If the wire isn't filled, it's under utilized. Once the capacity is built, it's no skin off their noses whether a bit flows down the wire or not save a comparative minuscule cost in electricity.
It matters which wire you're talking about. For wires the ISP owns (e.g., cable infrastructure and internal networks), that's absolutely true. For upstream wires receiving data from the world at large, more data flow due to the ISP's customer demands will cost the ISP more. That's at least one reason why ISPs want to offer their own content since the distribution cost to them is low and it reduces the collective demand for external bandwidth, which allows them to better predict their costs and keep customer prices stable.
The ISPs have long figured out data rates. If you want 'unlimited' you pay a handsome monthly fee, at least here. Otherwise, there are caps past which one is charged per GB.
I presume "here" is across the pond, and if so I agree that the concept of metered data is a lot more mature there than it is in the U.S. (Unsurprisingly, as far as I can tell Netflix et al. usage is a lot lower there as well.) Caps and pricing in the U.S. are very fluid right now as streaming services become more of a viable alternative to conventional TV and as content resolution increases.
John Gamble (CFO) sold 6,500 out of 48,578 shares (~13%) for a total of ~$950k. Total comp in 2016 (source here) was ~$3.1 million, including ~$1.2 million in stock. Rodolfo Ploder (President) sold 1,179 out of 44,827 shares (~2.5%) for a total of $170k. Total comp in 2016 was ~$2.8 million, including $785k in stock. Joseph Loughran (President) sold 4,000 out of 42,723 shares (~9%) for a total of ~$485k. Couldn't find his total comp, but reasonable to believe it's in the same range and Nasdaq shows him receiving at least $1 million in stock this year at a glance.
So they all sold well less than a year's worth of stock given their compensation packages. And they all made much larger sales earlier this year. Gamble's transaction in particular is a fraction of the ~48,000 shares he sold in May to the tune of $6.5 million. Ploder sold 8k shares in February for ~$1 million, and Loughran sold 7k shares in February for ~$900k.
Given all that, the early August trades don't strike me as a smoking gun at all.
Similar rules have always been in place, it's just that the rules have only applied to the telecom provider. . . . Prior to about 2005 your ISP was just the internet provider - other companies did the telecommunications and still others provided content.
I'm not sure what that has to do with my original point. We all experienced "the Internet as we know it" through those unregulated ISPs (including those such as AOL that offered their own content in addition to raw Internet access), and the world kept turning just fine.
IMO the real elephant in the Net Neut room is streaming. People want to be able to watch Netflix all day and yet pay their ISP at a rate that was sized more for sporadic web browsing. That simply can't work as a matter of basic math, and this entire battle is little more than a tug-of-war over whether the heavy streamers pay for their own use, or whether the rest of us subsidize them. And that phenomenon is only a few years old itself, and thus has little to nothing to do with "the Internet as we know it."
But he's really gone over the top on this one. The Net Neut rules have barely been in place for a year and a half. For him and the vast majority of the rest of us, "the Internet as we know it" is the Internet that existed before these rules were put into place.
What you signed up for two weeks ago was to give up your right to sue Equifax and agreed to binding arbitration.
That's a well-traveled urban myth that Equifax specifically addressed weeks ago, here:
No Waiver Of Rights For This Cyber Security Incident
In response to consumer inquiries, we have made it clear that the arbitration clause and class action waiver included in the Equifax and TrustedID Premier terms of use does not apply to this cybersecurity incident.
No normal person gets sweat in their ears in any significant quantity, the ear is shaped to avoid just such a thing. I've played soccer for 30 years and never had a problem with sweat in my ears.
That was the best you could come up with in 10 days? Good grief. Let the Google be your guide to scores of actual athletes saying otherwise.
But hey, let's say you're right -- in that case, (1) it would be utterly meaningless to claim that earbuds are "resistant to sweat," and (2) the plaintiffs in this lawsuit who claimed that their sweating caused their earbuds to die would by definition be lying through their teeth (making the reasonable assumption that their earbuds were indeed inserted into their ears and not, e.g., their rectums).
You really didn't think that one through, did you?
You just repeated what I wrote in different words, and admitted you don't know that Karma means action (not words) to boot.
