So there's less methane being released. OK, that's good and all--but it still doesn't address the several other really important problems with fracking.
Like the fact that the toxic chemicals they use to force apart the shale layers are a) basically unknown, b) often left down there, and c) known to be contaminating groundwater in some instances. Or the fact that the gas companies come in, tear up the countryside, create an ecological disaster, make vast amounts of money, and then, when they decide it's no longer worth their time--they just pack up and leave. And the local communities get to deal with the mess for the next 100 years or so.
The basic problem is that there's insufficient regulation here. Preventing companies from exploiting natural resources for tremendous profit while leaving behind a horrific environmental mess--and, in general, preventing privatized profits with socialized costs--is precisely what regulation is best for. The market not only will not deal with these issues, it cannot. It has no way of taking account of the externalities associated with hydrofracking.
Put in place some good common-sense regulation of hydrofracking, with enough teeth to make it actually mean something, and then we can talk about allowing it to happen within 100 miles of my house.
And yes, I live in the northernmost extension of the Marcellus shale in upstate NY, so this issue does affect me personally.
Fair enough. I was reading it as, "the entirety of some schools of fundamentalism," rather than "some types of people who are fundamentalists," which appears to have been your meaning.:-)
They know that God didn't write out their personal copy by hand and that there was a long chain of writers and translators but they'd rather die than admit it.
That's a nice fairy tale, too.
Actually, for most of them, they either haven't actually read large parts of the Bible, or they actually do believe that it's literally true, but you have to interpret it right. So in that case, they would almost certainly believe the "executive summary" explanation someone upthread gave.
It may be fun to believe that every single fundamentalist is actually a hypocrite and knows that the things they profess are untrue, but it's really about as stupid a belief as the one that the Bible is literally true in every detail.
Month 25-infinity: No more contract, and my phone still works just fine, so I can get my phone unlocked, hop carriers all I want and shop around for the best rates!
This makes an important assumption: that it's feasible for you to hop carriers and shop around for the best rates.
In the area where I live, only Verizon has reliable coverage everywhere. AT&T can mostly manage to keep you connected, but (so people who've used them tell me) they often drop out, and the data speed, in practice, isn't as good.
So there's really no point in my trying to get my phone unlocked.
You get emotional when you have to work with the OS at a lower level than just launching applications. Ie, you need to write and run some scripts, or just type in commands.
No, it really is more than that.
My wife, who, until a few years after we started going out, had never used anything but Windows, was forced temporarily to use a Windows laptop instead of her MacBook a year or two after we got married. It was only a week or two, but she was just about tearing her hair out by the end.
The single biggest frustration of hers (that I can recall 5-6 years later) was the insistence on MDI, even in non-Microsoft programs. She hated having Photoshop stick a useless gray background between her and her desktop.
Sorry to be a bit off topic, but there was a very good article on/. about how you really shouldn't use Americans as an indication of how the global population thinks.
Was it talking about America vs the world, or America vs the West? Because in my (admittedly limited and mostly American) experience, there's a lot more difference between, say, the average East Asian's perspective on life in general and an American's than between an average German's and an American's.
I wonder how much more money they could be making if they'd just sell folks lossless music on the open market
Most people don't understand what this even means, let alone actually care. All they know is availability and cost, along with how many songs they can fit on their iDevice.
Exactly.
I hear this repeated in every thread on a geek site about music revenues, but it's so plainly silly. They're leaving hardly any money on the table by not selling lossless music on the open market, because only a vanishingly small minority of consumers have a clue what lossless music even is, let alone care enough to pay extra for it.
So many geeks really, really need to either get out into the real world, or at least watch some non-geeky TV shows (or, heck, even the non-geeky people in the geeky shows; Penny in Big Bang Theory is a decent example...), to see how the vast majority of America's (and the West's in general) population thinks. It has very little to do with studying all the technical aspects of something and deciding carefully which choice has the greatest benefit for the least cost.
Until they do this, they will continue to be frustrated and baffled by the things that succeed and fail in markets, and what's even offered. (Once you understand how people think, you may still be frustrated, but at least you'll be less baffled!:-D )
What should someone do if they like the iPhone, but can't get AT&T?
Maybe pay the tiniest sliver of attention to the world so you can learn that the iPhone has come on all major US carriers (ie, AT&T and Verizon) for years now?
But then I guess when you are dealing with the "religion" of Leftism that is controlling much of the government, irrational things are to be expected.
A quick tip (which you ought to have been able to pick up from the summary, for Cthulhu's sake): This isn't something most left-leaning people in the US support. Note where it says that environmentalists are against it?
