn't been legal without some sort of licensing agreement in place, and the community won't pay to license.
I see it. I just used it. It's in parentheses right after the title.
They've had lots of innovation!
They figured out:
* data caps
* Double charging for the same service
* Outsourced customer service to lowest bidder
* Customer "retention"
Came here for the Planetes references. Was not disappointed.
When I was there, it was definitely not easy to circumvent. I tried multiple VPNs, dns tricks, all kinds of things, but my internet coverage was spotty at best. If I tried to go to any western news site for any reason, I'd find my phone either throttled to nothing or completely offline for hours or days.
They seemed to be cracking down on VPN usage via deep packet inspection and/or whack-a-mole with overseas endpoints.
I was there in November of 2014, so I can't imagine things have gotten much better.
They charged me an extra ~$100 one month and ~$50 another. Just charged my card and left me wondering wtf happened until I called them.
Never ever EVER give a company your credit card number for automated billing. NEVER EVER EVER give them your bank account information for automated billing.
You asked for this problem when you signed up.
And no other jobs come to fill their places?
By your logic, we'd be at 75% unemployment (figure pulled out of my ass, admittedly, but just making a point here...) right now with all the technological advances since the 1970s. What do you think happened to our economy to achieve our current 5% unemployment rate? Are all those file clerks and bookkeepers still out of work or did they find something else to do?
People made the same arguments you're making for every technological leap forward. The net result has always been people thrown out of low wage, miserable jobs have found higher wage, less miserable jobs, given enough time.
It's called Structural Unemployment. It is a problem for workers who are too old to retrain - think people in their upper 50's trying to sprint to retirement - but for the vast majority of the workforce, it's a net benefit in the long run at the cost of a little short term pain.
This entire thread is based on a false idea that if people are thrown out of minimum wage jobs that they'll be unemployed forever.
This has been proven countless times since the 1700's to be absolutely false.
Once a technological innovation disrupts employment - the loom, the cotton gin, the computer, the combine planter/harvester, the robot - those who were displaced from employment find new jobs in higher paying sectors, at least in the aggregate. How many file clerks do you know? Know anybody picking corn, wheat, or soybeans by hand? Yet unemployment is around 5%.
The people slinging burgers will find new work. They'll have to. New employment opportunities will open up; they always have.
What's disingenuous is not including Social Security receipts in federal tax income figures.
False dichotomy. There are lots of options that don't involve any of those things --
How about making it cheaper for employers to hire people by cutting the payroll tax?
How about creating a climate of entrepreneurship which creates jobs?
How about reducing the cost of living by eliminating expensive regulation?
How about making it attractive to the private sector to start projects such as construction or the like that result in more and more jobs being created?
There are lots of ways to get people out of poverty that don't involve giving people money.
"In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade." --Milton Friedman
Actually, I've seen answers to all of those questions.
> If I own a self driving car, is my insurance insuring the AI as the driver?
Yes. Google has stated they will assume liability. Other companies pursuing this say the same.
> Is the driving record of that AI individual to my car, or to AI's of that software version ?
This one is actually easier. The insurance industry will have much better figures on the probability of having a claim to pay for the AI drivers, since all those drivers will drive the 'same'. They will be able to say that cars of model X get into .00001 accidents per car per year (or whatever) resulting in $2000 payouts per accident on average (or whatever) and thus will be expected to pay .00001 x $2000 x $INDUSTRY_MARKUP for insurance. Of course it gets a lot more complicated when you have to weigh in modifiers such as the weight of the vehicle (heavier cars cause more damage), the paint job (red cars get more tickets), the environment the car is in (urban cars get hit more), and etc.
> Can I sue the AI, or am I suing the AI manufacturer. Is the AI the car, or separate from the car?
The manufacturer gets sued. The manufacturer would keep insurance and lawyers for these lawsuits.
> am I suing Google or Ford ?
You sue whoever sold you the car. One throat to choke.
Well, letting them walk to work might be a bit tough to defend for an 8 year old.
But wouldn't it be "veterinary" and not "medical"? Technically, "medical" can only apply to humans, no?
Yep. I'll never forget that first paycheck I got from the grocery store I worked at in high school. "What the hell is FICA and why are they taking so much of my money?"
Been an anti-socialist ever since.
Net effect on tax revenue should be positive in favor of the government - this effectively raises taxes on the super rich who make all their money through capital gains. Net effect on corporations will be positive - no more taxes for them to pay. Corporations can repatriate all that money they have sitting overseas. Corporations offshoring due to tax reasons will be screaming to come here instead.
As a conservative, I do somewhat like your ideas. However, a couple of tweaks --
Taxation -
A. Don't repeal the individual income tax. Leave it in place. Tweak the brackets as necessary.
B. Repeal the *corporate* income tax (yes, that one).
C. Remove the 'Capital Gains' rate and tax capital gains to individuals at the income rate. CEOs and trust funders will now pay the same rates as the rest of us.
D. Tax expenses paid to foreign entities (not quite sure how to make this work, but perhaps someone smarter than me can think of something)
---This is to prevent foreign individuals from dodging taxes on income earned in the USA.
The point of all of this is to tax income when it's extracted from corporations. When the money is within a corporation, it is used as investment - hiring, R&D, capital expenses, stuff that pays employees. When the money is paid out to investors or employees (or especially hybrids of the two like CEOs), that's when it's taxed.
What this will do is allow all those corporations with money overseas to repatriate the funds and invest in hiring, R&D, etc. If that money is paid out to investors or as bonuses to employees, it's taxed at a higher rate because of the elimination of the capital gains rate.
There will also be benefits to small businesses as their corporate tax rate is eliminated - they're only taxed on what they pull out of the business.
Problem is, we're fresh out of Saturn V's with which to obtain the upper stages.
No, we're going to need something new and inventive - perhaps an inflatable module of some sort. Something small enough to launch but big enough in space. Or perhaps something that can be assembled to give enough room in space while requiring multiple launches, akin to the ISS.
Donald Trump thinks it's bullshit too. Just sayin'.
Nah. No desire to revisit that Communist propaganda. Might as well have been published in The Worker.
Neat engineering concepts, but his sociological stuff in there was nauseating.
> Except that religion tends to make no goddamn sense to a rational mind
Go read the Summa Theologica and get back to me on that. Nothing but logic and reason.
They're publishing it because they stole it from the United States and want to gloat a bit over it.
And Germany on the US. Even the best of friends keep tabs on each other in global espionage circles.
Keep your friends close....
> it would make FAR more sense to colonize Antarctica,
We already have multiple research stations there. The difference is, they're not self-sufficient to my knowledge - they're dependent on supply runs from the rest of the world - nor do the people live there forever.
Nuclear submarine reactors require seawater for cooling.
Not ordinarily an Obama defender, but....
For every 100,000 people in the USA who sign a petition on this website, there are 318.76 Million people who did not sign it. Trying to come up with why they didn't - are they indifferent? Opposed? Ignorant? - is an exercise they need to go through for every petition with significant support. As a result, they will respond, but not necessarily take action, unless it makes sense to them, i.e. conforms to, or is at least compatible with, their agenda.