This gives Microsoft a PR boost for sacrificing profits for the sake of users in need while taking steam out of piracy by giving a free upgrade to users who are realistically not going to pay. Someone in MS business department more than earned their salary.
After that, you always have an option to reinstall Windows 10 on the same machine if you need any of the new features. In terms of keeping it? I primarily care about a stable client for running Steam and Windows 10 is not optimum because of game-interrupting updates, notifications and other background activity.
I would argue that natural monopoly is when multiple competing companies would result in unacceptably higher cost of service. Like if there are 3 competing cable providers with equal market share, a customer of one of them ends up paying for cost of laying and maintaining cable to two other homes in case they switch. So regulated utility model is best to ensure good treatment of customers while controlling costs.
Then maybe our government will do something about taking down sites that facilitate online recruitment and radicalization instead of chasing after college students uploading ripped movies. Because Hollywood donors have much more pool with congress people than victims of terrorist attacks.
Regular cigarettes are super unhealthy. E-cigarettes are just unhealthy. So healthier than regular cigarettes in author's own words. We should encourage as many people as possible to switch.
Days of producing long, monolithic documents for printing is long behind us though. The focus in collaboratI've editing with tools like Google docs, web-based e-mail, instant messaging and blogging. Even Microsoft had no choice but to make office apps for Web and mobile. So not a big reason to keep a PC.
Even if Comcast remains a natural monopoly, it will not be able to push it's expensive TV packages riddles with ads and worthless filler channels. Speeds and rates can then be addressed with regulation and services like Sling will compete on price and quality.
Never buy a phone without an unlockable bootloader. Who do you want to decide when you stop getting bug fixes and security updates? You or the vendor/wireless career?
Try it, if you don't like it just reflash with production ROM and restore app data from backup. Experimenting is not a big deal for modern smart phones that back up everything to the cloud. Just don't install a prerelease and head for vacation without testing battery life and camera for a few days.
The only reason to game on a PC is abundance of choices of indie games and places to get them from. The only reason remaining to buy a PC is gaming. If consoles remain locked down, they will eventually be eaten by Android boxes/sticks because of low entry price point. Microsoft is killing the very reason why Windows was dominant for a long time.
It least it's fun and different from everything else on the market. Speaker mod would be useful for impromptu parties and projector for mobile salespeople. Apple and Samsung should get off their butts and innovate.
They also throttle you to slower speed rather than charging overages if you exceed your cap on a limited plan. So you can still check your e-mail/facebook till you get to WiFi or pay/wait for more data.
Disconnecting is drastic and customer hostile. What if you just have a buggy app that keeps using data?
I don't watch 1080p Netflix in a Web browser for 7 or even 4 hours nonstop. I use a dedicated app or a TV. I don't browse Web for that long either. So how good is Edge for regular, everyday Web browsing? Will it help me avoid autopsy videos which are my pet peeve? Save a hierarchy of pages for offline reading? Anything at all useful?
Google, Yahoo and Apple should pop up similar bubbles on their websites, truthfully warning about everything wrong with Windows 10 and recommending alternatives.
Currently you are worse off if you find a low paying job while on welfare as benefits are taken away and wages are not enough to cover your basic living expenses. With appropriate level of UBI, any job is extra spending money (and intangible benefit of belonging to society). So the incentive is to take what you can get.
As for people not being able to take care of themselves, there is encouraging evidence that people are able to take care of themselves better when trusted and empowered. We should at least give people this option and only constrain those who are proven to not be able to buy themselves a burger or check in to a hostel for the night. I
So for everyone not "poor" the government pays them UBI, then taxes them so they don't actually get it. That seems silly.
UBI is explicitly a program to end poverty. Living standards of middle class can not be raised by redistribution, only productivity increases. Though, UBI can make poor more productive by not restricting them to jobs that can completely support them.
The system you describe would provide them less incentive to work than they have today. No on would work at $1/hr, it would not be worth it.
Why not, if the only other alternative available to you is $0/hour and you don't lose any of your basic income? You can work 3 weeks and buy yourself a cheap Android tablet. Plenty of kids run lemonade stands because their basic needs are covered elsewhere.
All that bureaucracy exists because giving out welfare money isn't as simple as sending people a check every month. When we did that, many tended to spend it on hookers and blow, (pardon the euphemism, I couldn't resist) so we needed social workers to check up on them.
So make a deposit to a debit account each day, they will eventually figure it out. What you are saying is 10% of US population is mentally incompetent. If that is truly the case, we have a public health emergency. But I bet it's closer to 1% if we give people reasonable chances to be independent.
