Just re-write the H1-B laws so that all H1-B workers must be paid 20% more than industry standard for the region or area the job is located in. That, or have a 20-40% premium on each worker's salary paid by the hiring company as an excise tax.
Add this with the debacle of the Power Mac G4 Cube which had over a 33% D.O.A. rate that Apple was denying and their success can't be explained by anything short of Jobs making a deal with the devil.
I'm looking at my new(ish) 15" MacBook Pro. Here are the differences between it and my previous laptop, the Samsung 15" RC-512:
* The screen/lid does not flex when I open it (the Samsung did exactly that - freaky as hell at times) * Ditto for the case when I pick it up. * I can run a hellishly complex CG scene through LuxRender without kicking the CPU thermals and causing the whole laptop to shut down (The Samsung required a bit of a cool-down period before I could even reboot the stupid thing) * I can run the aforementioned renderer, LibreOffice, and Chrome all at once in OSX without an appreciable slowdown. Windows 7? Not so much. Even Linux would struggle at times on the Samsung box if I dared to do that. * The hard disk hasn't failed, and I've had the MBP for 4 months now... about 2 months longer than the HDD held up on the Samsung. * The screen and color balance is far nicer, and the image far crisper. Also, I suspect that given AppleCare, I don't have to put up with static from customer support like I did when a dead pixel showed up on the Samsung at around month 7. * Drivers? Who has to care about that anymore?
Meanwhile, a couple of other bits that put me firmly in the Apple-buying camp:
* My wife's iPad took a tumble a month ago, cracking the screen. $40 and a trip to the Apple Store later, she had a new one, all sync'd up with the data from her old one. No static from the counter at all (it costs about $80 or so IIRC for the factory 2-year accident protection plan, but damned well worth it so far, as it has already paid for itself.) * Last year, I found out they had a recall on the old Gen1 iPod Nanos. I fished through some old boxes, found my old 2GB critter, and sent it in. Apple sent back a 6th-gen 8GB Nano... all of this free of charge. I bought the thing in late 2005. * I bought a dual-G5 PowerMac in 2004. I gave it away to a friend, still fully-functional (with OSX 10.3 on it) in June of this year. * I did the same thing in 2005 with an old PowerBook laptop built in 1994 - the battery was down to holding maybe 20 minutes charge or so, but damn - no laptop battery from that era hold a charge after 10 years... this one still did, and it still ran MacOS7 just fine.
When you can show me an OEM that has that kind of quality and service at the same (let alone cheaper!) prices, come talk.
What are you, Catholic? We need to control people through guilt and shame? Really?
That's not what GP said - the idea is to introduce the idea of having those traits in a societal context, so that people will have an incentive to do more than just collect a dole every month.
Let me put it this way - late last year, I stood behind someone in line at the local store, and they proudly spoke about their new Kindle Fire while simultaneously using an EBT card. Something is heinously wrong with that...
As far as your point, it is still a good one - to wean, not cut-off. I humbly suggest the following means to help do so:
1) All able-bodied recipients of the dole should be required to either perform some menial and publicly visible work for at least 8-16 hours a week (e.g. pick up trash on the highways, clean up graffiti, etc), or help babysit for those who do. Special-colored jumpsuits should be provided so no one gets their normal clothes dirty.
2) EBT cards should be a fluorescent pink with white stripes, or some other easily-identifiable color scheme. It would however be preferable to go back to the paper system they once had for food stamps with the funny-coloring, so that everyone in line sees the food stamps (or EBT card) being used.
3) Random weekly drug tests should be mandatory while on the dole. Anyone who fails should either be cut off, fined, or put into mandatory rehab - no exceptions outside of holding a valid prescription for the drug in question. Any children involved should be put into CPS care on the spot (as much as I detest how they're generally run, the threat should be more than sufficient.)
4) Barring actual disability, there should be a lifetime limit, as well as a limit on how long one is on the dole, with sufficient warning and/or notices given as the clock winds down - sort of like how unemployment insurance has such time limits.
Doesn't work for corporate executives. They show shame and guilt when ordered by their lawyers, and yet offend at a rate greater than any minority slums (they just have legal representation to get the charged dismissed/reduced)..
