"Shunning" is such a silly word to use for this. Just because the iTunes store has not entirely replaced the CD in its few years of existence does not mean that users are shunning it. Their business is growing faster than CD sales are growing. Steve Jobs even said in the recent Apple Event that they are the first music downloads store to crack the top five sellers of music in any form. He also said they are now passing the 1.5 BILLION song mark.
But I guess no one will read an article that says "iPod users gradually adopting iTunes Music Store to supplement CD sales."
[sarcasm] How dare the rightful owner of this Porche come and take it back from me! I paid good money to a fence for it, so it should be mine! [/sarcasm]
Seriously people, stop hating and threatening Tivo for EchoStar's wrongdoing. Even if you didn't know they were basically a gigantic corporate fence, that doesn't mean Tivo shouldn't recover what is theirs. EchoStar wasn't paying, so the injunction was the only way to get them to pay. Blame EchoStar for being the crooks.
It looks like it was plugged into the USB port. There are scenes later in the video that show the card sitting next to the MacBook in a way that appears to be near the USB port. Also, the card he holds up has a narrower end that does not look like what you would find on a PCMCIA card.
Do you think this is why Nancy Heinen left? They never did give a good reason for her leaving. Maybe she wanted to make the misinformation public and they disagreed. Or maybe she was the reason for the mistake...
To be honest, you just sound like the kind of person who likes to think the worst of people in situations like this. Do you have any experiences with police officers doing something like this? My guess is no.
Even if the police officers wanted to throw someone in jail for the weekend, just for the fun of it, they would get sued for false imprisonment and false arrest. These are torts, not crimes, that can result in the individual officers and the government paying substantial monetary damages. Your own link lists several reasons that the police did not get away with frivolous arrests. The FBI officers surely got a warrant before arresting this guy.
When the grandparent post said "never", it was referring to the rights of officers under the law to place an arrest under the circumstances. Just like you accuse the grandparent of living in a fantasy world where everyone does what they should, you come off sounding like you live in a fantasy world where everyone pisses on each other just because they want to.
...to voice his most famous and well-loved character Optimus Prime.
I think a billion little kids--not to mention most of their parents--would take issue with calling Optimus Prime his "most famous and well-loved character." Peter Cullen has voiced Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh for decades.
There are a lot of reasons you might have misinterpreted your sample. For example, you may only be getting calls from a subset of people who buy Macs for their publicized ease-of-use. The rest of them, a possible majority, may figure things out without calling you.
Of course, my favorite interpretation is that Windows users just have more practice with tech support telling them to open a command prompt.:P
If we needed a system specifically encouraging small inventors, we'd put a system specifically encouraging small inventors in place. Like attribution rights and incentives, where the government would pay out a stipend for a specific invention, or something similar.
[sarcasm]Yeah, having the government pay for new ideas would work great! That way we won't have to worry about any undesirable inventions, you know, getting in the way. Also, this way we can make everyone pay for an invention, whether they want it or not.[/sarcasm]
Of course your suggestion wouldn't even fix the patent fights currently taking place. Instead of fighting for market share, everyone would be fighting over government compensation. The rich and powerful would still have the edge.
Just because the current implementation of patents in the US is flawed doesn't mean the concept is flawed. Temporary monopolies to ensure a return on investment, for companies large and small, are exactly what pushes innovation forward.
I'm not saying that rich people don't use all kinds of tricks in the tax code to reduce their tax burden disproportionately. What I *am* saying is that they don't (can't) do this with charitable contributions. (Although I didn't order and read the book you linked, the description didn't say anything about it.) If I am wrong, I would love to see why and how. Can someone show me a specific example of turning a profit through charitable contributions? If I'm right, maybe we shouldn't so easily impute dishonest intentions to rich people who donate to charity.
In the case of multiple donations and multiple donors, just multiply the equations I gave in my last post. You'll notice that any combination of multiples has the same result, namely less net income for donors.
While it is true that a donation of appreciated property allows you to pass built-in gains to someone else, you no longer have any control over the income from selling the appreciated property. If I donate $10,000 in stock, that I bought for $1,000, to a nonprofit, I get a $10,000 deduction and the $9,000 of built-in gain is not taxable to the charity if it sells the stock. However, I lose $10,000 of value. The most I can hope to save in taxes is $4,000 offset income tax + $1,350 in avoided capital gains tax. You'll notice that it still doesn't offset the $10,000 of value I gave up.