The tax code is so complex only big corporations can take advantage of it and they screw us over." It sounds great. Then think about this: Do you own a house? If so, a flat tax means you give up your mortgage interest tax deduction. How about kids? A flat tax means no child tax credit. Did you make any energy efficient purchases this year? No tax credit for you under a flat tax system. And those solar panels and that Prius aren't deductions either now.
As a person with all of those things, I am truly sorry for a young single dude who should be enjoying his life rather paying for luxuries of my family.
Wait! I bought $10k in computers this year - that's not a tax deduction either?
It's not, it's just taxation of net income rather than gross income. I am open minded on which way is better, though gross income seems less amenable to cheating.
If a significant percentage of the population end up staying home with the UBI
Really? Significant percentage of people will be content to live just above poverty line? Many slashdot readers in IT can quit tomorrow and pay themselves "UBI" for the rest of their lives with passive investment. How many are going to do that and give up all the nice stuff they can have by doing extra work?
With UBI you get an X dollar per year deposit to your debit card and then pay Y% additional tax on any income you get on top. So at some point you pay back your entire basic income and, if you do better, you pay a little for the poorest. It already starts at the bottom of income ladder and we can increase how many people get net benefit by raising X (and by extension Y).
The difference from current welfare is that you can save the money and use it to buy a hotdog stand or what not. And that there is never a disadvantage to work more, unlike current situation where benefits are taken away. Coupled together, this will increase overall productivity of society and provide better lifestyle for everyone.
Taxes are irrelevant. All that matters for our standard of live is productivity. Rich people are not eating all your healthy food and living in all your housing, so taxing them more will not make these available for you. Neither will providing some basic food and shelter to small minority of poorest population that can not afford some adequate minimum hurt you substantially. All you are doing is redistributing tokens that are worthless by themselves but stand in for useful items. This can be helpful in some cases, like when there are enough items for everyone or more can be readily produced if there are takers. But don't fall for the myth that you would magically live like a king without these taxes. Mostly, prices would just rise because everyone else has more cash too.
10K/year basic income for 300 million people is not going to "cost" 3 trillion. 14.5 percent of americans are considered poor. UBI will be structured in such a way to to supplement income of these individuals to the level where they can purchase food, shelter and other basic human needs. The other 95.5% will be paying the basic income they received and extra to cover the poor in taxes. So the net income transfer will be around 10% of cash flow (not all poor have zero income), or 300 billion. This is about half of 2015 military spending.
But wait, there is more. Basic income can replace most other assistance programs like food stamps and homeless shelters. These programs employee a large number of government bureaucrats and enforcement officers. If the value and overhead of these other benefits are saved, we can substantially reduce additional taxes needed or alternatively provide more substantial basic income for the same cost.
But wait, this is not all. Since basic needs of everyone are now taken care, you no longer need to pay "living wage" to your nanny or gardener. You can now hire people for a dollar per hour so long as that's the best money they can get at the moment. In fact poor communities can jump-start their economy by first providing services to each other and gradually attracting wealthier customers and raising their profits.
The whole concept of ransomeware is based on honesty and reasonable pricing. If the data is promptly recovered upon receipt of $49.99 in bitcoin, you have a satisfied customer who will spread the word to others to go ahead and pay a small ransom rather then dealing with, at minimum, a hassle of restoring older backups. For good measure, also crank up firewall and patch whatever exploit you used to get in to let it be known that ransom payment will make the problem go away once and for all.
Pull a trick like this and nobody is going to pay again, destroying the very industry you are trying to be in.
There are already GPUs that can do 90FPS without interpolation techniques which would not provide as good of a latency or eye tracking. In a couple of years the same level of performance will be cheap and widespread. Why would manufacturers focus on short term tricks and not the real thing?
1. US based workers are being replaced by workers in another country such as India. This has nothing to do with immigration and would require new laws to address. It's debatable whether such protectionist laws would be a net benefit, but a completely separate discussion from H1B.
2. Higher paid full time positions are being replaced with consultants from an agency where anyone can apply but H1B workers are common in practice because agency provides said visa independently of specific project. This is a business decision and probably not much can be done about that.
I don't watch Netflix on my laptop much. We have some tablets in the family for private viewing and TVs for shared movies. None of those devices run windows, but as I understand there is a dedicated app if we did have a Windows tablet.
I also don't browse the web for 10 hours non-stop because I have a job and a life, so battery differences will not have that much impact on me.
So, rather than beating around the bush, why doesn't Microsoft explain how Edge is going to be better for browsing the web. My pet peeve is autoplay videos on sites like CNN and Facebook. Is Edge going to be any good at disabling these by default and helping me resize the video or pop it out into a separate window when I do want to see it?
Slashdot Mirror
This gives Microsoft a PR boost for sacrificing profits for the sake of users in need while taking steam out of piracy by giving a free upgrade to users who are realistically not going to pay. Someone in MS business department more than earned their salary.
