besides English, or is Microsoft marketing just losing it? Anything that's on the 'surface' in English is bad. 'Scratch the surface' and you haven't done enough. 'On the surface' means superficial, shallow. Maybe it's different in British English, but in American English this just sounds awful.
You only have those choices because the government broke up their monopolies. Ever hear the song Sixteen Tons? I sold my soul to the company store.
And we're mostly paying for wars to keep corporations happy. Meanwhile welfare makes up a small amount of money spent. But hey, don't let reality get in the way of a good right wing rant. Are you an astroturfer?
was when I realized most people are nuts. I don't mean that as an insult or exaggeration. I mean that people with a tenuous grasp on what is actually happening around them are the rule, not the exception. It actually hit me pretty hard, because several people very close to me kept exhibiting horribly irrational and self-destructive behavior, and I kept expecting them to stop doing it because, hey, no rational person would do these things, right? It was just a momentary lapse in judgement, right? Wrong. And it wasn't just being irrational or emotional. It was a total disconnect from the reality of cause & effect.
I'll say this, successful people learn early that the majority of people are nuts, and to avoid those people. I say if we can tank a welfare mom up on drugs so she can look objectively at her choices and say, "You know what, I'm not going to vote for the guy that keeps saying he's gonna cut my kids health insurance!", then more power to those of us who at least try to be rational.
and it's just silly to say they should have been doing this. It's only recently that a chipset that powered phones was beefy enough to run what people expect out of a desktop. Kudos to Microsoft for picking up on this as soon as they have. Android is a real threat. People love the idea of taking their phone, plugging it into a doc and having the same UI look & feel. Android + HTML5 apps + cloud is a credible threat to Microsoft. The cool thing is, they're moving on converging all the platforms as a result. Real innovation from competition.
Studies are finding it's mostly poverty that's causing obesity. The worst foods are the cheapest per calories (in order, Fried food, Chips, Soda), and people are taking in extra calories to deal with stress and overwork. Stress triggers hunger, you're body's trying to tell you the long winter's coming and it's time to stock up. Plus we're finding that poor people just plain can't afford to eat their veggies.
Not that I'm a fan of HFCS, but I think they're being used to mask the real issue, which is poverty.
It sounds like your complaint isn't with subsidies per say, but how they're applied. An across the board subsidy wouldn't work. What was happening was certain types of crops would, due to random chance of crop harvests, become worthless. Farmers would lose their shirts and then nobody would make the crop. It takes a long, long time to gear up to make a certain type of crop. You can't just just go, 'Hey, today I'm gonna grow strawberries'. Farm subsidies ensure that farmers keep growing what we need, even if, just this year, it's not profitable.
you do know what subsidies are for, right? They're to ensure a steady and affordable food supply and prevent starvation. Unless you're really, really rich, you want this.
And if so, how? If you can't activate the software is worthless. I know lots of people running Win9X still (old games mostly, but some old software too).
Please don't let a few conspiracy loons distract you from the very real conspiracies that are out there. Remember, a conspiracy is just a bunch of people getting together to plan something. The Republican's don't bother to hide their conspiracies. Just read what comes out of their think tanks and you'll see. For a concrete example, google 'The Southern Strategy' and Reagan.
Several top flight Republicans are serious about crashing the economy to keep Obama from a second term. There's quotes floating around the 'net from more than one US Senator where they say they'd rather sink the US then let him win. They might be right, Obama could be the one to bring Socialism to the US. His health care plan looks poised to wreak the current system, and then he can move in with a real solution (that doesn't involve parasitic "insurance" companies). This would be Great for the American People, no so much for the ultra wealthy.
And besides, is your a super rich Republican, what do you care if the US Economy crashes? It's not like it hurts you one whit.
you're right, it's happening because we allow it, but it's broader than IT. The only way to stop cowering in fear of losing our jobs is to force our society to put up a permanent and complete safety net. That means unemployment benefits that don't run out, ever, and it means not getting our panties in a bunch if some lazy bloke doesn't want to work at all.
what it's like in the rest of the world, do you? In India, China and the 2nd and 3rd world, you don't got to 'choose to stop working longer hours'. It's a rough scramble for bare existence. That's what the super wealthy want here. Right now they're allowing the the luxury. For one thing, you've forgotten what unemployment insurance is really for. It's to keep the unemployed from desperately flooding the job market and removing that choice from you. For another thing, you've forgotten that people in this country DIED for the 40 hour work week, and I don't mean guys in trenches, I mean union strikers beaten to death by (privately hired) jackboot thugs.