It's important to remember that not every issue in this country is one of Left vs Right. Many of them, in fact, are issues of Politicians/Lobbyists vs Real People. This is one like that.
Lets have some sanity about guns as a privileged and not a right
So, treason is cool now? Passing laws in direct violation of Constitutionally enumerated rights is fine?
While we're at it, let's make a list of other Constitutional amendments we prefer to ignore. How about those pesky 13th, 19th, and 24th as well?
The idea that the 2nd Amendment means that all Americans should have an unfettered right to own whatever kinds of modern armaments they want is a pretty recent one. I don't have the source in front of me right now, but my recollection is that there was a campaign in the 1970s or so to change the popular interpretation from "to form a militia (ie, army) you need guns" to "every single American should own an assault rifle."
If you actually read the 2nd Amendment, while I can understand how the current interpretation came about, it should also be pretty easy to see how the previous interpretation was formed.
Furthermore, I challenge you to explain what the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is.
Is it to ensure that America can be defended from outside threats? If so, then the US Army surely does a much better job.
Is it to ensure that every average American can have the ability to defend themselves from criminals in their home? If so, I challenge you to support that without twisting the Amendment's wording significantly.
Is it to ensure that average Americans can have the ability to overthrow their government if the government is seen as no longer representing the will of the people? If so, then the Amendment is quite obviously hopelessly outdated and its purpose no longer possible to fulfill without going to lengths that I think most Americans would find absurd (eg, permitting any random nut to own a tank, fighter jet, or cruise missiles).
The idea that questioning the unrestricted individual right to bear arms in the 2nd Amendment is treason is ridiculous. Such was almost certainly not the intent of the Founders, and statistics seem to seriously call into question the wisdom of continuing to uphold it (the NRA's talking points notwithstanding).
I expect people will have Office on their computer and mobile device. So do the subscription purchases from the computer.
Exactly. I really don't see why Microsoft is making such a huge stink over this, if the in-app purchase of a subscription is the real issue for them.
Perhaps MS was thinking of offering the Mac version of Office through Apple's Mac App Store. That might trigger the same restrictions as the iOS App Store.
But the issue here, if I'm reading it right, isn't the price of Office on the App Store. It's the subscription revenue from Office 365.
Besides, I think it unlikely that MS will be interested in dealing with the other restrictions that the Mac App Store requires. It wouldn't surprise me if there were large parts of Office for Mac that it would have to rewrite to sell through the Mac App Store, for very little benefit. It's not like the Mac App Store is the only way to get software onto a Mac, like the App Store is for iOS.
Apple's position is, and always has been, that subscriptions bought through in-app purchase pay Apple the 30% cut—because they're going through Apple's payment process and paying through their iTunes account—while subscriptions bought elsewhere, Apple doesn't care about.
I think all sales done by an app have to go through Apple's in-app purchase system. You can offer subscriptions and services elsewhere but the purchase has to be done outside of the app. I don't think the app can even send you to the web for such purchases to avoid in-app.
Yes, that's correct. I didn't intend to imply otherwise; sorry if I wasn't clear.
Now for MS Office this seems like a minor issue. I expect people will have Office on their computer and mobile device. So do the subscription purchases from the computer.
Exactly. I really don't see why Microsoft is making such a huge stink over this, if the in-app purchase of a subscription is the real issue for them. Makes me suspect that all they really want is to try to make Apple look bad. (But then, I've been anti-Microsoft for decades now, so I'm hardly impartial.)
The subscription isn't even going to be sold through the MS Office apps, those are to be bought separately on the Office 365 website.
Apple's position is, and always has been, that subscriptions bought through in-app purchase pay Apple the 30% cut—because they're going through Apple's payment process and paying through their iTunes account—while subscriptions bought elsewhere, Apple doesn't care about. (They used to care enough to demand that they be priced the same as subscriptions through in-app purchase, but now, IIRC, they no longer even do that.)
So you're as full of BS as the next irrational Apple-hater.
However, it's basic economics that the person who can afford the tax is the one who ends up paying it. Remember that the sales tax happens during a transaction between a buyer and a seller. In order to make the sale, the seller will have to reduce the price and the buyer will have to pay more. If the poor person can't afford to pay the tax, the seller will have to lower the price in order to make the sale (to the extent such a thing is possible). On the other hand, if the seller can't afford the tax, but the buyer can, the price will remain the same and the buyer will pay more in order the make the transaction take place. The real concern is the sales which won't occur due to the tax, where neither the buyer or the seller nor the two combined can afford the tax.