This IRS publication gives a decent example of how contributions of appreciated property work.
Again, using charitable donations to reduce your taxes will *not* give you a higher net income, because you will never get a tax benefit greater than the market value of the donation. BUT, if you are a giving person, it's really nice not to have to pay taxes on the money you give away.
The way the tax system works today, this can't be true. (I doubt it was even true when Turner did it.)
If you earn $1Billion in a given year, and decide to give away $500 million of it, the $500 million is subtracted from your taxable income. That means you are taxed only on the money you kept. A simplified example:
Keeping the money
$1B[gross] - 40% [taxes] = $600M [net]
If you want to donate more than that, you can't have have the income be exempt from taxes. The IRS won't allow charitable deductions above 50% of a given year's income (See b1A). You have to carry that over to a future year.
There is simply no scenario in which donating money helps you avoid more than the equivalent amount in taxes. So, not they are not dodging taxes in the sense that they are trying to "turn a profit". Doing so with charitable contributions is a myth.
I think you stated a tremendous insight. I am heavily involved in nonprofit activities, but I make a point of constantly reminding myself of the value other people add to the world, even if they earn a salary doing it.
No charity will ever equal what good old productivity can produce. It funds more schools, feeds more families, and shelters more people than all the charities in the world could *ever* hope to do. This is why humanitarian charities are facing pressure to establish economic self-reliance in their clients as much as possible.
That's not to say that charity is wrong or wasteful. Just the opposite, wise and circumspect charity can open huge doors to productivity. See microcredit as a great example. (Of course microcredit has its problems as well, but it is a strong move in the right direction.)
People who work hard, and give what they can, are easily as noble as Bill Gates or Bono. I think there are millions of people who, given the same opportunities and resources, would be doing the same things.
...which is a sure sign that the viewpoint is entirely wrong-headed. All of you people agreeing with this agree with John C. Dvorak. You should be ashamed of yourselves!
Just because atheism isn't their reason doesn't prevent them from finding other reasons. The point of the grandparent is that bad people don't need to use religion to excuse their behavior.
Besides, atheism hasn't inspired any great acts of kindness, either. When was the last time someone engaged in a huge, humanitarian effort in the "name" of atheism? (Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of atheists that do incredible things for humanity, but not by virtue of their atheism. It is usually by virtue of some other fundamental belief they hold.)
Umm, iDVD is *not* DVD Player. I think you meant DVD Player. Hold down the forward chapter button and it will scan forward.
By the way, you don't exactly add credibility to your Mac complaints by confusing iDVD with DVD Player. Mac users don't brag about DVD Player, because we know any PC with a DVD drive can play DVD movies. We brag about iDVD because our wives and mothers who don't know much about computers can *make* DVD movies.
My wife is about as average as a home user gets and she made a DVD of home movies edited in iMovie for her whole family for Christmas two years ago. They still talk about it.
That's a good point. Still, I would put it closer to suggestive than descriptive, which I am guessing the PTO did as well since Apple trademarked it so early (in December). As you probably know, you can't trademark a descriptive name without some showing of distinctiveness. The name "Shuffle" wasn't distinctive in December.
IAALS (Law Student). The trade dress of the iPod Shuffle is probably protected under the law. The shuffle doesn't have to look the way it does to work and Apple clearly has established the look as coming exclusively from Apple.
The name Shuffle is clearly protected under Trademark law, since Apple has it trademarked.
So is what he suggested not parenting? Of course he can teach his children exactly what you said and keep stuff of this kind out of his home. The truth is that, as a parent, you can tell kids not to get into certain things, and of course you need to let them learn to make their own decisions, but having it in your home doesn't exactly strengthen your advice to them.
Honestly, I hate it when people attack those who prefer edited movies, internet, etc. and tell them they should just focus on parenting. In virtually every case, that is exactly what they are doing.
First, it's not a bug, it was an uncommon problem on some of the models, no matter what the Neistat Brothers have to say about it.
Second, as the iPod mini uses a different battery and it has only been in people's hands for several months, no one can speak to the average longevity of the battery in these models.
Third, and I am sorry if this is rude, it's not hard to educate yourself about this before you ask a question in Slashdot that just makes you sound like a Troll.