Never forget this: No matter how little you have, there's always someone that can make himself rich if he takes it away from you and a million others.
but if it's one thing our ruling class is good at, it's screwing guys like you. Look at the IT field. They spent 10 years frantically training people for jobs that were being sent overseas (or given to H1-B visas). Hell, during the worst unemployment in 80 years they're arguing for MORE H1-B visas. There's even a law firm that specializing in telling businesses how to offer a job without having to hire an American (they're videos on youtube of them, too lazy to google right now).
at least in the states is, companies have figured out they can get one person to do the work of two and pocket the other guy's salary. I'm seeing this everywhere in the form of longer wait times for services. It's also really screwing the economy because it means there's 1 less job available, so higher unemployment and less money circulating. We're heading back to the 1800s, when our masters argued that idle hands were the devil's playthings, and the lower class would just spend the time drinking anyway... Kiss your vacations (and your 40 hour work week) goodbye.
so naive;). Seriously, didn't you notice when the RIAA took out MP3.com like a tonne of bricks? Did you know that, shortly after the RIAA took over MP3.com, several of the bands that were successful without a record contract had their MP3.com accounts suspended w/o explanation (I don't mean without a good reason, I mean they got a letter saying thank you and good by with no reason).
The RIAA wants, and has, control over the CULTURE of music in America. They want to make sure every tune you listen to filters through them. They're also terrified of the industry balkanizing. One Britney Sprears album sold 10 mil times is super profitable, but if there's 20 Britneys to choose from you're marginal costs start to suck.
And BTW, why the hell does the world have to just suck for everyone but the top 1% anyway?
Rhetoric != Policy. Compare Karl Marx's writings to Joseph Stalin's actions and you'll see the difference.
For the record, Communism doesn't work. You never get past the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' phase. What I'm proposing is Democratic Socialism, which is doing wonder's in Europe & Canada (although Canada's having trouble because their right wing is adopting US right wing policies).
Actually, we're not the most prosperous nation. Most of Europe has us beat on any statistics that don't involve owning cars and really big houses. In terms of education, economic security, pay, hours worked, health care and just about any other measure we're lagging behind every other 1st world nation. And if you're looking at the gap between rich and poor, we're behind war torn Egypt for Chris' sake. There are some cracks in Europe's armor, but their mostly from following our awful policies (like the bank deregulation in Greece that caused billions of shady capital to flow in and run rampant). Basically, the ruling class of Europe is seeing the crazy gains in wealth that the American ruling class has and salivating. Unless you happen to be a member of the ruling class, or one of their cherished lackeys, you're about to get screwed.
And for the last bloody time, repeat after me: THE SOVIET UNION WAS NOT, NOR HAS IT EVER BEEN, COMMUNIST. Sorry to shout, but I'm so sick and tired of seeing them trotted out as an example of Socialism's failure when they were nothing more than a fascist dictatorship the whole time. China too, for the record.
And I never said it was THE answer, I said it was the BEST answer we have. It's a snowball's chance in hell, but I'll take a snowball in hell over what the right wing Mega-Corps have planned for me any day. I MIGHT make out OK with the government. They at least pretend to listen to me. Mega-Corps are legally required to screw me as much as possible (for the good of the shareholder, of course).
You assume that people in power would allow us to transition to a post scarcity economy. All their power is based on scarcity. But another way, what use is being rich if no one is poor?
Also, you're working on the assumption that we don't have enough resources to feed and shelter everyone and maintain a reasonable standard of living for yourself. This is a lie the rich are perpetuating as part of a class war they are fighting (it's easy to win a war when the other side doesn't know there is one, btw). Please, please watch this. To summarize for those that can't click, in the last 20 years the economy doubled in size and population increased 30%. So there's 30% more people and 100% more wealth. There is plenty, but it's being snapped up by a lucky few. I'll end with a joke:
"A rich man, a union man and a teabagger are sitting at a table with 10 apples. The rich man grabs 8 apples, turns to the teabagger and says 'Hey, I think that guy's gonna to steal your apple'".