I'd seriously recommend a med rebalance if you think anything I've said constitutes an "admission" of any of the words you've been trying to cram into my mouth.
This is really not complicated, but I'll try to use small words and short sentences this time with the hope that it may light up some clearly underused neurons:
1. My original comment was about karma as a concept in Slashdot (a concept that has been around for over 15 years now). 2. You seem dead set on showing us that you understand that karma is also a concept OUTSIDE of Slashdot. 3. Point #2 has precisely nothing to do with point #1 or my original comment, and thus is purely a distraction.
Buh bye, troll. You clearly came by your extensive Freaks list honestly.
Slashdot "karma" means nothing. The days when it was an indication of one's standing as a contributor to Slashdot have long since past.
With apologies to Jim Carey, "that's what people with impaired karma say to make themselves feel better." LOL
If that is your idea of what Karma means you simply cement my point.
Dude, I didn't make up the word here. I simply used it properly in the context of the discussion (and I'm giving you some major benefit of doubt with that word) that we were having. You know, on Slashdot.
I regularly have mod points, because I mod properly, and my Slashdot karma is only positive rather than excellent because I am in the minority in that respect these days.
See above. Looking at your comment history, I'd put my money on your karma being impaired because your comments are largely provocative and bitchy, and thus are modded accordingly. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
That was a stellar way of showing that you have no idea what Karma means! Great Job!
That was an amusing (and ironic) set of words to read immediately beneath "(Score:1)". I'll (perhaps wrongly) credit a low-six-digit UID with understanding that didn't happen due to your poor capitalization practices. Thanks for the chuckle.
"Basically" the USA has become more and more flooded with systematically undereducated and miseducated proles like yourself who can't see the problems even when they are pointed out
Wow, that was almost as effective as it was convincing. Maybe if I was thmart like you your words would look insightful and compelling rather than petty and insecure. Thank heavens I'm not and they don't.
HTH (knowing it won't)
Try and have a better life than you're currently allowing yourself. Your karma will thank you.
(in the mean time the house price has increased by $200k while spending $30k on renovations).
Good for you. On paper my home's value has gone up by a even larger $ amount, representing a ~100% increase over a 5.5 year period, with not a penny spent on renovations.
Good for you. I have to say, it was a bit discordant to finish your post about your good fortune as a real estate investor and see your sig in which you're asking others to help pay off your student loans. To each their own, I guess.
So basically, Amazon is employing a largely unemployable population around the holidays and giving them some extra money they wouldn't otherwise have. The horror.
Clearly, something must be done to stop this brazen subversion of the welfare state.
Um, hi. You're so clearly proud of your post that I hesitate to point out that whatever point you think you're making is completely orthogonal to the subject the OP and I were discussing -- the employment relationship and allocation of finances and liability between taxi companies and their drivers.
Your "basically the same thing" straw man (along with your disingenuous technique of listing all the steps for a NYC taxi driver and none of the specific steps for an Uber driver, which are right on the page you linked) adds nothing to that discussion.
The problem with Uber is a corporation who's revenue model is built by taking pay and benefits way from the lowest link (the driver) and burdening them with expenses (their own car) and all liability
Determining a taxi driver's pay varies based on several factors. If you own your own taxi, you get to keep the entire fare, minus expenses. If you lease, you must pay a daily rate out of your incoming fares, plus the cost of gas. Some companies take a percentage of your fare instead of a flat-rate lease payment.
Fare Percentage
When you work for a taxi company who charges you a percentage of your fares for the right to drive the cab, that rate is typically one-third of your overall gross fare income, according to "Forbes."
Additional Fees
In addition to paying a daily rental fee or return a portion of the fares to the cab company, many companies require you to pay additional fees for the right to drive a cab. Most require you to refuel the vehicle before returning it, and some charge you up to 10 percent for customers' credit card transactions. Because many cabbies are independent contractors, cab companies might require you to carry insurance, such as general liability. The cab owners typically take care of insuring the vehicle and maintenance costs. As an independent contractor, you might discover other costs involved, such as the need to purchase your own health insurance and pay your own taxes.
What are you suggesting is fundamentally different?
It's a sham and a parasite
These are interesting words to lob at Uber when the incumbent taxicab business model is the one based on protectionism and artificial scarcity.