Your idea would work even better than you think. Because Bluetooth devices manually get paired before they do anything with each other, your phone/keychain would only cause your own keychain/phone to beep. I for one love this idea. You better get on it.
I, for one, have yet to see *any* commercially available product with wireless USB. I first read about it quite a while ago. Wireless FireWire was just barely approved. While people are optimistic about it, I imagine Bluetooth with still enjoy lower power requirements.
I guess my point is that there is nothing else available right now that does what Bluetooth does. Market adoption is *increasing*, if slowly. Bluetooth is far from failing. The truth is that right now, it's the only game in town. More personally, I love it and use it every day. My heart wouldn't be broken if something better replaced it, but in the meantime, improvements like lower power and faster data transfer are welcome.
Slashdot Mirror
"Shunning" is such a silly word to use for this. Just because the iTunes store has not entirely replaced the CD in its few years of existence does not mean that users are shunning it. Their business is growing faster than CD sales are growing. Steve Jobs even said in the recent Apple Event that they are the first music downloads store to crack the top five sellers of music in any form. He also said they are now passing the 1.5 BILLION song mark.
But I guess no one will read an article that says "iPod users gradually adopting iTunes Music Store to supplement CD sales."
[sarcasm] How dare the rightful owner of this Porche come and take it back from me! I paid good money to a fence for it, so it should be mine! [/sarcasm]
Seriously people, stop hating and threatening Tivo for EchoStar's wrongdoing. Even if you didn't know they were basically a gigantic corporate fence, that doesn't mean Tivo shouldn't recover what is theirs. EchoStar wasn't paying, so the injunction was the only way to get them to pay. Blame EchoStar for being the crooks.
It looks like it was plugged into the USB port. There are scenes later in the video that show the card sitting next to the MacBook in a way that appears to be near the USB port. Also, the card he holds up has a narrower end that does not look like what you would find on a PCMCIA card.
Do you think this is why Nancy Heinen left? They never did give a good reason for her leaving. Maybe she wanted to make the misinformation public and they disagreed. Or maybe she was the reason for the mistake...
To be honest, you just sound like the kind of person who likes to think the worst of people in situations like this. Do you have any experiences with police officers doing something like this? My guess is no.
Even if the police officers wanted to throw someone in jail for the weekend, just for the fun of it, they would get sued for false imprisonment and false arrest. These are torts, not crimes, that can result in the individual officers and the government paying substantial monetary damages. Your own link lists several reasons that the police did not get away with frivolous arrests. The FBI officers surely got a warrant before arresting this guy.
When the grandparent post said "never", it was referring to the rights of officers under the law to place an arrest under the circumstances. Just like you accuse the grandparent of living in a fantasy world where everyone does what they should, you come off sounding like you live in a fantasy world where everyone pisses on each other just because they want to.
I think a billion little kids--not to mention most of their parents--would take issue with calling Optimus Prime his "most famous and well-loved character." Peter Cullen has voiced Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh for decades.
Of course, my favorite interpretation is that Windows users just have more practice with tech support telling them to open a command prompt. :P
[sarcasm]Yeah, having the government pay for new ideas would work great! That way we won't have to worry about any undesirable inventions, you know, getting in the way. Also, this way we can make everyone pay for an invention, whether they want it or not.[/sarcasm]
Of course your suggestion wouldn't even fix the patent fights currently taking place. Instead of fighting for market share, everyone would be fighting over government compensation. The rich and powerful would still have the edge.
Just because the current implementation of patents in the US is flawed doesn't mean the concept is flawed. Temporary monopolies to ensure a return on investment, for companies large and small, are exactly what pushes innovation forward.
I'm not saying that rich people don't use all kinds of tricks in the tax code to reduce their tax burden disproportionately. What I *am* saying is that they don't (can't) do this with charitable contributions. (Although I didn't order and read the book you linked, the description didn't say anything about it.) If I am wrong, I would love to see why and how. Can someone show me a specific example of turning a profit through charitable contributions? If I'm right, maybe we shouldn't so easily impute dishonest intentions to rich people who donate to charity.