That's...I don't think that works.
First of all, consider the case where, for a particular area, there are enough rich people who can afford the price plus the tax to keep the store profitable, and thus the prices do not drop. What, then, happens to the people who are too poor to afford the price plus the tax?
Second of all, it's very rarely a binary question of people being able to afford the food they're buying this week, but not being able to afford the food plus the tax on the food. It's almost always going to be, "Well, before the tax came into effect, I could afford X food. Now I can afford X-Y food." This doesn't mean that the store is going to drop the prices on their food (mainly due to the point above); it means that some people are going to have to choose between buying food and paying rent, or paying for heat, or whatever.
I am, in general, as skeptical about propositions of the form, "increases in price externalities affecting good X will not be passed on to the customer if the customer can't afford it; the business will always eat the price difference," as I am of propositions of the form, "increases in overhead price externalities affecting company X will not cause company X to eat the loss; they will always raise their prices so that their customers pay more." In reality, things are more complicated than either of these account for, and I've only ever heard these propositions advanced by people specifically attempting to justify higher sales taxes or lower corporate taxes (or lower financial penalties for corporate malfeasance).
And you've bought the liberal line hook, line, and sinker as well.
While I _completely_ agree we're spending way too much on the military, it's a gnat's fart compared to our entitlement obligations. If you cut our spending on the military by 100% you could _almost_ pay for social security this year and you wouldn't even have started in on the much larger problems of Medicare, Medicaid, and the soon to be fiscal disaster that is the PPACA.
Our problem is by far a spending problem. Republican or Democrat, we can't seem to stop fucking spending our grand children's money.
It seems that you accept the premise that the social safety net is unnecessary. I do not. I believe that part of society's obligation is to care for those who have, through whatever means, lost the ability to care for themselves.
You do know that sales taxes are ridiculously regressive, right?
If someone who makes $50k/yr spends $25k of that on taxable goods, that's 50% of his income. Do you really think that someone making $500 million/yr spends $250 million on taxable goods? I mean, it would be great if they did—that would be some damn good economic stimulus right there—but in reality, the richer you are, the smaller a percentage of your income you spend on taxable goods. Generally, the rich put large chunks of their income into various financial vehicles.
What all this means is that with a sales tax being the sole method of raising money for the government to operate, the poorer you are, the higher your effective tax rate will be. Sure, the rich will pay somewhat more in absolute terms than the poor, but vastly less than they would with a properly-operating income tax system.
Furthermore, because of this, total tax revenues would drop precipitously. Now, you may be one of those who believes that would be a good thing, but me, I like having roads, bridges, police & fire services, a social safety net, and all the other stuff that a properly-functioning first-world government provides.
We don't have a revenue problem in the US - we have a spending problem.
You've bought the conservative lies hook, line, and sinker.
The fact is, while this country is spending too much on its military (more than the next 13 military-spending countries combined), its main problem is, indeed, a revenue problem. The tax rates and the tax revenues as percent of GDP are lower than they have been at any time since the Great Depression.
So unless you are one of those who honestly believes that we'd be better off with, essentially, no federal government at all (in which case I disagree with you, but at least respect you for having beliefs consistent with your policy preferences), we need taxes to be a lot higher than they are if we want to continue to function as a first-world country.
Disclaimer: I'm an Apple fan. You're not likely to convince me they're "teh evil," and thus automatically taint anything they do. (Though unlike some, I don't worship the ground Steve Jobs walked on.)
Why? We're talking about getting financial support for a grassroots lobbying effort. Assuming they'd do it (which, to be sure, is not a small assumption), what are you claiming that Apple's going to do that would be a "bad mistake"?
In a country of 300M people, $140B is only $50 per person. Comparing the price to Google's market cap is silly. For a big infrastructure project like this they would, of course, seek new capital to cover the cost. This is affordable.
I think this can't be stressed enough.
If the numbers in this report are anywhere near accurate, it ought to be easily possible to get a national fiber network. (Financially possible; saying nothing about politically here.)
Furthermore, it highlights just how dishonest and greedy Verizon is being in their decision to stop rolling out fiber. The primary reason they are doing it is to push more people onto 4G wireless—which they can charge much more for, and which is much less regulated than any wireline service. (I can't speak to what AT&T is doing, since to my knowledge, they don't have any wireline deployment in my general area.)
This sounds like the perfect target for some kind of grassroots push. If we can get some of the tech giants, like Google and Apple, on board, it ought to be possible to counterbalance the ISP lobby.