Dude wasn't talking about reforming robber barons - that's an entirely different problem which requires a different solution (personally, I'd like to see all C-level board members forced to put a substantial personal stake and liability in the company beyond mere stockholding; when it's your skin in the game, suddenly acting in the best interests of the customer becomes a good thing.)
Ok, how do you think they can sustain the operation and remain 'free' then?
RedHat, SuSE (Novell), Linux Mint, and a whole buttload of other distros have found monetary income w/o resorting to bullshit techniques - why can't Canonical?
Why is Broadband more expensive? Why do we pay more for healthcare? Why is our productivity so high compared to real wages? Why does our government spy on us and disregard our civil liberties? Why are we below the average in ability according to OECD? Why is the gap between the richest and the poorest on par with that of African countries?
Because of governments elected by people who can't even spell "municipality", "Congress", or "legislature", let alone know how theirs are being run.
How come the invisible hand of the market doesn't spank the telcos for their impudence?
Three words: Right Of Way.
Most cities/towns don't want to have their streets clogged up with wiring, so they limit what they lease out for rights to put in wire/cable/fiber, or worse, auction it off. Thus the number of competitors is pretty limited. This in turn creates a nasty little duopoly/triopoly in most areas, with one provider on cable (Comcast/Time-Warner/Charter), one on DSL (CenturyLink/Frontier), and maybe one for fiber if your locale is lucky enough to have it. Some areas also have wireless broadband as well, but nowadays that's as rare as fiber.
Either way, the result is a "stable" market of regular price hikes where the consumer has no incentive to switch... I've only seen one exception, when Charter moved into the rural Oregon coastal area where I lived - I saw my broadband cost go down from CenturyStink's $70/mo for 3mb/sec, to Charter's $30/mo for 30mb/sec (which I suspect will remain that way until Charter takes over enough of the region.)
Given the lower population density overall for the US (but not average, mind), the initial cost for competition coupled with reluctance from town/city/county officials to grant right-of-way (or worse, watching them action off or sell right-of-way for astoundingly high prices), means you the consumer are, well, screwed.
Throw into the mix is the intensive and money-rich lobbying efforts by existing telcos to prohibit any worthwhile competition or muni-owned infrastructure, and you have a shit situation overall, no?.
Bengazi was a pretty minor thing on any sort of scale that matters to anyone outside politicos with a bone to pick.
It's the first time any US president (or at least his staff) withheld nearby assistance from military troops during an attack on one of its embassies, and the first time such an attack was blamed on a "film". It's doubly chafing when the Secretary of State scoffs it off with "What difference does it make?"
It isn't that the attack wasn't minor - in the strategic scale it was. The problems lie in how it was handled by the Commander-in-Chief and his staff.
Uh, bullshit. They let him get away with the invasion of Iraq with nary a peep.
Apparently so did Congress (which voted almost unanimously for it), and the public (which supported it at the time by an overwhelming majority). 9/11 is the variable there.
Incidentally, the press reported on chemical weapons being smuggled to Syria during the early stages of the Iraq war... recent news suggest that they were plentiful and put to use. Since chemical weapons are classified as weapons of mass destruction...
The media were called "message force multipliers" under the Bush administration specifically because they were so amenable to whatever Bush wanted the rest of us to hear.
During a no-shit national crisis, certainly (see also 9/11). However, outside of the 9/11 hysteria and the initial wartime coverage (which the military tightly controlled - seems they learned their lessons from Vietnam, but I digress), Bush got hammered at almost every turn.
Whether that was right or wrong is not fully germane to the discussion, but there is a distinct lack of criticality towards the current president (now recent developments with the whole Obamacare thing may change that, given that the story is far too big, but I stand by my previous post.)
1) That works in both directions... the media (especially in presidential elections) can give you more airtime, or less airtime during election season. They can also control how you are portrayed during that time.
2) I never (ever!) said that the media is a "mouthpiece" for any administration. Doing so would be far too obvious.
I dunno - what's worse? Getting executed (if you are indeed guilty), or sending the rest of your life stuffed into a hole with only your personal demons for company?
Personally, I oppose executions on moral grounds, but I can see the arguments on both sides...
What are they going to do? Throw the lifer in jail?
Nope, but they can impose even harsher penalties. Two that come to mind?
