Obama was hardly a 1%-er last time around; he's still not particularly wealthy as far as presidential candidates go. And most of his money came from book sales. As in, something he actually did himself.
On the other hand, we've had rich, entitled white boys running on the Republican ticket for the last 2 decades. The Bushes, McCain, and Romney come from long lines of wealthy families and have absolutely no clue what it's like for, you know, us average people.
Far too many people are getting more in cash and direct cash equivalents from the government than they pay in taxes of all form.
How many is that? Have any numbers to support your statement? I doubt it.
Even more unstable is a popular culture that celebrates the sort of envy and covetousness that makes that sort of thing socially acceptable.
The only covetous people I know are all either jealous right-wingers or are completely politically ignorant, but then I know that I probably succumb somewhat to confirmation bias and that it's anecdotal data anyway. None of my liberal friends have any interest in the culture of Kardashians.
Also, Communism, Socialism, Rap Music, Religious Persecution, Baby Raping, and all that sort of stuff is on the left. Because, you know, clarkkent09 is on the right and anything that sounds bad must be on the left. Freedom, Country Music, and Charity Work are all on the right.
That's idiotic, because there is no such thing as "atheist philosophy", unless he thinks that "I don't believe in god(s)" counts as philosophy -- in which case he's still an idiot.
"Atheist philosophy" makes as much sense as coming up with the best practices for not collecting stamps.
But as a web developer around the turn of the century, I'll say with no reservations that IE6 was the easiest browser to write for. Netscape from version 4 through Firefox 1.5 were pretty terrible.
YOU may haven't experienced any problems, but I guarantee the people generating HTML and Javascript that would look decent on those browsers had to work around a lot more crap than IE 6's broken box model.
When the SCOTUS makes a ruling progressives like, especially if it legislates a whole new legal superstructure from the bench they could never dream of enacting through the legislative procress, then the SUPREME COURT has spoken.
blah blah
On the other hand, when it is a ruling they don't like, not so much.
Yeah, those damn activist judges. It's a good thing that conservatives (or however you want to self-identify) like yourself are there to be not-hypocritical examples for us all.
You (as in the personal you, jmorris42) still don't have jack shit in the way of arguments. You rant and rave about progressives, but it comes off as a looney obsession devoid of facts.
It is a steal, if you're comparing it to traditional brick-and-mortar distribution.
Except we're not. Comparing it to most other digital distribution stores (mainly MP3s and games), this 30% app-store cut is *huge*.
Everything you list that they (and by "they" I mean all app stores) do is completely automated. Yes, that stuff would be a huge pain in the ass for an individual to handle it themselves, but once it's been automated it's not a substantial amount of work for *anybody*. And besides that, if you're using (for instance) Google Checkout to sell stuff, they take a 10% cut, and it pays for all the stuff you mentioned. E-bay takes a small cut on sales. But for app store purchases, where you're just hosting (maybe) a few MB? 30%. For micropayment/in-app-purchase type things that is essentially shifting a few dozen bits around? 30%.
There's no reason it should be so high. For $1 purchases, yes, it might need to be around 30% just to recoup the transaction fees. But for sales of anything over $1, there should be better rates. And the fact that every app store is currently 30% reeks of collusion to me -- if this were really a free market, there should be some competition.
Personally, I don't like the thought of 30% of all profits from the entire software industry being funneled into a few major players -- and Apple and Amazon are the worst, with not only 30% cuts but also yearly fees. How is, say, a 10-year-old interested in programming supposed to be able to afford the fees just to be able to tinker with their phone and give their stuff to a few of their friends? Beg mom and dad for the money and then go through the rigamarole of signing up for a developer account? I guess fuck 'em; we want kids buying shit, not learning how to make their own.
Accosted? According to that story, they just mocked him. And this preacher was just "reading the Bible" -- which implies that he thinks the protesters deserved to, and would, burn in hell. I'd say that mockery was the exactly correct response in this case.