What, you mean the part about Apple losing market share to Android devices? Yeah, that part pretty much is playing out exactly as foretold.
Nobody will deny that Apple makes quite a bit of money, but if you take the entire Android ecosystem vs the Apple ecosystem, there is far more money being made overall in the former, with the larger and larger share of the pie that former is taking.
Do you have a source for that "more money" claim? Because everything I've seen says that yes, Android is slowly taking more of the market, but iOS is still making money so much faster than Android it just isn't even funny.
Bull. Most religious Americans have traditionally been Protestant (though a huge influx of Catholics from south of the border has recently shifted that a bit) and the entire Protestant movement was rooted in a rejection of the idea you spouted
Your naivete is charming.
Yes, the Protestant movement is, indeed, philosophically and theologically opposed to the paternalism and patriarchy of Rome.
But if you think that means that every sect that today identifies itself as Protestant is opposed to paternalism as a concept, you're sadly mistaken.
A great deal of what drives people to a fundamentalist form of Christianity (or, I would presume, any religion) is a desire to be told, "Do A, B, and C, and don't do X, Y, and Z and you will be Good." Furthermore, there are many fundamentalist groups that specifically embrace a hierarchical, patriarchal structure wherein the women and children are told what to do by their husbands and fathers, who in turn are told what to do by their church leaders, who (presumably) are told what to do by God. This translates very well into the church leaders being told by others whom they feel hold greater authority—people like Pat Robertson—and taking the political positions that the Christian right holds as being nearly as etched-in-stone infallible as the Bible itself.
But let me hold up a mirror for you...
Hard-left secular progressives " want someone with greater authority to tell them what to believe, what to do and think"
How? You want government to tell you how much salt you can eat, how big of a soft drink you can buy, what kind of car to drive, where to live, what kinds of energy are "good", what type of health insurance you must buy and how much you must pay for it, what kinds of movies and music you can get and what you can play it on, what the proper racial ratios are of people in workplaces or in schools (performance be-damned), etc... and you demand that everybody else must live under your beliefs.
Well, there's a grain of truth in what you say.
The government has scientists who study how much salt is good to eat, and they issue recommendations on that. (Not mandates.)
The Big Gulp ban? Yeah, that's pretty muchconsidered dumb by most sensible people.
The government mandates certain safety standards in cars, so that the auto industry can't make and sell a car that has a high likelihood of killing you. The government is also the only type of entity that has the real capability to shape our overall public policy to reduce greenhouse gases and other nasty pollutants that may not cause any immediate harm to those producing them, but will, over time, cause serious and irreparable damage to our environment. (Which is, again, what actual scientists who actually know what they're talking about have determined through careful study and understanding of, well, science will happen.)
Where to live? Not sure exactly what you're referring to here, but honestly, I think there should be stricter regulations about construction in heavy earthquake zones (you can build there, just make it earthquake-resistant), flood zones (you can build there, too, just make sure it won't be totally destroyed by a flood and require comprehensive flood insurance), and hurricane-prone areas (you can even build there, just make sure the buildings are more wind-resistant and require flood insurance). Why do I believe these regulations are appropriate? Because without them, the people most likely to be harmed are those who can least afford it. The flood zones will be the cheap housing that's all the poor people can afford, and when it does flood, they'll lose everything and be left homeless.
Coal is bad. It creates more greenhouse gases than any other fuel source, and, particularly for some of the older plants, puts more radioactive particles into our atmosphere than any nuclear plant. (Not by failing—it puts them there in norma
His firing is a surprising move for a party that has been looking for ways to attract younger voters.
Many things the Republican Party is doing are surprising moves, for a party that is looking for ways to attract...well, anyone. It almost seems like the party forgot that the point of democracy is to represent your own people, not try to tell them that you know better than they do what would be good for them.
Actually, that attitude is very much in line with what large chunks of the hard-right fundamentalist Christian faction believe. They want someone with greater authority to tell them what to believe, what to do and think.
Compared to the insanity of Hong Kong, California isn't _that_ bad.
Well, sure, there's always going to be somewhere that has it worse than you. But that doesn't mean that it's unfair of the vast majority of Americans to look askance at the cost of living in the Bay Area.
Slashdot Mirror
So there's less methane being released. OK, that's good and all--but it still doesn't address the several other really important problems with fracking.
Like the fact that the toxic chemicals they use to force apart the shale layers are a) basically unknown, b) often left down there, and c) known to be contaminating groundwater in some instances. Or the fact that the gas companies come in, tear up the countryside, create an ecological disaster, make vast amounts of money, and then, when they decide it's no longer worth their time--they just pack up and leave. And the local communities get to deal with the mess for the next 100 years or so.