Well, no. You said, "they haven't been responding to criminal activity in their vehicles." That's clearly not true. The fact that their response was different than you would prefer is a different issue, one that I'm quite happy to discuss (and in fact did, but you ignored that part).
TFL would have told them to report it to the police
There's no "would have" here. Uber indeed did report the alleged incidents to TfL, and TfL indeed did NOT tell Uber to report them to the police. Again, I covered this in my first post.
And once again, more importantly, if there was really CRIMINAL activity against a passenger, why didn't THE PASSENGER call the police instead of just (wait for it) filling out a feedback form in an app? Really?
In addition to being implausible, the system you're is proposing is way too easy to hack. For example, a passenger gets pissed off at the Uber driver for whatever reason and wants to get even. Actually going to the police themselves would put them at risk of charges for filing a false police report, but in your system they could simply make a report to Uber and Uber would then be obligated to contact the police based solely on the word of the passenger (who now is shielded from liability since they didn't make the report to the police). The existing checks and balances in the system are there for a reason, and a system like yours would badly break them.
But that isn't what lost them their license, the bad part is that they haven't been responding to criminal activity in their vehicles, whether by their employees (the UK isn't buying that contractor malarkey) or by the passengers.
That's actually not true. Uber was reporting the alleged incidents to Transport for London, the very governmental body that just took its license away. The logic TfL is employing (as far as I can make out, that Uber should have gone straight to the police when somehow neither TfL nor, more importantly, the passenger in the Uber seemed to think that was necessary) seems very strained and results-oriented.
Nah, just happened to be the first couple I grabbed. Here's an example hardcover one:
By shawn seekings on September 18, 2017 Format: Hardcover | Verified Purchase Like everyone else who wrote a real review, before deleted, this book sucks. It really sucks. It really really sucks.
And think about it: were your theory true (that human beings at Amazon are spending lots of cycles trying to determine which reviews are real), then that simply underscores the fact that there's one set of rules for the Clintons and another set for the rest of us.
On a higher level, the fact that this hand-pruning resulted in 90% of 1200+ reviews being 5-star--by far the highest percentage I've ever seen on Amazon for a product with anything close to that many reviews--itself casts strong doubt on (a) the even-handedness of the pruners; (b) the veracity of the surviving reviews; or (c) both.
That's not accurate - it seems they removed non "Verified Purchaser" reviews, which were predominantly one star
Who are you going to believe -- a clearly unbiased (cough) Slate author, or your lying eyes? A sampling of verified negative reviews:
By BabaLa on September 14, 2017 Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase I wrote a verified purchase review and it has been deleted 3 times. If Amazon doesn't like what we have to say, don't ask for input.
By The Just-About-Average Ms. M on September 17, 2017 Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase I purchased this book four days ago in the Kindle format. My review was of the book specifically and not the author. And like the review of a number of other folks, mine has been deleted four times.
And some examples of non-verified, positive reviews that are still up:
By thomas on September 19, 2017 Format: Hardcover Great book, better than exoected
By tweetdeck on September 17, 2017 Format: Hardcover Best book ever
Amazon has been deleting negative reviews from people it can't verify have bought the book from it.
What exactly is your basis for saying that? Here are a few samples from the currently surviving verified negative reviews:
By BabaLa on September 14, 2017 Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase I wrote a verified purchase review and it has been deleted 3 times. If Amazon doesn't like what we have to say, don't ask for input.
By The Just-About-Average Ms. M on September 17, 2017 Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase I purchased this book four days ago in the Kindle format. My review was of the book specifically and not the author. And like the review of a number of other folks, mine has been deleted four times.
And here are examples of non-verified, positive reviews that are still up:
By thomas on September 19, 2017 Format: Hardcover Great book, better than exoected
By tweetdeck on September 17, 2017 Format: Hardcover Best book ever
There was a time when a DRM-free purchase seemed like a great idea. But that was when we wanted to do things like download an entire movie and play on various devices. Now everything is streaming and you don't even notice the DRM.
Sorry, but it still seems like a good idea to be able to watch a movie somewhere where I don't necessarily have an active, reliable, high-speed internet connection, or would rather not pay for streaming bandwidth over and over again every time I watch it.