I guess that time that the preacher came by my university library to tell us we were all going to hell, and a huge group gathered around and mocked him for it (he called my roommate 'the devil' -- we couldn't have been more proud), we were all accosting him as well.
I like how you try to tag the racist elements as being "Democratic" party, when in reality they were expelled by Democrats decades ago and then welcomed into the loving arms of the Republican party during its descent towards the authoritarian fringe.
Yes, they *were* Democrats. We cleaned house and kicked that shit to the curb. Republicans need to do the same thing before anyone with a brain will take them seriously again -- which would be really nice, because as it is Democrats only have to be less-crazy than Republicans to win elections. It'd be much better if there were (at least) two good choices rather than a crappy one and a batshit insane one.
Jackass CEO brought negative attention to his organization. In the Internet age, that means that immediately, everything in your personal and your company's history will be scrutinized to all hell and *anything* you've done will be found.
Doesn't take a genius to see how stuff like this plays out.
The Chick-fil-a issue is only a 'free speech' issue if you think that money = speech.
The CEO of Chick-fil-a is entitled to whatever opinion he wants to have. Everybody else is entitled to tell him he's a bigot and is on the wrong side of history just like every other bigot in history that tried to deny a group of people equal rights using justifications found in a religious text. But he's done more than just have an opinion: he's used funds from his restaurant chain to donate to hate groups -- at that point, it's no longer just speech (unless, again, you're one of those idiots that think that a rich dude has more right to speech than a regular Joe), and it's the responsibility of decent people to boycott the bigot's establishment to prevent funds from going to these hate groups.
But yeah, keep telling yourself that it's about his statements and not about his dollars and actions. That's how they have so many people deluded into supporting them. Well, that and the fact that there are so many unapologetic, authoritarian bigots who want a leader to follow.
I don't think my shiny iThiny is the be all end all;
That's exactly *not* what you said in your original post, where you claimed:
No tablet comes close to the experience of the iPad; no phone comes close to the effectiveness of the iPhone line.
Personally, I laugh at my girlfriend when she scrolls through page after page of apps on her iPhone and iPad to find the one she wants, while I have commonly used apps grouped up on two screens for my phone, and stored into the dockbar on my Nexus 7. Everything else is in the application list for the rare times I need them. It's also amusing that she has no widgets and has to actually open apps to see stuff like weather and news.
But sure, my experience isn't as good, because you say so.
but it's certainly pretty good
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with iOS or Apple devices. They're not bad -- in fact, in some ways they're pretty good; possibly even among the best in some cases. The main thing wrong with them are the people who a) think they *are* flawless and b) think nobody else should be able to compete with them, because Apple should own the entire market.
Just too much malware out there for anyone to come away with anything approaching feelings of safety there.
This is certainly a case of a lie being repeated often enough that it's taken for truth.
The have been very few instances of malicious apps on the Play store, and the vast, vast majority of what is on the Play store is perfectly safe to install. Your data isn't any more vulnerable to Play store apps than it is to Apple's app store -- and on top of that, at least Android *tells* the user what permissions are required and what data is requested, and has since version 1.
I make video games for a living. I've worked on triple-A Xbox (original and 360) titles as a programmer. I've got a decent math background, more than a passing interest in physics, climate science, etc., etc. I don't really feel it's necessary to divulge all my credentials, but I'm trying to make the point that I'm not just some random idiot. I was a pro Unix sysadmin in University to help pay for school. I ran my own Slackware and FreeBSD mail servers.
Except for those of us who skipped the meatgrinder that is the triple-A game publishing industry, you just described a large chunk of Slashdot.
The problem that many of us have with Apple isn't the hardware -- they make pretty decent hardware. It's the company, the software, and (to a lesser degree) the vocal minority Apple users who just can't accept that *any* other alternative is acceptable. The users are fairly easy to ignore, except that you can't have a reasonable discussion about the company and its actions without them proselytizing all over the place.