The basic problem is that there's insufficient regulation here. Preventing companies from exploiting natural resources for tremendous profit while leaving behind a horrific environmental mess--and, in general, preventing privatized profits with socialized costs--is precisely what regulation is best for. The market not only will not deal with these issues, it cannot. It has no way of taking account of the externalities associated with hydrofracking.
Put in place some good common-sense regulation of hydrofracking, with enough teeth to make it actually mean something, and then we can talk about allowing it to happen within 100 miles of my house.
And yes, I live in the northernmost extension of the Marcellus shale in upstate NY, so this issue does affect me personally.
Dan Aris
You can tie up scammers on their home turf.
You also tie yourself up. Unless you have nothing else to do with your time, it's still a net loss for you.
Unless you can derive entertainment from it. Then it can pay for itself.
Dan Aris
Fair enough. I was reading it as, "the entirety of some schools of fundamentalism," rather than "some types of people who are fundamentalists," which appears to have been your meaning. :-)
Dan Aris
They know that God didn't write out their personal copy by hand and that there was a long chain of writers and translators but they'd rather die than admit it.
That's a nice fairy tale, too.
Actually, for most of them, they either haven't actually read large parts of the Bible, or they actually do believe that it's literally true, but you have to interpret it right. So in that case, they would almost certainly believe the "executive summary" explanation someone upthread gave.
It may be fun to believe that every single fundamentalist is actually a hypocrite and knows that the things they profess are untrue, but it's really about as stupid a belief as the one that the Bible is literally true in every detail.
Dan Aris
This makes an important assumption: that it's feasible for you to hop carriers and shop around for the best rates.
In the area where I live, only Verizon has reliable coverage everywhere. AT&T can mostly manage to keep you connected, but (so people who've used them tell me) they often drop out, and the data speed, in practice, isn't as good.
So there's really no point in my trying to get my phone unlocked.
Dan Aris
You get emotional when you have to work with the OS at a lower level than just launching applications. Ie, you need to write and run some scripts, or just type in commands.
No, it really is more than that.
My wife, who, until a few years after we started going out, had never used anything but Windows, was forced temporarily to use a Windows laptop instead of her MacBook a year or two after we got married. It was only a week or two, but she was just about tearing her hair out by the end.
The single biggest frustration of hers (that I can recall 5-6 years later) was the insistence on MDI, even in non-Microsoft programs. She hated having Photoshop stick a useless gray background between her and her desktop.
Dan Aris
Sorry to be a bit off topic, but there was a very good article on /. about how you really shouldn't use Americans as an indication of how the global population thinks.
Was it talking about America vs the world, or America vs the West? Because in my (admittedly limited and mostly American) experience, there's a lot more difference between, say, the average East Asian's perspective on life in general and an American's than between an average German's and an American's.
Dan Aris
You and the labels are forgetting the audiophile, who is basically a dumbass with shitloads of money, more dollars than sense.
No, you are forgetting how few people are, in fact, audiophiles.
Here's a clue: There aren't enough for the extra money they would spend to outweigh how outnumbered they are.
Dan Aris
I wonder how much more money they could be making if they'd just sell folks lossless music on the open market
Most people don't understand what this even means, let alone actually care. All they know is availability and cost, along with how many songs they can fit on their iDevice.
Exactly.
I hear this repeated in every thread on a geek site about music revenues, but it's so plainly silly. They're leaving hardly any money on the table by not selling lossless music on the open market, because only a vanishingly small minority of consumers have a clue what lossless music even is, let alone care enough to pay extra for it.
So many geeks really, really need to either get out into the real world, or at least watch some non-geeky TV shows (or, heck, even the non-geeky people in the geeky shows; Penny in Big Bang Theory is a decent example...), to see how the vast majority of America's (and the West's in general) population thinks. It has very little to do with studying all the technical aspects of something and deciding carefully which choice has the greatest benefit for the least cost.
Until they do this, they will continue to be frustrated and baffled by the things that succeed and fail in markets, and what's even offered. (Once you understand how people think, you may still be frustrated, but at least you'll be less baffled! :-D )
Dan Aris
What should someone do if they like the iPhone, but can't get AT&T?
Maybe pay the tiniest sliver of attention to the world so you can learn that the iPhone has come on all major US carriers (ie, AT&T and Verizon) for years now?
Dan Aris
But then I guess when you are dealing with the "religion" of Leftism that is controlling much of the government, irrational things are to be expected.