If the hack was perpetrated five months ago and kept quiet, there has been plenty of time for a great use of the data to be used in enormous amounts of fraud.
A few thoughts about that:
1. High-volume fraud gets you caught. Most criminals dealing in this kind of activities are smart enough to get that.
2. With the pieces of data leaked here -- names, SSNs, addresses, etc. -- there's not much to go stale. There's actually less incentive for bad guys to use it in the short term, because that's when everyone will be the most vigilant. Better to wait for things to calm down and everyone to become complacent again.
3. Even if someone disregarded point #1 and went ahead and engaged in some short-term low-volume fraud, it would be hard to separate that signal from the noise of the flow of already-existing fraud. See point #1.
China is pushing really hard and exceeding its quite ambitious goals.
I take it you haven't actually visited China lately, or you'd know firsthand what baloney that is. China may say all sorts of high-minded things in political contexts, but at the end of the day its economic growth comes first and the environmental implications of that growth come second.
Hey, you're the one who can't accept the simple proposition that "sweat resistant" != "sweat-proof" and keeps fishing around for other stuff to try to distract from that fact. I could just as well say that you're in the pocket of the class action trial lawyers who, based on their complaint, appear to be relying on that same fallacy. But I won't -- your position is so facially untenable that I don't have to resort to ad hominem pot shots.
If it cant handle body sweat not only is it not fit to be worn working out it is most assuradly not water resistant by any standard i've ever heard.
I take it you aren't including the two dictionary definitions I provided -- it doesn't surprise me a bit that you're pretending those don't exist.
Maybe the problem is that you've never worked out (or at least never heavily sweated during one) and so you simply don't understand how something plugged into your ear canal could effectively be immersed by sweat running down your head and into that ear canal.
Or maybe you're just trying to defend your indefensible proposition that "sweat resistant" means it can handle every drop of sweat anyone dishes out.
I sense the last word is important to you, so knock yourself out.
Slashdot Mirror
If the wire isn't filled, it's under utilized. Once the capacity is built, it's no skin off their noses whether a bit flows down the wire or not save a comparative minuscule cost in electricity.
It matters which wire you're talking about. For wires the ISP owns (e.g., cable infrastructure and internal networks), that's absolutely true. For upstream wires receiving data from the world at large, more data flow due to the ISP's customer demands will cost the ISP more. That's at least one reason why ISPs want to offer their own content since the distribution cost to them is low and it reduces the collective demand for external bandwidth, which allows them to better predict their costs and keep customer prices stable.
The ISPs have long figured out data rates. If you want 'unlimited' you pay a handsome monthly fee, at least here. Otherwise, there are caps past which one is charged per GB.
I presume "here" is across the pond, and if so I agree that the concept of metered data is a lot more mature there than it is in the U.S. (Unsurprisingly, as far as I can tell Netflix et al. usage is a lot lower there as well.) Caps and pricing in the U.S. are very fluid right now as streaming services become more of a viable alternative to conventional TV and as content resolution increases.
Most CEOs get paid mostly in stocks as the capital gains is less than their income tax would be. I would think they owned more than that.
Exactly. The raw data is here. In sum:
John Gamble (CFO) sold 6,500 out of 48,578 shares (~13%) for a total of ~$950k. Total comp in 2016 (source here) was ~$3.1 million, including ~$1.2 million in stock.
Rodolfo Ploder (President) sold 1,179 out of 44,827 shares (~2.5%) for a total of $170k. Total comp in 2016 was ~$2.8 million, including $785k in stock.
Joseph Loughran (President) sold 4,000 out of 42,723 shares (~9%) for a total of ~$485k. Couldn't find his total comp, but reasonable to believe it's in the same range and Nasdaq shows him receiving at least $1 million in stock this year at a glance.
So they all sold well less than a year's worth of stock given their compensation packages. And they all made much larger sales earlier this year. Gamble's transaction in particular is a fraction of the ~48,000 shares he sold in May to the tune of $6.5 million. Ploder sold 8k shares in February for ~$1 million, and Loughran sold 7k shares in February for ~$900k.
Given all that, the early August trades don't strike me as a smoking gun at all.
Similar rules have always been in place, it's just that the rules have only applied to the telecom provider. . . . Prior to about 2005 your ISP was just the internet provider - other companies did the telecommunications and still others provided content.