Nobody (well, practically nobody) bashes Apple and Apple users for well designed products. If that's what you honestly believe, you're probably one of the proselytizers.
"Race to the bottom" mean that the price drops to unsustainable lows.
Yeah, just like the race to the bottom in the PC wars took a $2k home PC to $300 over the course of the early '90s through the late '90s, and then all of the major players went out of business because the margins were so thin and you can't even get a home PC any more.
When the iPad was announced, I was excited. When the price was announced, it was a joke. A handheld media consumption device for half a grand? That's ridiculous. Problem is, a lot of people fell for the joke.
We're only now beginning to see what the tablet market *should* have been from day 1.
Is anyone cutting the content cord, that actually has a decent AV system they've invested in?
I have. I'll buy maybe a season of some show every few months, watch a couple of movies per month, and play through maybe 3-4 games per year, but otherwise my nice Denon amp and B&W 5.1 setup do nothing but play music.
I don't even have a broadband internet connection, unless you count tethering through my phone to Sprint's shitty 3G network. (Sprint's network in my area is even more of a joke than it is in the rest of the nation.) It's enough to look up information I need on stackoverflow or wikipedia, but not enough to waste hours clicking from Youtube video to Youtube video.
I can't say I've suffered any withdrawal symptoms.
Slashdot Mirror
As a customer, none of that matters to me.
Choice is good.
--Jeremy
Quite probably, and those people are also religious idiots.
--Jeremy
The hundreds of responses to each of The Oatmeal's G+ posts suggest otherwise.
--Jeremy
The only problem with your post:
Last month's shipments are this month's sales. Retailers don't make a habit of replenishing stock that isn't selling.
--Jeremy
I am a converted AGW denier. It's a scientific issue, and the competent scientists have pretty much settled it.
You were wrong about AGW. Your posts in this thread have made it pretty clear that you're wrong about a lot more, too.
--Jeremy
Obama was hardly a 1%-er last time around; he's still not particularly wealthy as far as presidential candidates go. And most of his money came from book sales. As in, something he actually did himself.
On the other hand, we've had rich, entitled white boys running on the Republican ticket for the last 2 decades. The Bushes, McCain, and Romney come from long lines of wealthy families and have absolutely no clue what it's like for, you know, us average people.
--Jeremy
Far too many people are getting more in cash and direct cash equivalents from the government than they pay in taxes of all form.
How many is that? Have any numbers to support your statement? I doubt it.
Even more unstable is a popular culture that celebrates the sort of envy and covetousness that makes that sort of thing socially acceptable.
The only covetous people I know are all either jealous right-wingers or are completely politically ignorant, but then I know that I probably succumb somewhat to confirmation bias and that it's anecdotal data anyway. None of my liberal friends have any interest in the culture of Kardashians.
--Jeremy
Also, Communism, Socialism, Rap Music, Religious Persecution, Baby Raping, and all that sort of stuff is on the left. Because, you know, clarkkent09 is on the right and anything that sounds bad must be on the left. Freedom, Country Music, and Charity Work are all on the right.
--Jeremy
That's idiotic, because there is no such thing as "atheist philosophy", unless he thinks that "I don't believe in god(s)" counts as philosophy -- in which case he's still an idiot.
"Atheist philosophy" makes as much sense as coming up with the best practices for not collecting stamps.
--Jeremy
Good for you.
But as a web developer around the turn of the century, I'll say with no reservations that IE6 was the easiest browser to write for. Netscape from version 4 through Firefox 1.5 were pretty terrible.
YOU may haven't experienced any problems, but I guarantee the people generating HTML and Javascript that would look decent on those browsers had to work around a lot more crap than IE 6's broken box model.
--Jeremy
Let me guess: you're one of those that thinks you're smart enough that something like this will *never* happen to you.
--Jeremy
When the SCOTUS makes a ruling progressives like, especially if it legislates a whole new legal superstructure from the bench they could never dream of enacting through the legislative procress, then the SUPREME COURT has spoken.
blah blah
On the other hand, when it is a ruling they don't like, not so much.