While it is true that a donation of appreciated property allows you to pass built-in gains to someone else, you no longer have any control over the income from selling the appreciated property. If I donate $10,000 in stock, that I bought for $1,000, to a nonprofit, I get a $10,000 deduction and the $9,000 of built-in gain is not taxable to the charity if it sells the stock. However, I lose $10,000 of value. The most I can hope to save in taxes is $4,000 offset income tax + $1,350 in avoided capital gains tax. You'll notice that it still doesn't offset the $10,000 of value I gave up.
This IRS publication gives a decent example of how contributions of appreciated property work.
Again, using charitable donations to reduce your taxes will *not* give you a higher net income, because you will never get a tax benefit greater than the market value of the donation. BUT, if you are a giving person, it's really nice not to have to pay taxes on the money you give away.
If you earn $1Billion in a given year, and decide to give away $500 million of it, the $500 million is subtracted from your taxable income. That means you are taxed only on the money you kept. A simplified example:
Donating the money
($1B [gross] - $500M [donation]) - 40% [taxes] = $300M [net]
Keeping the money
$1B[gross] - 40% [taxes] = $600M [net]
If you want to donate more than that, you can't have have the income be exempt from taxes. The IRS won't allow charitable deductions above 50% of a given year's income (See b1A). You have to carry that over to a future year.
There is simply no scenario in which donating money helps you avoid more than the equivalent amount in taxes. So, not they are not dodging taxes in the sense that they are trying to "turn a profit". Doing so with charitable contributions is a myth.
No charity will ever equal what good old productivity can produce. It funds more schools, feeds more families, and shelters more people than all the charities in the world could *ever* hope to do. This is why humanitarian charities are facing pressure to establish economic self-reliance in their clients as much as possible.
That's not to say that charity is wrong or wasteful. Just the opposite, wise and circumspect charity can open huge doors to productivity. See microcredit as a great example. (Of course microcredit has its problems as well, but it is a strong move in the right direction.)
People who work hard, and give what they can, are easily as noble as Bill Gates or Bono. I think there are millions of people who, given the same opportunities and resources, would be doing the same things.
...which is a sure sign that the viewpoint is entirely wrong-headed. All of you people agreeing with this agree with John C. Dvorak. You should be ashamed of yourselves!
Besides, atheism hasn't inspired any great acts of kindness, either. When was the last time someone engaged in a huge, humanitarian effort in the "name" of atheism? (Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of atheists that do incredible things for humanity, but not by virtue of their atheism. It is usually by virtue of some other fundamental belief they hold.)
By the way, you don't exactly add credibility to your Mac complaints by confusing iDVD with DVD Player. Mac users don't brag about DVD Player, because we know any PC with a DVD drive can play DVD movies. We brag about iDVD because our wives and mothers who don't know much about computers can *make* DVD movies.
My wife is about as average as a home user gets and she made a DVD of home movies edited in iMovie for her whole family for Christmas two years ago. They still talk about it.
That's a good point. Still, I would put it closer to suggestive than descriptive, which I am guessing the PTO did as well since Apple trademarked it so early (in December). As you probably know, you can't trademark a descriptive name without some showing of distinctiveness. The name "Shuffle" wasn't distinctive in December.
The name Shuffle is clearly protected under Trademark law, since Apple has it trademarked.
LuxPro is screwed.
Honestly, I hate it when people attack those who prefer edited movies, internet, etc. and tell them they should just focus on parenting. In virtually every case, that is exactly what they are doing.
We hates the big eye! Always watching! We likes the dark places, secret places. *gollum*
You gotta help me man... The packets... They're all over me... I gotta get 'em off me....
The irony in this one is almost palpable.
Dell insists on using characters will low levels of intelligence to sell their computers. Hmmmm....
Second, as the iPod mini uses a different battery and it has only been in people's hands for several months, no one can speak to the average longevity of the battery in these models.
Third, and I am sorry if this is rude, it's not hard to educate yourself about this before you ask a question in Slashdot that just makes you sound like a Troll.
Your idea would work even better than you think. Because Bluetooth devices manually get paired before they do anything with each other, your phone/keychain would only cause your own keychain/phone to beep. I for one love this idea. You better get on it.
I guess my point is that there is nothing else available right now that does what Bluetooth does. Market adoption is *increasing*, if slowly. Bluetooth is far from failing. The truth is that right now, it's the only game in town. More personally, I love it and use it every day. My heart wouldn't be broken if something better replaced it, but in the meantime, improvements like lower power and faster data transfer are welcome.