What kind of grief can you possibly give them? You're obviously well educated (by American Standards) and have a highly critical mind. The vast majority of people lack your education & critical thinking skills. Very few people are like that. Most base decisions on their 'gut', meaning their emotions. Advertising will play on those emotions and drown out any objections they have. A recent study shows that a 3 week advertising blitz could change 51% of the public's opinion on ANYTHING.
I guess my point is, you can't win with that kind of logic. I'm pretty sure I know what you're getting at, which is the same free market, invisible hand clap trap that is failing miserably now. Fact is, Adam Smith envisioned a world of small shop owners and what today we'd call a mid sized business. The capitalists lived near enough the proles to suffer the consequences, plus a revolt was practical and possible (if you think violent revolutions is still possible, you need to read up on what modern military hardware is capable of). Smith didn't foresee Mega-Corps more powerful than any king & globalism pitting a working in Spokane against one if Bangalore. He was an economist, now a futurist.
Face it, Capitalism is broke, permanently. Modern society needs something as powerful as a Mega-Corp to stand up to a Mega-Corp. It's foolish to even suggest that a lose-knit group of balkanized citizens are going to do anything but what their corporate Masters tell them. I propose a strong central government as a solution. Yes, the power is probably going to get abused, but at least from time to time some good will come of it. I've never understood why people are perfectly OK with getting reamed by a Mega-Corp with zero accountability and 10 times the power of even the most base King or Queen, but their scared shitless of the government. Wait, strike that, I do understand. Almost forget the 50 years of indoctrination and scaremongering about the big bad Communists. Convenient, eh?
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run the show. All pro-Business, all the time. It won't even matter if it goes to Supreme Court.
besides English, or is Microsoft marketing just losing it? Anything that's on the 'surface' in English is bad. 'Scratch the surface' and you haven't done enough. 'On the surface' means superficial, shallow. Maybe it's different in British English, but in American English this just sounds awful.
Either that or it's April 1st again...
Weird, I run at 100% non stop. Maybe my eyes just got used to it and I'd notice the difference if I bought a new monitor...
TVs maybe, computer monitors not so much. I've had this Acer for 5 years and it's fine.
jeremy.firefox.addon@gmail.com. It's my public addy for my Firefox plug-in, so I don't mind posting it here. Thanks! :).
You only have those choices because the government broke up their monopolies. Ever hear the song Sixteen Tons? I sold my soul to the company store.
And we're mostly paying for wars to keep corporations happy. Meanwhile welfare makes up a small amount of money spent. But hey, don't let reality get in the way of a good right wing rant. Are you an astroturfer?
was when I realized most people are nuts. I don't mean that as an insult or exaggeration. I mean that people with a tenuous grasp on what is actually happening around them are the rule, not the exception. It actually hit me pretty hard, because several people very close to me kept exhibiting horribly irrational and self-destructive behavior, and I kept expecting them to stop doing it because, hey, no rational person would do these things, right? It was just a momentary lapse in judgement, right? Wrong. And it wasn't just being irrational or emotional. It was a total disconnect from the reality of cause & effect.
I'll say this, successful people learn early that the majority of people are nuts, and to avoid those people. I say if we can tank a welfare mom up on drugs so she can look objectively at her choices and say, "You know what, I'm not going to vote for the guy that keeps saying he's gonna cut my kids health insurance!", then more power to those of us who at least try to be rational.
and it's just silly to say they should have been doing this. It's only recently that a chipset that powered phones was beefy enough to run what people expect out of a desktop. Kudos to Microsoft for picking up on this as soon as they have. Android is a real threat. People love the idea of taking their phone, plugging it into a doc and having the same UI look & feel. Android + HTML5 apps + cloud is a credible threat to Microsoft. The cool thing is, they're moving on converging all the platforms as a result. Real innovation from competition.
Studies are finding it's mostly poverty that's causing obesity. The worst foods are the cheapest per calories (in order, Fried food, Chips, Soda), and people are taking in extra calories to deal with stress and overwork. Stress triggers hunger, you're body's trying to tell you the long winter's coming and it's time to stock up. Plus we're finding that poor people just plain can't afford to eat their veggies.