I'm not sure what that has to do with my original point. We all experienced "the Internet as we know it" through those unregulated ISPs (including those such as AOL that offered their own content in addition to raw Internet access), and the world kept turning just fine.
IMO the real elephant in the Net Neut room is streaming. People want to be able to watch Netflix all day and yet pay their ISP at a rate that was sized more for sporadic web browsing. That simply can't work as a matter of basic math, and this entire battle is little more than a tug-of-war over whether the heavy streamers pay for their own use, or whether the rest of us subsidize them. And that phenomenon is only a few years old itself, and thus has little to nothing to do with "the Internet as we know it."
But he's really gone over the top on this one. The Net Neut rules have barely been in place for a year and a half. For him and the vast majority of the rest of us, "the Internet as we know it" is the Internet that existed before these rules were put into place.
What you signed up for two weeks ago was to give up your right to sue Equifax and agreed to binding arbitration.
That's a well-traveled urban myth that Equifax specifically addressed weeks ago, here:
No Waiver Of Rights For This Cyber Security Incident
In response to consumer inquiries, we have made it clear that the arbitration clause and class action waiver included in the Equifax and TrustedID Premier terms of use does not apply to this cybersecurity incident.
No normal person gets sweat in their ears in any significant quantity, the ear is shaped to avoid just such a thing. I've played soccer for 30 years and never had a problem with sweat in my ears.
That was the best you could come up with in 10 days? Good grief. Let the Google be your guide to scores of actual athletes saying otherwise.
But hey, let's say you're right -- in that case, (1) it would be utterly meaningless to claim that earbuds are "resistant to sweat," and (2) the plaintiffs in this lawsuit who claimed that their sweating caused their earbuds to die would by definition be lying through their teeth (making the reasonable assumption that their earbuds were indeed inserted into their ears and not, e.g., their rectums).
You really didn't think that one through, did you?
If so, I can't afford to care about modestly faster page rendering.
You just repeated what I wrote in different words, and admitted you don't know that Karma means action (not words) to boot.
I'd seriously recommend a med rebalance if you think anything I've said constitutes an "admission" of any of the words you've been trying to cram into my mouth.
This is really not complicated, but I'll try to use small words and short sentences this time with the hope that it may light up some clearly underused neurons:
1. My original comment was about karma as a concept in Slashdot (a concept that has been around for over 15 years now).
2. You seem dead set on showing us that you understand that karma is also a concept OUTSIDE of Slashdot.
3. Point #2 has precisely nothing to do with point #1 or my original comment, and thus is purely a distraction.
Buh bye, troll. You clearly came by your extensive Freaks list honestly.
Slashdot "karma" means nothing. The days when it was an indication of one's standing as a contributor to Slashdot have long since past.
With apologies to Jim Carey, "that's what people with impaired karma say to make themselves feel better." LOL
If that is your idea of what Karma means you simply cement my point.
Dude, I didn't make up the word here. I simply used it properly in the context of the discussion (and I'm giving you some major benefit of doubt with that word) that we were having. You know, on Slashdot.
I regularly have mod points, because I mod properly, and my Slashdot karma is only positive rather than excellent because I am in the minority in that respect these days.
See above. Looking at your comment history, I'd put my money on your karma being impaired because your comments are largely provocative and bitchy, and thus are modded accordingly. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
That was a stellar way of showing that you have no idea what Karma means! Great Job!
That was an amusing (and ironic) set of words to read immediately beneath "(Score:1)". I'll (perhaps wrongly) credit a low-six-digit UID with understanding that didn't happen due to your poor capitalization practices. Thanks for the chuckle.
"Basically" the USA has become more and more flooded with systematically undereducated and miseducated proles like yourself who can't see the problems even when they are pointed out
Wow, that was almost as effective as it was convincing. Maybe if I was thmart like you your words would look insightful and compelling rather than petty and insecure. Thank heavens I'm not and they don't.
HTH (knowing it won't)
Try and have a better life than you're currently allowing yourself. Your karma will thank you.
Good for you. On paper my home's value has gone up by a even larger $ amount, representing a ~100% increase over a 5.5 year period, with not a penny spent on renovations.