It's not that it does not RUN games, it RUINS games by triggering updates or other nags at inopportune time.
After that, you always have an option to reinstall Windows 10 on the same machine if you need any of the new features. In terms of keeping it? I primarily care about a stable client for running Steam and Windows 10 is not optimum because of game-interrupting updates, notifications and other background activity.
I would argue that natural monopoly is when multiple competing companies would result in unacceptably higher cost of service. Like if there are 3 competing cable providers with equal market share, a customer of one of them ends up paying for cost of laying and maintaining cable to two other homes in case they switch. So regulated utility model is best to ensure good treatment of customers while controlling costs.
Then maybe our government will do something about taking down sites that facilitate online recruitment and radicalization instead of chasing after college students uploading ripped movies. Because Hollywood donors have much more pool with congress people than victims of terrorist attacks.
Regular cigarettes are super unhealthy. E-cigarettes are just unhealthy. So healthier than regular cigarettes in author's own words. We should encourage as many people as possible to switch.
Days of producing long, monolithic documents for printing is long behind us though. The focus in collaboratI've editing with tools like Google docs, web-based e-mail, instant messaging and blogging. Even Microsoft had no choice but to make office apps for Web and mobile. So not a big reason to keep a PC.
Even if Comcast remains a natural monopoly, it will not be able to push it's expensive TV packages riddles with ads and worthless filler channels. Speeds and rates can then be addressed with regulation and services like Sling will compete on price and quality.
Never buy a phone without an unlockable bootloader. Who do you want to decide when you stop getting bug fixes and security updates? You or the vendor/wireless career?
Try it, if you don't like it just reflash with production ROM and restore app data from backup. Experimenting is not a big deal for modern smart phones that back up everything to the cloud. Just don't install a prerelease and head for vacation without testing battery life and camera for a few days.
The only reason to game on a PC is abundance of choices of indie games and places to get them from. The only reason remaining to buy a PC is gaming. If consoles remain locked down, they will eventually be eaten by Android boxes/sticks because of low entry price point. Microsoft is killing the very reason why Windows was dominant for a long time.
It least it's fun and different from everything else on the market. Speaker mod would be useful for impromptu parties and projector for mobile salespeople. Apple and Samsung should get off their butts and innovate.
T-mobile just deprioritizes users that went over a certain amount of data compared to the rest of the users. This way service for these other users is not degraded. But if the network has spare capacity? Knock yourself out!
They also throttle you to slower speed rather than charging overages if you exceed your cap on a limited plan. So you can still check your e-mail/facebook till you get to WiFi or pay/wait for more data.
Disconnecting is drastic and customer hostile. What if you just have a buggy app that keeps using data?
I don't watch 1080p Netflix in a Web browser for 7 or even 4 hours nonstop. I use a dedicated app or a TV. I don't browse Web for that long either. So how good is Edge for regular, everyday Web browsing? Will it help me avoid autopsy videos which are my pet peeve? Save a hierarchy of pages for offline reading? Anything at all useful?
Google, Yahoo and Apple should pop up similar bubbles on their websites, truthfully warning about everything wrong with Windows 10 and recommending alternatives.
Currently you are worse off if you find a low paying job while on welfare as benefits are taken away and wages are not enough to cover your basic living expenses. With appropriate level of UBI, any job is extra spending money (and intangible benefit of belonging to society). So the incentive is to take what you can get.
As for people not being able to take care of themselves, there is encouraging evidence that people are able to take care of themselves better when trusted and empowered. We should at least give people this option and only constrain those who are proven to not be able to buy themselves a burger or check in to a hostel for the night. I
So for everyone not "poor" the government pays them UBI, then taxes them so they don't actually get it. That seems silly.
UBI is explicitly a program to end poverty. Living standards of middle class can not be raised by redistribution, only productivity increases. Though, UBI can make poor more productive by not restricting them to jobs that can completely support them.
The system you describe would provide them less incentive to work than they have today. No on would work at $1/hr, it would not be worth it.
Why not, if the only other alternative available to you is $0/hour and you don't lose any of your basic income? You can work 3 weeks and buy yourself a cheap Android tablet. Plenty of kids run lemonade stands because their basic needs are covered elsewhere.
All that bureaucracy exists because giving out welfare money isn't as simple as sending people a check every month. When we did that, many tended to spend it on hookers and blow, (pardon the euphemism, I couldn't resist) so we needed social workers to check up on them.
So make a deposit to a debit account each day, they will eventually figure it out. What you are saying is 10% of US population is mentally incompetent. If that is truly the case, we have a public health emergency. But I bet it's closer to 1% if we give people reasonable chances to be independent.