* removal of privileges (bed linens, commissary privileges, rec yard, etc) * restricted solitary confinement (23 hours a day alone in a cell, one hour to exercise, shower, whatever in an isolated small confinement area) * loss of communication rights except to legal counsel (no more letters to/from home, etc).
In some states, it could also mean being sent to hard labor for up to 16 hours each day, every day until you behave (e.g. Arkansas, which has prison farms).
Because whatever else is true, at least we're not fucking torturing people(ourselves) anymore.
One small problem:
The mainstream media had (IMHO thankfully) a bit of a hate-on for Bush, so every little thing his administration did wrong was broadcast loud and clear. They don't seem to have the same diligence towards the current administration, which means we the public doesn't get to see anything ugly until it becomes too big of a story to ignore, and even then it's usually quieted down or distracted from awfully quick.
Set aside any partisan feelings you may have and let me put it this way: If the Bush administration handled, say, the whole Benghazi incident exactly the same way our current administration had, would there or would there not be calls for impeachment from the likes of CNBC (as there were very loudly during much of Bush's latter years in office)?
Note that I say this not due to any ideology, but to illustrate a point: The mainstream media (yes, including FOX) tends to be a bit kinder to our current president than the media really should be.
In any right-to-work state, employers are free to hire and fire based on whim, so long as the reason cannot be traced to a certain list of federally-protected reasons (religion, race, etc).
Don't like it? Work for someone else. In my own opinion, I'd much rather work for someone else if they were ready to fire me based on my like (or lack thereof) in Star Trek. If a manager is stupid enough to put such things at a higher priority than job performance, revenue-generation, or whatever other business-building/sustaining metric you get measured by, then the business will go under.
Think about this - if a business bases its hiring decisions on stupid metrics, then would you want to continue working there when it finally does cave in?
Or they could just do like almost every other state in the Union and just PASS A SALES TAX.
I'm sure the more impoverished among us out here would really appreciate your suggestion. I'm doubly certain that all the stores in Portland (esp. those which sell large items, such as furniture) would appreciate seeing a huge drop in business from Washington State shoppers.
But, you know, unintended consequences and all that.
Incidentally, income and property taxes out here more than makes up for the lack of sales tax.
Small correction: They can *try* to put in a tracking device on my car (I live in Oregon), but it will be re-located to my riding lawn-mower in fairly short order.
Maybe they can order bicyclists in Portland to put tracking devices on their bikes first - you know, as a test. After all, bicycles share the road around here, and are (according to every local official) equal in legal stature to an automobile.
I'm willing to wager that if they tried that tack, the smug little hippies who suggested this little tracking device would quickly want it shut down.
Every "legal" Gun owner has his Guns registered. So your argument is moot.
I can tell that you have never owned a firearm, because that statement is incorrect.
There are too many variables out there for your statement to be true. Handguns usually require a 3-day waiting period (depending on state) between purchase and receiving, but only if you purchase it at a retail outlet or an FFL holding firearms dealer. Meanwhile? Rifles/shotguns may or may not require registration, depending on state and local laws.
Any purchase made directly from a private owner (classifieds, yard sales, private sales at gun shows, auctions, etc) do not require any sort of registration - at all. Firearms received as a gift do not require registration at all (I have two that were given to me as gifts, one of which is a.45 ACP handgun).
Out of my entire firearms collection, only one of them is actually registered to any governmental entity at all (it's an antique Mosin-Nagant carbine whose serial # and markings trace it to the WWII Battle of Stalingrad), and that was only because I bought it from an FFL-holding dealer who insisted.
In fairness if "you" are discussing how "you" were required to take a technical writing course, expressing dismay at someone's writing abilities, I would expect much more caution in what was written.
Maybe he was using the South Chicago Manual of Style as his template?
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There is a pretty easy cure for all of this...
Just re-write the H1-B laws so that all H1-B workers must be paid 20% more than industry standard for the region or area the job is located in. That, or have a 20-40% premium on each worker's salary paid by the hiring company as an excise tax.
I bet that shit would stop cold right away.
Add this with the debacle of the Power Mac G4 Cube which had over a 33% D.O.A. rate that Apple was denying and their success can't be explained by anything short of Jobs making a deal with the devil.
Really? My Cube held up just fine in spite of my worst efforts.
Not exactly...