Not that I'm a fan of HFCS, but I think they're being used to mask the real issue, which is poverty.
It sounds like your complaint isn't with subsidies per say, but how they're applied. An across the board subsidy wouldn't work. What was happening was certain types of crops would, due to random chance of crop harvests, become worthless. Farmers would lose their shirts and then nobody would make the crop. It takes a long, long time to gear up to make a certain type of crop. You can't just just go, 'Hey, today I'm gonna grow strawberries'. Farm subsidies ensure that farmers keep growing what we need, even if, just this year, it's not profitable.
Again, the goal is a stead food supply.
you do know what subsidies are for, right? They're to ensure a steady and affordable food supply and prevent starvation. Unless you're really, really rich, you want this.
He's the spokesperson for the Commodore Vic 20. 'Why Buy a Video game'!.
I haven't even seen netbooks for that price, let alone a desktop with 4 gigs of RAM...
And if so, how? If you can't activate the software is worthless. I know lots of people running Win9X still (old games mostly, but some old software too).
Please don't let a few conspiracy loons distract you from the very real conspiracies that are out there. Remember, a conspiracy is just a bunch of people getting together to plan something. The Republican's don't bother to hide their conspiracies. Just read what comes out of their think tanks and you'll see. For a concrete example, google 'The Southern Strategy' and Reagan.
Several top flight Republicans are serious about crashing the economy to keep Obama from a second term. There's quotes floating around the 'net from more than one US Senator where they say they'd rather sink the US then let him win. They might be right, Obama could be the one to bring Socialism to the US. His health care plan looks poised to wreak the current system, and then he can move in with a real solution (that doesn't involve parasitic "insurance" companies). This would be Great for the American People, no so much for the ultra wealthy.
And besides, is your a super rich Republican, what do you care if the US Economy crashes? It's not like it hurts you one whit.
you're right, it's happening because we allow it, but it's broader than IT. The only way to stop cowering in fear of losing our jobs is to force our society to put up a permanent and complete safety net. That means unemployment benefits that don't run out, ever, and it means not getting our panties in a bunch if some lazy bloke doesn't want to work at all.
what it's like in the rest of the world, do you? In India, China and the 2nd and 3rd world, you don't got to 'choose to stop working longer hours'. It's a rough scramble for bare existence. That's what the super wealthy want here. Right now they're allowing the the luxury. For one thing, you've forgotten what unemployment insurance is really for. It's to keep the unemployed from desperately flooding the job market and removing that choice from you. For another thing, you've forgotten that people in this country DIED for the 40 hour work week, and I don't mean guys in trenches, I mean union strikers beaten to death by (privately hired) jackboot thugs.
Never forget this: No matter how little you have, there's always someone that can make himself rich if he takes it away from you and a million others.
but if it's one thing our ruling class is good at, it's screwing guys like you. Look at the IT field. They spent 10 years frantically training people for jobs that were being sent overseas (or given to H1-B visas). Hell, during the worst unemployment in 80 years they're arguing for MORE H1-B visas. There's even a law firm that specializing in telling businesses how to offer a job without having to hire an American (they're videos on youtube of them, too lazy to google right now).
at least in the states is, companies have figured out they can get one person to do the work of two and pocket the other guy's salary. I'm seeing this everywhere in the form of longer wait times for services. It's also really screwing the economy because it means there's 1 less job available, so higher unemployment and less money circulating. We're heading back to the 1800s, when our masters argued that idle hands were the devil's playthings, and the lower class would just spend the time drinking anyway... Kiss your vacations (and your 40 hour work week) goodbye.
so naive ;). Seriously, didn't you notice when the RIAA took out MP3.com like a tonne of bricks? Did you know that, shortly after the RIAA took over MP3.com, several of the bands that were successful without a record contract had their MP3.com accounts suspended w/o explanation (I don't mean without a good reason, I mean they got a letter saying thank you and good by with no reason).
The RIAA wants, and has, control over the CULTURE of music in America. They want to make sure every tune you listen to filters through them. They're also terrified of the industry balkanizing. One Britney Sprears album sold 10 mil times is super profitable, but if there's 20 Britneys to choose from you're marginal costs start to suck.
