I don't know if I can speak for all "young consumers" (I'm 29 myself, which I think puts me on the edge of that group), but between the misleading tactics of advertising and a complete loss of confidence in elected leaders (and non-elected, for that matter), I have developed heavy cynicism towards any statement from "the Man", be it a company hocking its products or a politician hocking a need for something. I give their statements no credence until I have done at least some research on my own.
For advertising, when I don't just disregard the ad completely, I do my own research to see if there's any scientific basis for the claims and/or look at product reviews to see how it truly stacks up against alternatives.
For politicians, I do research on any statistics claimed and personal reflection on logos, some analysis on ethos, and completely disregard pathos.
I can confirm. Going into the military really opened my eyes to a lot of things, and the complete disregard for that was quite depressing. In fact, how rampant that kind of thinking was, combined with other poor aspects of my unit, drove me to literal insanity (I spent a few days in a psych ward) and changed me permanently for the worse.
Turns out the military is chock full of little boys and girls with no moral compass who think that running and gunning make them adults.
I had been a long-time fan of Law & Order in general, following SVU more-or-less (I preferred the original, mainly due to the characters of Jack McCoy and Lennie Briscoe). I knew that they were not exact on police procedure, and would often spin current events with extra drama to create episode plots, but I thought that was horrible. They portrayed the "Gamergate" side utterly unrealistically: as foul as some claiming to be part of the movement have been, including threats of kidnapping and rape, I have zero expectation that any would rise to the actual actions. There was no mention of journalistic ethics in the episode. Then, they end the episode with the moral "If you actually go out and beat women up, you can get them to quit even if you are found guilty/killed on a rooftop while apparently under some psychological delusion."
It was bad writing, bad characters, bad memes/references ("redchan", some completely made up terms), and bad outcomes. The whole thing was character assassination no matter which side you are on, if any, and made me stop watching SVU. (Not a hard decision, as it's mainly become the Olivia Benson Show; while I like Mariska Hargitay, they are relying on her character to carry the series at this point. If I find myself hoping that Ice T's character would get more development/screentime, something has gone wrong...)
While I agree with you that it's all about revenge, I don't like that quoted line. Saying it's "too easy" means that the person should do "hard time", aka revenge. Our justice system should be about correction, rehabilitation, and protection: - If someone judged guilty can somehow repay for their crimes, they should (i.e. you smash into a brick wall and destroy it with your car, you are required to help rebuild it with no or little pay) - If someone judged guilty can be helped or rehabilitated to lead a life where they do not harm others, they should (drug addicts who commit crimes are a prime candidate for this) - If someone judged guilty cannot be rehabilitated, they are kept in prison not as punishment for the guilt but as protection for society
In that third case, whatever the imprisoned does shouldn't matter. Give them a solitary confinement room with a shower and a TV and a decent bed and keep them there for the rest of their life; society is still safe. If there is some way to make them give back to society as a whole, such as rote work that isn't in high demand but still useful (for instance, having to sort through garbage to find recyclables), they should do that to keep what little pleasures they have (such as the TV).
In Team Fortress 2, "free users" are limited in trading, crafting, and backpack slots. Anyone who bought the game before it went free-to-play, or that make any purchase in the Mann Co. store (even as little as 99c).
For those that are "free" users and just absolutely have no money, there is one more alternative: Upgrade to Premium Gift can be given to them by another player, and will grant them a premium account. (I can't find the exact price at the moment, but I recall it being inexpensive.) I imagine that if there are enough of these edge cases, Valve will introduce a similar item for Steam in general.
I used to just accept any friend request until these bots started showing up. Now if I get a friend request from a Lv0/1 user, and the profile is private (the bots are always private; perhaps they think people are more likely to accept if they aren't able to see the lack of game time?), I Block it.