I'm looking at my new(ish) 15" MacBook Pro. Here are the differences between it and my previous laptop, the Samsung 15" RC-512:
* The screen/lid does not flex when I open it (the Samsung did exactly that - freaky as hell at times)
* Ditto for the case when I pick it up.
* I can run a hellishly complex CG scene through LuxRender without kicking the CPU thermals and causing the whole laptop to shut down (The Samsung required a bit of a cool-down period before I could even reboot the stupid thing)
* I can run the aforementioned renderer, LibreOffice, and Chrome all at once in OSX without an appreciable slowdown. Windows 7? Not so much. Even Linux would struggle at times on the Samsung box if I dared to do that.
* The hard disk hasn't failed, and I've had the MBP for 4 months now... about 2 months longer than the HDD held up on the Samsung.
* The screen and color balance is far nicer, and the image far crisper. Also, I suspect that given AppleCare, I don't have to put up with static from customer support like I did when a dead pixel showed up on the Samsung at around month 7.
* Drivers? Who has to care about that anymore?
Meanwhile, a couple of other bits that put me firmly in the Apple-buying camp:
* My wife's iPad took a tumble a month ago, cracking the screen. $40 and a trip to the Apple Store later, she had a new one, all sync'd up with the data from her old one. No static from the counter at all (it costs about $80 or so IIRC for the factory 2-year accident protection plan, but damned well worth it so far, as it has already paid for itself.)
* Last year, I found out they had a recall on the old Gen1 iPod Nanos. I fished through some old boxes, found my old 2GB critter, and sent it in. Apple sent back a 6th-gen 8GB Nano... all of this free of charge. I bought the thing in late 2005.
* I bought a dual-G5 PowerMac in 2004. I gave it away to a friend, still fully-functional (with OSX 10.3 on it) in June of this year.
* I did the same thing in 2005 with an old PowerBook laptop built in 1994 - the battery was down to holding maybe 20 minutes charge or so, but damn - no laptop battery from that era hold a charge after 10 years... this one still did, and it still ran MacOS7 just fine.
When you can show me an OEM that has that kind of quality and service at the same (let alone cheaper!) prices, come talk.
Found out just the other day that I missed a golden opportunity. They were scrapping an old aircraft carrier. Sold it for $1!
Yep - now you just have to pay shipping on it...
What are you, Catholic? We need to control people through guilt and shame? Really?
That's not what GP said - the idea is to introduce the idea of having those traits in a societal context, so that people will have an incentive to do more than just collect a dole every month.
Let me put it this way - late last year, I stood behind someone in line at the local store, and they proudly spoke about their new Kindle Fire while simultaneously using an EBT card. Something is heinously wrong with that...
As far as your point, it is still a good one - to wean, not cut-off. I humbly suggest the following means to help do so:
1) All able-bodied recipients of the dole should be required to either perform some menial and publicly visible work for at least 8-16 hours a week (e.g. pick up trash on the highways, clean up graffiti, etc), or help babysit for those who do. Special-colored jumpsuits should be provided so no one gets their normal clothes dirty.
2) EBT cards should be a fluorescent pink with white stripes, or some other easily-identifiable color scheme. It would however be preferable to go back to the paper system they once had for food stamps with the funny-coloring, so that everyone in line sees the food stamps (or EBT card) being used.
3) Random weekly drug tests should be mandatory while on the dole. Anyone who fails should either be cut off, fined, or put into mandatory rehab - no exceptions outside of holding a valid prescription for the drug in question. Any children involved should be put into CPS care on the spot (as much as I detest how they're generally run, the threat should be more than sufficient.)
4) Barring actual disability, there should be a lifetime limit, as well as a limit on how long one is on the dole, with sufficient warning and/or notices given as the clock winds down - sort of like how unemployment insurance has such time limits.
Doesn't work for corporate executives. They show shame and guilt when ordered by their lawyers, and yet offend at a rate greater than any minority slums (they just have legal representation to get the charged dismissed/reduced)..
Dude wasn't talking about reforming robber barons - that's an entirely different problem which requires a different solution (personally, I'd like to see all C-level board members forced to put a substantial personal stake and liability in the company beyond mere stockholding; when it's your skin in the game, suddenly acting in the best interests of the customer becomes a good thing.)
Ok, how do you think they can sustain the operation and remain 'free' then?