A quick tip (which you ought to have been able to pick up from the summary, for Cthulhu's sake): This isn't something most left-leaning people in the US support. Note where it says that environmentalists are against it?
It's important to remember that not every issue in this country is one of Left vs Right. Many of them, in fact, are issues of Politicians/Lobbyists vs Real People. This is one like that.
Dan Aris
Lets have some sanity about guns as a privileged and not a right
So, treason is cool now? Passing laws in direct violation of Constitutionally enumerated rights is fine?
While we're at it, let's make a list of other Constitutional amendments we prefer to ignore. How about those pesky 13th, 19th, and 24th as well?
The idea that the 2nd Amendment means that all Americans should have an unfettered right to own whatever kinds of modern armaments they want is a pretty recent one. I don't have the source in front of me right now, but my recollection is that there was a campaign in the 1970s or so to change the popular interpretation from "to form a militia (ie, army) you need guns" to "every single American should own an assault rifle."
If you actually read the 2nd Amendment, while I can understand how the current interpretation came about, it should also be pretty easy to see how the previous interpretation was formed.
Furthermore, I challenge you to explain what the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is.
Is it to ensure that America can be defended from outside threats? If so, then the US Army surely does a much better job.
Is it to ensure that every average American can have the ability to defend themselves from criminals in their home? If so, I challenge you to support that without twisting the Amendment's wording significantly.
Is it to ensure that average Americans can have the ability to overthrow their government if the government is seen as no longer representing the will of the people? If so, then the Amendment is quite obviously hopelessly outdated and its purpose no longer possible to fulfill without going to lengths that I think most Americans would find absurd (eg, permitting any random nut to own a tank, fighter jet, or cruise missiles).
The idea that questioning the unrestricted individual right to bear arms in the 2nd Amendment is treason is ridiculous. Such was almost certainly not the intent of the Founders, and statistics seem to seriously call into question the wisdom of continuing to uphold it (the NRA's talking points notwithstanding).
Dan Aris
I expect people will have Office on their computer and mobile device. So do the subscription purchases from the computer.
Exactly. I really don't see why Microsoft is making such a huge stink over this, if the in-app purchase of a subscription is the real issue for them.
Perhaps MS was thinking of offering the Mac version of Office through Apple's Mac App Store. That might trigger the same restrictions as the iOS App Store.
But the issue here, if I'm reading it right, isn't the price of Office on the App Store. It's the subscription revenue from Office 365.
Besides, I think it unlikely that MS will be interested in dealing with the other restrictions that the Mac App Store requires. It wouldn't surprise me if there were large parts of Office for Mac that it would have to rewrite to sell through the Mac App Store, for very little benefit. It's not like the Mac App Store is the only way to get software onto a Mac, like the App Store is for iOS.
Dan Aris
Apple's position is, and always has been, that subscriptions bought through in-app purchase pay Apple the 30% cut—because they're going through Apple's payment process and paying through their iTunes account—while subscriptions bought elsewhere, Apple doesn't care about.
I think all sales done by an app have to go through Apple's in-app purchase system. You can offer subscriptions and services elsewhere but the purchase has to be done outside of the app. I don't think the app can even send you to the web for such purchases to avoid in-app.
Yes, that's correct. I didn't intend to imply otherwise; sorry if I wasn't clear.
Now for MS Office this seems like a minor issue. I expect people will have Office on their computer and mobile device. So do the subscription purchases from the computer.
Exactly. I really don't see why Microsoft is making such a huge stink over this, if the in-app purchase of a subscription is the real issue for them. Makes me suspect that all they really want is to try to make Apple look bad. (But then, I've been anti-Microsoft for decades now, so I'm hardly impartial.)
Dan Aris
The subscription isn't even going to be sold through the MS Office apps, those are to be bought separately on the Office 365 website.
Apple's position is, and always has been, that subscriptions bought through in-app purchase pay Apple the 30% cut—because they're going through Apple's payment process and paying through their iTunes account—while subscriptions bought elsewhere, Apple doesn't care about. (They used to care enough to demand that they be priced the same as subscriptions through in-app purchase, but now, IIRC, they no longer even do that.)
So you're as full of BS as the next irrational Apple-hater.
Dan Aris
However, it's basic economics that the person who can afford the tax is the one who ends up paying it. Remember that the sales tax happens during a transaction between a buyer and a seller. In order to make the sale, the seller will have to reduce the price and the buyer will have to pay more. If the poor person can't afford to pay the tax, the seller will have to lower the price in order to make the sale (to the extent such a thing is possible). On the other hand, if the seller can't afford the tax, but the buyer can, the price will remain the same and the buyer will pay more in order the make the transaction take place. The real concern is the sales which won't occur due to the tax, where neither the buyer or the seller nor the two combined can afford the tax.