The tax code is so complex only big corporations can take advantage of it and they screw us over." It sounds great. Then think about this: Do you own a house? If so, a flat tax means you give up your mortgage interest tax deduction. How about kids? A flat tax means no child tax credit. Did you make any energy efficient purchases this year? No tax credit for you under a flat tax system. And those solar panels and that Prius aren't deductions either now.
As a person with all of those things, I am truly sorry for a young single dude who should be enjoying his life rather paying for luxuries of my family.
Wait! I bought $10k in computers this year - that's not a tax deduction either?
It's not, it's just taxation of net income rather than gross income. I am open minded on which way is better, though gross income seems less amenable to cheating.
If a significant percentage of the population end up staying home with the UBI
Really? Significant percentage of people will be content to live just above poverty line? Many slashdot readers in IT can quit tomorrow and pay themselves "UBI" for the rest of their lives with passive investment. How many are going to do that and give up all the nice stuff they can have by doing extra work?
With UBI you get an X dollar per year deposit to your debit card and then pay Y% additional tax on any income you get on top. So at some point you pay back your entire basic income and, if you do better, you pay a little for the poorest. It already starts at the bottom of income ladder and we can increase how many people get net benefit by raising X (and by extension Y).
The difference from current welfare is that you can save the money and use it to buy a hotdog stand or what not. And that there is never a disadvantage to work more, unlike current situation where benefits are taken away. Coupled together, this will increase overall productivity of society and provide better lifestyle for everyone.
Taxes are irrelevant. All that matters for our standard of live is productivity. Rich people are not eating all your healthy food and living in all your housing, so taxing them more will not make these available for you. Neither will providing some basic food and shelter to small minority of poorest population that can not afford some adequate minimum hurt you substantially. All you are doing is redistributing tokens that are worthless by themselves but stand in for useful items. This can be helpful in some cases, like when there are enough items for everyone or more can be readily produced if there are takers. But don't fall for the myth that you would magically live like a king without these taxes. Mostly, prices would just rise because everyone else has more cash too.
10K/year basic income for 300 million people is not going to "cost" 3 trillion. 14.5 percent of americans are considered poor. UBI will be structured in such a way to to supplement income of these individuals to the level where they can purchase food, shelter and other basic human needs. The other 95.5% will be paying the basic income they received and extra to cover the poor in taxes. So the net income transfer will be around 10% of cash flow (not all poor have zero income), or 300 billion. This is about half of 2015 military spending.
But wait, there is more. Basic income can replace most other assistance programs like food stamps and homeless shelters. These programs employee a large number of government bureaucrats and enforcement officers. If the value and overhead of these other benefits are saved, we can substantially reduce additional taxes needed or alternatively provide more substantial basic income for the same cost.
But wait, this is not all. Since basic needs of everyone are now taken care, you no longer need to pay "living wage" to your nanny or gardener. You can now hire people for a dollar per hour so long as that's the best money they can get at the moment. In fact poor communities can jump-start their economy by first providing services to each other and gradually attracting wealthier customers and raising their profits.
The whole concept of ransomeware is based on honesty and reasonable pricing. If the data is promptly recovered upon receipt of $49.99 in bitcoin, you have a satisfied customer who will spread the word to others to go ahead and pay a small ransom rather then dealing with, at minimum, a hassle of restoring older backups. For good measure, also crank up firewall and patch whatever exploit you used to get in to let it be known that ransom payment will make the problem go away once and for all.
Pull a trick like this and nobody is going to pay again, destroying the very industry you are trying to be in.
There are already GPUs that can do 90FPS without interpolation techniques which would not provide as good of a latency or eye tracking. In a couple of years the same level of performance will be cheap and widespread. Why would manufacturers focus on short term tricks and not the real thing?
1. US based workers are being replaced by workers in another country such as India. This has nothing to do with immigration and would require new laws to address. It's debatable whether such protectionist laws would be a net benefit, but a completely separate discussion from H1B.
2. Higher paid full time positions are being replaced with consultants from an agency where anyone can apply but H1B workers are common in practice because agency provides said visa independently of specific project. This is a business decision and probably not much can be done about that.
I don't watch Netflix on my laptop much. We have some tablets in the family for private viewing and TVs for shared movies. None of those devices run windows, but as I understand there is a dedicated app if we did have a Windows tablet.
I also don't browse the web for 10 hours non-stop because I have a job and a life, so battery differences will not have that much impact on me.
So, rather than beating around the bush, why doesn't Microsoft explain how Edge is going to be better for browsing the web. My pet peeve is autoplay videos on sites like CNN and Facebook. Is Edge going to be any good at disabling these by default and helping me resize the video or pop it out into a separate window when I do want to see it?