Yeah, those damn activist judges. It's a good thing that conservatives (or however you want to self-identify) like yourself are there to be not-hypocritical examples for us all.
You (as in the personal you, jmorris42) still don't have jack shit in the way of arguments. You rant and rave about progressives, but it comes off as a looney obsession devoid of facts.
--Jeremy
It is a steal, if you're comparing it to traditional brick-and-mortar distribution.
Except we're not. Comparing it to most other digital distribution stores (mainly MP3s and games), this 30% app-store cut is *huge*.
Everything you list that they (and by "they" I mean all app stores) do is completely automated. Yes, that stuff would be a huge pain in the ass for an individual to handle it themselves, but once it's been automated it's not a substantial amount of work for *anybody*. And besides that, if you're using (for instance) Google Checkout to sell stuff, they take a 10% cut, and it pays for all the stuff you mentioned. E-bay takes a small cut on sales. But for app store purchases, where you're just hosting (maybe) a few MB? 30%. For micropayment/in-app-purchase type things that is essentially shifting a few dozen bits around? 30%.
There's no reason it should be so high. For $1 purchases, yes, it might need to be around 30% just to recoup the transaction fees. But for sales of anything over $1, there should be better rates. And the fact that every app store is currently 30% reeks of collusion to me -- if this were really a free market, there should be some competition.
Personally, I don't like the thought of 30% of all profits from the entire software industry being funneled into a few major players -- and Apple and Amazon are the worst, with not only 30% cuts but also yearly fees. How is, say, a 10-year-old interested in programming supposed to be able to afford the fees just to be able to tinker with their phone and give their stuff to a few of their friends? Beg mom and dad for the money and then go through the rigamarole of signing up for a developer account? I guess fuck 'em; we want kids buying shit, not learning how to make their own.
--Jeremy
For years, I've thought that "+1, Wrong" should be on the list of mods.
--Jeremy
Accosted? According to that story, they just mocked him. And this preacher was just "reading the Bible" -- which implies that he thinks the protesters deserved to, and would, burn in hell. I'd say that mockery was the exactly correct response in this case.
I guess that time that the preacher came by my university library to tell us we were all going to hell, and a huge group gathered around and mocked him for it (he called my roommate 'the devil' -- we couldn't have been more proud), we were all accosting him as well.
--Jeremy
I like how you try to tag the racist elements as being "Democratic" party, when in reality they were expelled by Democrats decades ago and then welcomed into the loving arms of the Republican party during its descent towards the authoritarian fringe.
Yes, they *were* Democrats. We cleaned house and kicked that shit to the curb. Republicans need to do the same thing before anyone with a brain will take them seriously again -- which would be really nice, because as it is Democrats only have to be less-crazy than Republicans to win elections. It'd be much better if there were (at least) two good choices rather than a crappy one and a batshit insane one.
--Jeremy
Jackass CEO brought negative attention to his organization. In the Internet age, that means that immediately, everything in your personal and your company's history will be scrutinized to all hell and *anything* you've done will be found.
Doesn't take a genius to see how stuff like this plays out.
The Chick-fil-a issue is only a 'free speech' issue if you think that money = speech.
The CEO of Chick-fil-a is entitled to whatever opinion he wants to have. Everybody else is entitled to tell him he's a bigot and is on the wrong side of history just like every other bigot in history that tried to deny a group of people equal rights using justifications found in a religious text. But he's done more than just have an opinion: he's used funds from his restaurant chain to donate to hate groups -- at that point, it's no longer just speech (unless, again, you're one of those idiots that think that a rich dude has more right to speech than a regular Joe), and it's the responsibility of decent people to boycott the bigot's establishment to prevent funds from going to these hate groups.