RedHat, SuSE (Novell), Linux Mint, and a whole buttload of other distros have found monetary income w/o resorting to bullshit techniques - why can't Canonical?
Why is Broadband more expensive?
Why do we pay more for healthcare?
Why is our productivity so high compared to real wages?
Why does our government spy on us and disregard our civil liberties?
Why are we below the average in ability according to OECD?
Why is the gap between the richest and the poorest on par with that of African countries?
Because of governments elected by people who can't even spell "municipality", "Congress", or "legislature", let alone know how theirs are being run.
Next question?
He mentioned that too - munis get in the way there. See also the whole right-of-way nastiness.
How come the invisible hand of the market doesn't spank the telcos for their impudence?
Three words: Right Of Way.
Most cities/towns don't want to have their streets clogged up with wiring, so they limit what they lease out for rights to put in wire/cable/fiber, or worse, auction it off. Thus the number of competitors is pretty limited. This in turn creates a nasty little duopoly/triopoly in most areas, with one provider on cable (Comcast/Time-Warner/Charter), one on DSL (CenturyLink/Frontier), and maybe one for fiber if your locale is lucky enough to have it. Some areas also have wireless broadband as well, but nowadays that's as rare as fiber.
Either way, the result is a "stable" market of regular price hikes where the consumer has no incentive to switch... I've only seen one exception, when Charter moved into the rural Oregon coastal area where I lived - I saw my broadband cost go down from CenturyStink's $70/mo for 3mb/sec, to Charter's $30/mo for 30mb/sec (which I suspect will remain that way until Charter takes over enough of the region.)
Given the lower population density overall for the US (but not average, mind), the initial cost for competition coupled with reluctance from town/city/county officials to grant right-of-way (or worse, watching them action off or sell right-of-way for astoundingly high prices), means you the consumer are, well, screwed.
Throw into the mix is the intensive and money-rich lobbying efforts by existing telcos to prohibit any worthwhile competition or muni-owned infrastructure, and you have a shit situation overall, no?.
Bengazi was a pretty minor thing on any sort of scale that matters to anyone outside politicos with a bone to pick.
It's the first time any US president (or at least his staff) withheld nearby assistance from military troops during an attack on one of its embassies, and the first time such an attack was blamed on a "film". It's doubly chafing when the Secretary of State scoffs it off with "What difference does it make?"
It isn't that the attack wasn't minor - in the strategic scale it was. The problems lie in how it was handled by the Commander-in-Chief and his staff.
Uh, bullshit. They let him get away with the invasion of Iraq with nary a peep.
Apparently so did Congress (which voted almost unanimously for it), and the public (which supported it at the time by an overwhelming majority). 9/11 is the variable there.
Incidentally, the press reported on chemical weapons being smuggled to Syria during the early stages of the Iraq war... recent news suggest that they were plentiful and put to use. Since chemical weapons are classified as weapons of mass destruction...
Here's the trick: I never said the reporting on Bush was out of proportion. You came up with that bit, and here's why:
I want the press to be hellishly critical and probing of every president. They stopped doing that sometime around January of 2009.
pity their hate-on bush didn't identify the financial black hole he was creating for his amusement of invading iraq etc
Oh, it did:
Example One ...took all of 45 seconds on Google to find it.
Example Two
The media were called "message force multipliers" under the Bush administration specifically because they were so amenable to whatever Bush wanted the rest of us to hear.
During a no-shit national crisis, certainly (see also 9/11). However, outside of the 9/11 hysteria and the initial wartime coverage (which the military tightly controlled - seems they learned their lessons from Vietnam, but I digress), Bush got hammered at almost every turn.
Whether that was right or wrong is not fully germane to the discussion, but there is a distinct lack of criticality towards the current president (now recent developments with the whole Obamacare thing may change that, given that the story is far too big, but I stand by my previous post.)
1) That works in both directions... the media (especially in presidential elections) can give you more airtime, or less airtime during election season. They can also control how you are portrayed during that time.
2) I never (ever!) said that the media is a "mouthpiece" for any administration. Doing so would be far too obvious.
I dunno - what's worse? Getting executed (if you are indeed guilty), or sending the rest of your life stuffed into a hole with only your personal demons for company?
Personally, I oppose executions on moral grounds, but I can see the arguments on both sides...
What are they going to do? Throw the lifer in jail?