Good for you. I have to say, it was a bit discordant to finish your post about your good fortune as a real estate investor and see your sig in which you're asking others to help pay off your student loans. To each their own, I guess.
So basically, Amazon is employing a largely unemployable population around the holidays and giving them some extra money they wouldn't otherwise have. The horror.
Clearly, something must be done to stop this brazen subversion of the welfare state.
Um, hi. You're so clearly proud of your post that I hesitate to point out that whatever point you think you're making is completely orthogonal to the subject the OP and I were discussing -- the employment relationship and allocation of finances and liability between taxi companies and their drivers.
Your "basically the same thing" straw man (along with your disingenuous technique of listing all the steps for a NYC taxi driver and none of the specific steps for an Uber driver, which are right on the page you linked) adds nothing to that discussion.
Run along now.
What is "Spray to identify criminal" (from the link)??? Are there that kind of spray to identify criminal these days???
Yup, here's an example. Bad guy ends up with a bright, indelible stain, which makes it a bit harder to later argue mistaken identity.
The problem with Uber is a corporation who's revenue model is built by taking pay and benefits way from the lowest link (the driver) and burdening them with expenses (their own car) and all liability
Many taxi companies are built around the same general employment relationship and compensation model. Some excepts:
Determining a taxi driver's pay varies based on several factors. If you own your own taxi, you get to keep the entire fare, minus expenses . If you lease, you must pay a daily rate out of your incoming fares, plus the cost of gas. Some companies take a percentage of your fare instead of a flat-rate lease payment.
Fare Percentage
When you work for a taxi company who charges you a percentage of your fares for the right to drive the cab, that rate is typically one-third of your overall gross fare income , according to "Forbes."
Additional Fees
In addition to paying a daily rental fee or return a portion of the fares to the cab company, many companies require you to pay additional fees for the right to drive a cab. Most require you to refuel the vehicle before returning it, and some charge you up to 10 percent for customers' credit card transactions. Because many cabbies are independent contractors, cab companies might require you to carry insurance, such as general liability. The cab owners typically take care of insuring the vehicle and maintenance costs. As an independent contractor, you might discover other costs involved, such as the need to purchase your own health insurance and pay your own taxes .
What are you suggesting is fundamentally different?
It's a sham and a parasite
These are interesting words to lob at Uber when the incumbent taxicab business model is the one based on protectionism and artificial scarcity.
So basically you've just backed up what I said.
Well, no. You said, "they haven't been responding to criminal activity in their vehicles." That's clearly not true. The fact that their response was different than you would prefer is a different issue, one that I'm quite happy to discuss (and in fact did, but you ignored that part).
TFL would have told them to report it to the police
There's no "would have" here. Uber indeed did report the alleged incidents to TfL, and TfL indeed did NOT tell Uber to report them to the police. Again, I covered this in my first post.
And once again, more importantly, if there was really CRIMINAL activity against a passenger, why didn't THE PASSENGER call the police instead of just (wait for it) filling out a feedback form in an app? Really?
In addition to being implausible, the system you're is proposing is way too easy to hack. For example, a passenger gets pissed off at the Uber driver for whatever reason and wants to get even. Actually going to the police themselves would put them at risk of charges for filing a false police report, but in your system they could simply make a report to Uber and Uber would then be obligated to contact the police based solely on the word of the passenger (who now is shielded from liability since they didn't make the report to the police). The existing checks and balances in the system are there for a reason, and a system like yours would badly break them.
But that isn't what lost them their license, the bad part is that they haven't been responding to criminal activity in their vehicles, whether by their employees (the UK isn't buying that contractor malarkey) or by the passengers.
That's actually not true. Uber was reporting the alleged incidents to Transport for London, the very governmental body that just took its license away. The logic TfL is employing (as far as I can make out, that Uber should have gone straight to the police when somehow neither TfL nor, more importantly, the passenger in the Uber seemed to think that was necessary) seems very strained and results-oriented.
Nah, just happened to be the first couple I grabbed. Here's an example hardcover one:
By shawn seekings on September 18, 2017
Format: Hardcover | Verified Purchase
Like everyone else who wrote a real review, before deleted, this book sucks. It really sucks. It really really sucks.
And think about it: were your theory true (that human beings at Amazon are spending lots of cycles trying to determine which reviews are real), then that simply underscores the fact that there's one set of rules for the Clintons and another set for the rest of us.