Why can't we do all of the above? Improve battery tech, improve solar output and grid stabilization, improve and encourage energy conservation. As all three move forward, the various curves will meet at some point where battery tech is good enough to handle storing excess energy put out by the grid and solar panels, while energy conservation means less energy is required to fulfill all needs.
Likely, but not until after a prolonged legal battle makes its way to at least a circuit or state Supreme Court. That's why it would be good for Congress to modify the DMCA to exclude these stupid antics now. (Outright repeal would be better, but good luck with either one...)
And, for the employees, getting a massive pay increase simply for working there is a huge boon, which will likely lead to better employee morale, loyalty, and work output. So it's not just marketing, it's also a long-term business investment.
Rape rates on colleges are LOWER than outside of college:
I think this feeds back into it, actually.
Consider a medium-sized city where there are fender-benders and mild accidents every day for years. In this case, no one really pays them heed, because it's accepted as a part of life.
Now imagine the same city, which has miraculously gone years without so much as a fender-bender. Then, one day, a light collision occurs, which doesn't even require a trip to the auto-body shop (which is good, because by this point all of those shops have closed), but because it's so freakishly rare it's huge news. Newspapers and radio stations are running lengthy pieces devoted to it, and editorials are exclaiming "How could this happen?!" Politicians/community leaders and making promises left and right for how they'll stop a fender-bender from ever happening again. There's extreme focus on this situation, where someone in NYC wouldn't even bother to glance if it were to happen there.
And so it happens in this case. As the rate of rapes on campuses continue to fall, each instance (or at least claim) gets more attention, both because of rarity in part because there are more resources available for said attention. The more attention each individual instance gets, the larger the call for someone to do something, and the larger the call the heavier the response. It's some weird inverse of conflict escalation ("If we wear bullet proof vests they'll get hollow-point bullets, if we use thick shields they'll get grenades", etc.)
That said, I do agree with your cynicism. Because of the above, it gives those who would use bad situations to increase their own power/position/money a nice target, someone they can vilify without repercussions even if the accused is found to be completely innocent.
(For those about to lash out, please know that I'm not saying rape is on the same severity level as a fender bender; that was merely a car-related example--as is/. tradition--of how the frequency of an event can inversely affect the proportion of the response.)
I never really understand the comments, particularly on a tech site like this, such as 'why don't you just walk you lazy'
Because, as it seems to me, there is more interest in showing others you are "superior" (look at me, I can save a bunch of money and just walk!) rather than think of all the potential benefits/uses of non-standard technology. I say "non-standard" because I have yet to see a post where someone says "Who cares about the computer, I can use an abacus and paper just fine!"
Whether this is a nerd thing, taking our superiority in computers and thinking we're just as awesome in everything else, or a shift in the types of users that regularly use the site I don't know. The best examples of those kind of posts can be seen in any article about weight loss. You will see a myriad of posts with variations of "Just eat less and work out more", many that will be modded +5 Insightful.
If I may ask, when did you begin running? Was it before you tried the anti-depressants, while trying them, or after you stopped? At any point did you take a long hiatus from running, either before you started anti-depressants and then picked it up after you started, or stopped and started while on the same anti-depressant?
(I deal with depression, currently on Celexa and Welbutrin; I've tried Zoloft in the past with same effects as GP, and most recently had a go with Venlaxflexin. I'm curious in drug-free possibilities, but boy do I hate running.)
It may surprise you that a lot of people watch shows primarily for the content and story; any nice effects, design, and clarity is secondary so long as it does not affect the story. For these people, 480p is more than acceptable.
This doesn't mean she won't throw her name in in the next 16 months, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I would love to see her run, too, but she is also a good force in Congress and I don't want to see that get more lopsided with her absence...
I do the same, but try to ignore the 1-stars. They're often as brain-dead as the 5-star ones, and I'm sure at least a few give bad reviews from service/quality that is the result of their own ignorance, rather than a problem with the product or maker.