Nope, but they can impose even harsher penalties. Two that come to mind?
* removal of privileges (bed linens, commissary privileges, rec yard, etc)
* restricted solitary confinement (23 hours a day alone in a cell, one hour to exercise, shower, whatever in an isolated small confinement area)
* loss of communication rights except to legal counsel (no more letters to/from home, etc).
In some states, it could also mean being sent to hard labor for up to 16 hours each day, every day until you behave (e.g. Arkansas, which has prison farms).
Even a 'lifer' has things that he fears.
Because whatever else is true, at least we're not fucking torturing people(ourselves) anymore.
One small problem:
The mainstream media had (IMHO thankfully) a bit of a hate-on for Bush, so every little thing his administration did wrong was broadcast loud and clear. They don't seem to have the same diligence towards the current administration, which means we the public doesn't get to see anything ugly until it becomes too big of a story to ignore, and even then it's usually quieted down or distracted from awfully quick.
Set aside any partisan feelings you may have and let me put it this way: If the Bush administration handled, say, the whole Benghazi incident exactly the same way our current administration had, would there or would there not be calls for impeachment from the likes of CNBC (as there were very loudly during much of Bush's latter years in office)?
Note that I say this not due to any ideology, but to illustrate a point: The mainstream media (yes, including FOX) tends to be a bit kinder to our current president than the media really should be.
I think you missed his point...
In any right-to-work state, employers are free to hire and fire based on whim, so long as the reason cannot be traced to a certain list of federally-protected reasons (religion, race, etc).
Don't like it? Work for someone else. In my own opinion, I'd much rather work for someone else if they were ready to fire me based on my like (or lack thereof) in Star Trek. If a manager is stupid enough to put such things at a higher priority than job performance, revenue-generation, or whatever other business-building/sustaining metric you get measured by, then the business will go under.
Think about this - if a business bases its hiring decisions on stupid metrics, then would you want to continue working there when it finally does cave in?
If I live on the end of a gravel road built on iron-rich soil, that coating of mud can hardly be called "tampering." ;)
Or they could just do like almost every other state in the Union and just PASS A SALES TAX.
I'm sure the more impoverished among us out here would really appreciate your suggestion. I'm doubly certain that all the stores in Portland (esp. those which sell large items, such as furniture) would appreciate seeing a huge drop in business from Washington State shoppers.
But, you know, unintended consequences and all that.
Incidentally, income and property taxes out here more than makes up for the lack of sales tax.
Now your cutting costs idea? I like that.
Small correction: They can *try* to put in a tracking device on my car (I live in Oregon), but it will be re-located to my riding lawn-mower in fairly short order.
Maybe they can order bicyclists in Portland to put tracking devices on their bikes first - you know, as a test. After all, bicycles share the road around here, and are (according to every local official) equal in legal stature to an automobile.
I'm willing to wager that if they tried that tack, the smug little hippies who suggested this little tracking device would quickly want it shut down.
What if I want my firearm to be registered?
1) Fill out a copy of this: http://www.atf.gov/files/forms/download/atf-f-1370-2.pdf
2) Send it via postal service to the BATF in Washington DC.
Note the lack of restriction from you doing so.
Every "legal" Gun owner has his Guns registered. So your argument is moot.
I can tell that you have never owned a firearm, because that statement is incorrect.
There are too many variables out there for your statement to be true. Handguns usually require a 3-day waiting period (depending on state) between purchase and receiving, but only if you purchase it at a retail outlet or an FFL holding firearms dealer. Meanwhile? Rifles/shotguns may or may not require registration, depending on state and local laws.
Any purchase made directly from a private owner (classifieds, yard sales, private sales at gun shows, auctions, etc) do not require any sort of registration - at all. Firearms received as a gift do not require registration at all (I have two that were given to me as gifts, one of which is a .45 ACP handgun).
Out of my entire firearms collection, only one of them is actually registered to any governmental entity at all (it's an antique Mosin-Nagant carbine whose serial # and markings trace it to the WWII Battle of Stalingrad), and that was only because I bought it from an FFL-holding dealer who insisted.
In fairness if "you" are discussing how "you" were required to take a technical writing course, expressing dismay at someone's writing abilities, I would expect much more caution in what was written.
Maybe he was using the South Chicago Manual of Style as his template?