On a higher level, the fact that this hand-pruning resulted in 90% of 1200+ reviews being 5-star--by far the highest percentage I've ever seen on Amazon for a product with anything close to that many reviews--itself casts strong doubt on (a) the even-handedness of the pruners; (b) the veracity of the surviving reviews; or (c) both.
That's not accurate - it seems they removed non "Verified Purchaser" reviews, which were predominantly one star
Who are you going to believe -- a clearly unbiased (cough) Slate author, or your lying eyes? A sampling of verified negative reviews:
By BabaLa on September 14, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase
I wrote a verified purchase review and it has been deleted 3 times. If Amazon doesn't like what we have to say, don't ask for input.
By The Just-About-Average Ms. M on September 17, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase
I purchased this book four days ago in the Kindle format. My review was of the book specifically and not the author. And like the review of a number of other folks, mine has been deleted four times.
And some examples of non-verified, positive reviews that are still up:
By thomas on September 19, 2017
Format: Hardcover
Great book, better than exoected
By tweetdeck on September 17, 2017
Format: Hardcover
Best book ever
Amazon has been deleting negative reviews from people it can't verify have bought the book from it.
What exactly is your basis for saying that? Here are a few samples from the currently surviving verified negative reviews:
By BabaLa on September 14, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase
I wrote a verified purchase review and it has been deleted 3 times. If Amazon doesn't like what we have to say, don't ask for input.
By The Just-About-Average Ms. M on September 17, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase
I purchased this book four days ago in the Kindle format. My review was of the book specifically and not the author. And like the review of a number of other folks, mine has been deleted four times.
And here are examples of non-verified, positive reviews that are still up:
By thomas on September 19, 2017
Format: Hardcover
Great book, better than exoected
By tweetdeck on September 17, 2017
Format: Hardcover
Best book ever
There was a time when a DRM-free purchase seemed like a great idea. But that was when we wanted to do things like download an entire movie and play on various devices. Now everything is streaming and you don't even notice the DRM.
Sorry, but it still seems like a good idea to be able to watch a movie somewhere where I don't necessarily have an active, reliable, high-speed internet connection, or would rather not pay for streaming bandwidth over and over again every time I watch it.
If the hack was perpetrated five months ago and kept quiet, there has been plenty of time for a great use of the data to be used in enormous amounts of fraud.
A few thoughts about that:
1. High-volume fraud gets you caught. Most criminals dealing in this kind of activities are smart enough to get that.
2. With the pieces of data leaked here -- names, SSNs, addresses, etc. -- there's not much to go stale. There's actually less incentive for bad guys to use it in the short term, because that's when everyone will be the most vigilant. Better to wait for things to calm down and everyone to become complacent again.
3. Even if someone disregarded point #1 and went ahead and engaged in some short-term low-volume fraud, it would be hard to separate that signal from the noise of the flow of already-existing fraud. See point #1.
China is pushing really hard and exceeding its quite ambitious goals.
I take it you haven't actually visited China lately, or you'd know firsthand what baloney that is. China may say all sorts of high-minded things in political contexts, but at the end of the day its economic growth comes first and the environmental implications of that growth come second.
Does Apple pay you by the post?
Hey, you're the one who can't accept the simple proposition that "sweat resistant" != "sweat-proof" and keeps fishing around for other stuff to try to distract from that fact. I could just as well say that you're in the pocket of the class action trial lawyers who, based on their complaint, appear to be relying on that same fallacy. But I won't -- your position is so facially untenable that I don't have to resort to ad hominem pot shots.
If it cant handle body sweat not only is it not fit to be worn working out it is most assuradly not water resistant by any standard i've ever heard.
I take it you aren't including the two dictionary definitions I provided -- it doesn't surprise me a bit that you're pretending those don't exist.
Maybe the problem is that you've never worked out (or at least never heavily sweated during one) and so you simply don't understand how something plugged into your ear canal could effectively be immersed by sweat running down your head and into that ear canal.
Or maybe you're just trying to defend your indefensible proposition that "sweat resistant" means it can handle every drop of sweat anyone dishes out.
I sense the last word is important to you, so knock yourself out.