And BTW, why the hell does the world have to just suck for everyone but the top 1% anyway?
Rhetoric != Policy. Compare Karl Marx's writings to Joseph Stalin's actions and you'll see the difference.
For the record, Communism doesn't work. You never get past the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' phase. What I'm proposing is Democratic Socialism, which is doing wonder's in Europe & Canada (although Canada's having trouble because their right wing is adopting US right wing policies).
Actually, we're not the most prosperous nation. Most of Europe has us beat on any statistics that don't involve owning cars and really big houses. In terms of education, economic security, pay, hours worked, health care and just about any other measure we're lagging behind every other 1st world nation. And if you're looking at the gap between rich and poor, we're behind war torn Egypt for Chris' sake. There are some cracks in Europe's armor, but their mostly from following our awful policies (like the bank deregulation in Greece that caused billions of shady capital to flow in and run rampant). Basically, the ruling class of Europe is seeing the crazy gains in wealth that the American ruling class has and salivating. Unless you happen to be a member of the ruling class, or one of their cherished lackeys, you're about to get screwed.
And for the last bloody time, repeat after me: THE SOVIET UNION WAS NOT, NOR HAS IT EVER BEEN, COMMUNIST. Sorry to shout, but I'm so sick and tired of seeing them trotted out as an example of Socialism's failure when they were nothing more than a fascist dictatorship the whole time. China too, for the record.
And I never said it was THE answer, I said it was the BEST answer we have. It's a snowball's chance in hell, but I'll take a snowball in hell over what the right wing Mega-Corps have planned for me any day. I MIGHT make out OK with the government. They at least pretend to listen to me. Mega-Corps are legally required to screw me as much as possible (for the good of the shareholder, of course).
You assume that people in power would allow us to transition to a post scarcity economy. All their power is based on scarcity. But another way, what use is being rich if no one is poor?
Also, you're working on the assumption that we don't have enough resources to feed and shelter everyone and maintain a reasonable standard of living for yourself. This is a lie the rich are perpetuating as part of a class war they are fighting (it's easy to win a war when the other side doesn't know there is one, btw). Please, please watch this. To summarize for those that can't click, in the last 20 years the economy doubled in size and population increased 30%. So there's 30% more people and 100% more wealth. There is plenty, but it's being snapped up by a lucky few. I'll end with a joke:
"A rich man, a union man and a teabagger are sitting at a table with 10 apples. The rich man grabs 8 apples, turns to the teabagger and says 'Hey, I think that guy's gonna to steal your apple'".
Thank you, and goodnight!
What kind of grief can you possibly give them? You're obviously well educated (by American Standards) and have a highly critical mind. The vast majority of people lack your education & critical thinking skills. Very few people are like that. Most base decisions on their 'gut', meaning their emotions. Advertising will play on those emotions and drown out any objections they have. A recent study shows that a 3 week advertising blitz could change 51% of the public's opinion on ANYTHING.
I guess my point is, you can't win with that kind of logic. I'm pretty sure I know what you're getting at, which is the same free market, invisible hand clap trap that is failing miserably now. Fact is, Adam Smith envisioned a world of small shop owners and what today we'd call a mid sized business. The capitalists lived near enough the proles to suffer the consequences, plus a revolt was practical and possible (if you think violent revolutions is still possible, you need to read up on what modern military hardware is capable of). Smith didn't foresee Mega-Corps more powerful than any king & globalism pitting a working in Spokane against one if Bangalore. He was an economist, now a futurist.
Face it, Capitalism is broke, permanently. Modern society needs something as powerful as a Mega-Corp to stand up to a Mega-Corp. It's foolish to even suggest that a lose-knit group of balkanized citizens are going to do anything but what their corporate Masters tell them. I propose a strong central government as a solution. Yes, the power is probably going to get abused, but at least from time to time some good will come of it. I've never understood why people are perfectly OK with getting reamed by a Mega-Corp with zero accountability and 10 times the power of even the most base King or Queen, but their scared shitless of the government. Wait, strike that, I do understand. Almost forget the 50 years of indoctrination and scaremongering about the big bad Communists. Convenient, eh?