I've always wondered why sites like Amazon and NewEgg haven't adopted some sort of "Adjusted Score", which discards the 1s and 5s and scores only on a three-star scale. This means that those who try to game the system will do 4s and 2s, but that's why you allow the user to decide which score to search/match on (or just show both.)
"Weighted" scores would also be nice, measuring from a rep system (based on visitor feedback of previous reviews for someone, plus the time they've been on the site, plus if they purchased the product from the site and how long they've had it when the review was made) and the amount of words in the review (with a ceiling; grammar/punctuation would be a better measure of clarity, though much harder to score). So a score of 3 from a long time user with a history of good reviews and the review has 200 words would be considered a much better recommendation than a score of 5 from a newish user with 10 words.
None of this stops gamed reviews, of course, but it does change the rules of the game in favor of Amazon and regular customers since those who want to put up fake reviews will have to work harder for it.
Huh, a very interesting thought. Since you wouldn't break even on the deductions (to my knowledge), I never thought that they would be something that could increase spending.
If the tax rate for companies did go to 0%, though, it would have to be balanced in some way by increasing taxes on citizens. Ideally this means much higher taxes for much higher brackets, and raising the taxes on dividends etc.; for all this, how the companies pay people would change, so that larger pot of money might have to be put towards the employees rather than being some new surplus to hoard. That pot might not grow too large in the end, but you do give something more to think about in any case.
Which is all well and good, but you and I are not taxed on our "net income". It doesn't matter how many bills we have to pay or how large our debt is, we are taxed based on the amount that our employer pays us. In general, I can't deduct food, electricity, or car payments. (The super rich can hire accountants to skirt around a lot of stuff and senators to make laws exempting them from the rest, sure.)
So, if we are going to tax corporations (and I'm not convinced we should, but that comes with other caveats), why should they get to play the net income game when the citizen (whom the government should primarily be working at the behest of) can't?
Agreed in full. I've been thinking more about this lately, and I don't know why we tax corporations, outside of double-dipping. The government is supposed to be by/for the people, and so paying for the government should be the onus of the people; similarly, the government should listen to the people and not the corporations, so taking away taxes for corps can undo that stupid Citizens United ruling (I think.)
But, while a lot of people will support removing taxes for corporations, many will fight tooth and nail to keep from raising taxes on the rich, namely the dividends/gains you mention but also very high brackets. Unless you want the deficit to expand faster, you have to do the latter at the same time as you do the former.
But having multiple trucks maneuver through off ramps, through pumps to an available one, and back on seems more complicated to me than having a few trucks just drive back and forth on the highway.
If 3.0 quakes are increasing, I would assume that higher rated ones are also increasing, or the amount of quakes might cause enough build up in certain areas for devastating quakes.
Regardless, her particular warning is just a CYA. "What, you didn't get earthquake insurance? Well, don't come crying to the government for help, we told you to!"
In 200 years, history classes in the Middle East and Africa will discuss the 16-Year Federal Furlough, when America split into a large number of tribes/clans along ideological lines after the federal government failed to pass a spending budget for two years and the effects started taking their toll on every-day citizens...
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know if I can speak for all "young consumers" (I'm 29 myself, which I think puts me on the edge of that group), but between the misleading tactics of advertising and a complete loss of confidence in elected leaders (and non-elected, for that matter), I have developed heavy cynicism towards any statement from "the Man", be it a company hocking its products or a politician hocking a need for something. I give their statements no credence until I have done at least some research on my own.
For advertising, when I don't just disregard the ad completely, I do my own research to see if there's any scientific basis for the claims and/or look at product reviews to see how it truly stacks up against alternatives.
For politicians, I do research on any statistics claimed and personal reflection on logos, some analysis on ethos, and completely disregard pathos.
I can confirm. Going into the military really opened my eyes to a lot of things, and the complete disregard for that was quite depressing. In fact, how rampant that kind of thinking was, combined with other poor aspects of my unit, drove me to literal insanity (I spent a few days in a psych ward) and changed me permanently for the worse.