But yeah, keep telling yourself that it's about his statements and not about his dollars and actions. That's how they have so many people deluded into supporting them. Well, that and the fact that there are so many unapologetic, authoritarian bigots who want a leader to follow.
--Jeremy
I don't think my shiny iThiny is the be all end all;
That's exactly *not* what you said in your original post, where you claimed:
No tablet comes close to the experience of the iPad; no phone comes close to the effectiveness of the iPhone line.
Personally, I laugh at my girlfriend when she scrolls through page after page of apps on her iPhone and iPad to find the one she wants, while I have commonly used apps grouped up on two screens for my phone, and stored into the dockbar on my Nexus 7. Everything else is in the application list for the rare times I need them. It's also amusing that she has no widgets and has to actually open apps to see stuff like weather and news.
But sure, my experience isn't as good, because you say so.
but it's certainly pretty good
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with iOS or Apple devices. They're not bad -- in fact, in some ways they're pretty good; possibly even among the best in some cases. The main thing wrong with them are the people who a) think they *are* flawless and b) think nobody else should be able to compete with them, because Apple should own the entire market.
--Jeremy
Apple probably remains comfortable raking in the mountain lion's share of profits, regardless of who sells how many of what.
How does this, as a customer, help me in any way?
--Jeremy
My 27" iMac is clearly superior in terms of how it uses the display and maximises performance
Please elaborate, because this sounds a lot like rationalization.
--Jeremy
Just too much malware out there for anyone to come away with anything approaching feelings of safety there.
This is certainly a case of a lie being repeated often enough that it's taken for truth.
The have been very few instances of malicious apps on the Play store, and the vast, vast majority of what is on the Play store is perfectly safe to install. Your data isn't any more vulnerable to Play store apps than it is to Apple's app store -- and on top of that, at least Android *tells* the user what permissions are required and what data is requested, and has since version 1.
--Jeremy
I make video games for a living. I've worked on triple-A Xbox (original and 360) titles as a programmer. I've got a decent math background, more than a passing interest in physics, climate science, etc., etc. I don't really feel it's necessary to divulge all my credentials, but I'm trying to make the point that I'm not just some random idiot. I was a pro Unix sysadmin in University to help pay for school. I ran my own Slackware and FreeBSD mail servers.
Except for those of us who skipped the meatgrinder that is the triple-A game publishing industry, you just described a large chunk of Slashdot.
The problem that many of us have with Apple isn't the hardware -- they make pretty decent hardware. It's the company, the software, and (to a lesser degree) the vocal minority Apple users who just can't accept that *any* other alternative is acceptable. The users are fairly easy to ignore, except that you can't have a reasonable discussion about the company and its actions without them proselytizing all over the place.
Nobody (well, practically nobody) bashes Apple and Apple users for well designed products. If that's what you honestly believe, you're probably one of the proselytizers.
--Jeremy
"Race to the bottom" mean that the price drops to unsustainable lows.
Yeah, just like the race to the bottom in the PC wars took a $2k home PC to $300 over the course of the early '90s through the late '90s, and then all of the major players went out of business because the margins were so thin and you can't even get a home PC any more.
When the iPad was announced, I was excited. When the price was announced, it was a joke. A handheld media consumption device for half a grand? That's ridiculous. Problem is, a lot of people fell for the joke.
We're only now beginning to see what the tablet market *should* have been from day 1.
--Jeremy
Is anyone cutting the content cord, that actually has a decent AV system they've invested in?
I have. I'll buy maybe a season of some show every few months, watch a couple of movies per month, and play through maybe 3-4 games per year, but otherwise my nice Denon amp and B&W 5.1 setup do nothing but play music.
I don't even have a broadband internet connection, unless you count tethering through my phone to Sprint's shitty 3G network. (Sprint's network in my area is even more of a joke than it is in the rest of the nation.) It's enough to look up information I need on stackoverflow or wikipedia, but not enough to waste hours clicking from Youtube video to Youtube video.
I can't say I've suffered any withdrawal symptoms.
--Jeremy