That's...I don't think that works.
First of all, consider the case where, for a particular area, there are enough rich people who can afford the price plus the tax to keep the store profitable, and thus the prices do not drop. What, then, happens to the people who are too poor to afford the price plus the tax?
Second of all, it's very rarely a binary question of people being able to afford the food they're buying this week, but not being able to afford the food plus the tax on the food. It's almost always going to be, "Well, before the tax came into effect, I could afford X food. Now I can afford X-Y food." This doesn't mean that the store is going to drop the prices on their food (mainly due to the point above); it means that some people are going to have to choose between buying food and paying rent, or paying for heat, or whatever.
I am, in general, as skeptical about propositions of the form, "increases in price externalities affecting good X will not be passed on to the customer if the customer can't afford it; the business will always eat the price difference," as I am of propositions of the form, "increases in overhead price externalities affecting company X will not cause company X to eat the loss; they will always raise their prices so that their customers pay more." In reality, things are more complicated than either of these account for, and I've only ever heard these propositions advanced by people specifically attempting to justify higher sales taxes or lower corporate taxes (or lower financial penalties for corporate malfeasance).
Dan Aris
And you've bought the liberal line hook, line, and sinker as well.
While I _completely_ agree we're spending way too much on the military, it's a gnat's fart compared to our entitlement obligations. If you cut our spending on the military by 100% you could _almost_ pay for social security this year and you wouldn't even have started in on the much larger problems of Medicare, Medicaid, and the soon to be fiscal disaster that is the PPACA.
Our problem is by far a spending problem. Republican or Democrat, we can't seem to stop fucking spending our grand children's money.
It seems that you accept the premise that the social safety net is unnecessary. I do not. I believe that part of society's obligation is to care for those who have, through whatever means, lost the ability to care for themselves.
Dan Aris
You do know that sales taxes are ridiculously regressive, right?
If someone who makes $50k/yr spends $25k of that on taxable goods, that's 50% of his income. Do you really think that someone making $500 million/yr spends $250 million on taxable goods? I mean, it would be great if they did—that would be some damn good economic stimulus right there—but in reality, the richer you are, the smaller a percentage of your income you spend on taxable goods. Generally, the rich put large chunks of their income into various financial vehicles.
What all this means is that with a sales tax being the sole method of raising money for the government to operate, the poorer you are, the higher your effective tax rate will be. Sure, the rich will pay somewhat more in absolute terms than the poor, but vastly less than they would with a properly-operating income tax system.
Furthermore, because of this, total tax revenues would drop precipitously. Now, you may be one of those who believes that would be a good thing, but me, I like having roads, bridges, police & fire services, a social safety net, and all the other stuff that a properly-functioning first-world government provides.
Dan Aris
We don't have a revenue problem in the US - we have a spending problem.
You've bought the conservative lies hook, line, and sinker.
The fact is, while this country is spending too much on its military (more than the next 13 military-spending countries combined), its main problem is, indeed, a revenue problem. The tax rates and the tax revenues as percent of GDP are lower than they have been at any time since the Great Depression.
So unless you are one of those who honestly believes that we'd be better off with, essentially, no federal government at all (in which case I disagree with you, but at least respect you for having beliefs consistent with your policy preferences), we need taxes to be a lot higher than they are if we want to continue to function as a first-world country.
Dan Aris
Not Apple. That would be a bad mistake.
Disclaimer: I'm an Apple fan. You're not likely to convince me they're "teh evil," and thus automatically taint anything they do. (Though unlike some, I don't worship the ground Steve Jobs walked on.)
Why? We're talking about getting financial support for a grassroots lobbying effort. Assuming they'd do it (which, to be sure, is not a small assumption), what are you claiming that Apple's going to do that would be a "bad mistake"?
Dan Aris
In a country of 300M people, $140B is only $50 per person. Comparing the price to Google's market cap is silly. For a big infrastructure project like this they would, of course, seek new capital to cover the cost. This is affordable.
I think this can't be stressed enough.
If the numbers in this report are anywhere near accurate, it ought to be easily possible to get a national fiber network. (Financially possible; saying nothing about politically here.)
Furthermore, it highlights just how dishonest and greedy Verizon is being in their decision to stop rolling out fiber. The primary reason they are doing it is to push more people onto 4G wireless—which they can charge much more for, and which is much less regulated than any wireline service. (I can't speak to what AT&T is doing, since to my knowledge, they don't have any wireline deployment in my general area.)
This sounds like the perfect target for some kind of grassroots push. If we can get some of the tech giants, like Google and Apple, on board, it ought to be possible to counterbalance the ISP lobby.
Dan Aris
What, you mean the part about Apple losing market share to Android devices? Yeah, that part pretty much is playing out exactly as foretold.
Nobody will deny that Apple makes quite a bit of money, but if you take the entire Android ecosystem vs the Apple ecosystem, there is far more money being made overall in the former, with the larger and larger share of the pie that former is taking.
Do you have a source for that "more money" claim? Because everything I've seen says that yes, Android is slowly taking more of the market, but iOS is still making money so much faster than Android it just isn't even funny.
Dan Aris
Bull. Most religious Americans have traditionally been Protestant (though a huge influx of Catholics from south of the border has recently shifted that a bit) and the entire Protestant movement was rooted in a rejection of the idea you spouted
Your naivete is charming.
Yes, the Protestant movement is, indeed, philosophically and theologically opposed to the paternalism and patriarchy of Rome.
But if you think that means that every sect that today identifies itself as Protestant is opposed to paternalism as a concept, you're sadly mistaken.
A great deal of what drives people to a fundamentalist form of Christianity (or, I would presume, any religion) is a desire to be told, "Do A, B, and C, and don't do X, Y, and Z and you will be Good." Furthermore, there are many fundamentalist groups that specifically embrace a hierarchical, patriarchal structure wherein the women and children are told what to do by their husbands and fathers, who in turn are told what to do by their church leaders, who (presumably) are told what to do by God. This translates very well into the church leaders being told by others whom they feel hold greater authority—people like Pat Robertson—and taking the political positions that the Christian right holds as being nearly as etched-in-stone infallible as the Bible itself.
But let me hold up a mirror for you...
Hard-left secular progressives " want someone with greater authority to tell them what to believe, what to do and think"
How? You want government to tell you how much salt you can eat, how big of a soft drink you can buy, what kind of car to drive, where to live, what kinds of energy are "good", what type of health insurance you must buy and how much you must pay for it, what kinds of movies and music you can get and what you can play it on, what the proper racial ratios are of people in workplaces or in schools (performance be-damned), etc ... and you demand that everybody else must live under your beliefs.
Well, there's a grain of truth in what you say.
The government has scientists who study how much salt is good to eat, and they issue recommendations on that. (Not mandates.)
The Big Gulp ban? Yeah, that's pretty muchconsidered dumb by most sensible people.
The government mandates certain safety standards in cars, so that the auto industry can't make and sell a car that has a high likelihood of killing you. The government is also the only type of entity that has the real capability to shape our overall public policy to reduce greenhouse gases and other nasty pollutants that may not cause any immediate harm to those producing them, but will, over time, cause serious and irreparable damage to our environment. (Which is, again, what actual scientists who actually know what they're talking about have determined through careful study and understanding of, well, science will happen.)
Where to live? Not sure exactly what you're referring to here, but honestly, I think there should be stricter regulations about construction in heavy earthquake zones (you can build there, just make it earthquake-resistant), flood zones (you can build there, too, just make sure it won't be totally destroyed by a flood and require comprehensive flood insurance), and hurricane-prone areas (you can even build there, just make sure the buildings are more wind-resistant and require flood insurance). Why do I believe these regulations are appropriate? Because without them, the people most likely to be harmed are those who can least afford it. The flood zones will be the cheap housing that's all the poor people can afford, and when it does flood, they'll lose everything and be left homeless.
Coal is bad. It creates more greenhouse gases than any other fuel source, and, particularly for some of the older plants, puts more radioactive particles into our atmosphere than any nuclear plant. (Not by failing—it puts them there in norma
From the article:
Many things the Republican Party is doing are surprising moves, for a party that is looking for ways to attract...well, anyone. It almost seems like the party forgot that the point of democracy is to represent your own people, not try to tell them that you know better than they do what would be good for them.
Actually, that attitude is very much in line with what large chunks of the hard-right fundamentalist Christian faction believe. They want someone with greater authority to tell them what to believe, what to do and think.
Dan Aris
Compared to the insanity of Hong Kong, California isn't _that_ bad.
Well, sure, there's always going to be somewhere that has it worse than you. But that doesn't mean that it's unfair of the vast majority of Americans to look askance at the cost of living in the Bay Area.
Dan Aris