Turns out the military is chock full of little boys and girls with no moral compass who think that running and gunning make them adults.
You forgot C) while not being a giant, international bank.
I had been a long-time fan of Law & Order in general, following SVU more-or-less (I preferred the original, mainly due to the characters of Jack McCoy and Lennie Briscoe). I knew that they were not exact on police procedure, and would often spin current events with extra drama to create episode plots, but I thought that was horrible. They portrayed the "Gamergate" side utterly unrealistically: as foul as some claiming to be part of the movement have been, including threats of kidnapping and rape, I have zero expectation that any would rise to the actual actions. There was no mention of journalistic ethics in the episode. Then, they end the episode with the moral "If you actually go out and beat women up, you can get them to quit even if you are found guilty/killed on a rooftop while apparently under some psychological delusion."
It was bad writing, bad characters, bad memes/references ("redchan", some completely made up terms), and bad outcomes. The whole thing was character assassination no matter which side you are on, if any, and made me stop watching SVU. (Not a hard decision, as it's mainly become the Olivia Benson Show; while I like Mariska Hargitay, they are relying on her character to carry the series at this point. If I find myself hoping that Ice T's character would get more development/screentime, something has gone wrong...)
While I agree with you that it's all about revenge, I don't like that quoted line. Saying it's "too easy" means that the person should do "hard time", aka revenge. Our justice system should be about correction, rehabilitation, and protection:
- If someone judged guilty can somehow repay for their crimes, they should (i.e. you smash into a brick wall and destroy it with your car, you are required to help rebuild it with no or little pay)
- If someone judged guilty can be helped or rehabilitated to lead a life where they do not harm others, they should (drug addicts who commit crimes are a prime candidate for this)
- If someone judged guilty cannot be rehabilitated, they are kept in prison not as punishment for the guilt but as protection for society
In that third case, whatever the imprisoned does shouldn't matter. Give them a solitary confinement room with a shower and a TV and a decent bed and keep them there for the rest of their life; society is still safe. If there is some way to make them give back to society as a whole, such as rote work that isn't in high demand but still useful (for instance, having to sort through garbage to find recyclables), they should do that to keep what little pleasures they have (such as the TV).
In Team Fortress 2, "free users" are limited in trading, crafting, and backpack slots. Anyone who bought the game before it went free-to-play, or that make any purchase in the Mann Co. store (even as little as 99c).
For those that are "free" users and just absolutely have no money, there is one more alternative: Upgrade to Premium Gift can be given to them by another player, and will grant them a premium account. (I can't find the exact price at the moment, but I recall it being inexpensive.) I imagine that if there are enough of these edge cases, Valve will introduce a similar item for Steam in general.
I used to just accept any friend request until these bots started showing up. Now if I get a friend request from a Lv0/1 user, and the profile is private (the bots are always private; perhaps they think people are more likely to accept if they aren't able to see the lack of game time?), I Block it.
Why can't we do all of the above? Improve battery tech, improve solar output and grid stabilization, improve and encourage energy conservation. As all three move forward, the various curves will meet at some point where battery tech is good enough to handle storing excess energy put out by the grid and solar panels, while energy conservation means less energy is required to fulfill all needs.
Likely, but not until after a prolonged legal battle makes its way to at least a circuit or state Supreme Court. That's why it would be good for Congress to modify the DMCA to exclude these stupid antics now. (Outright repeal would be better, but good luck with either one...)
I'm pretty sure /. has the copyright on car analogies, so we should be okay.
And, for the employees, getting a massive pay increase simply for working there is a huge boon, which will likely lead to better employee morale, loyalty, and work output. So it's not just marketing, it's also a long-term business investment.
I think this feeds back into it, actually.
Consider a medium-sized city where there are fender-benders and mild accidents every day for years. In this case, no one really pays them heed, because it's accepted as a part of life.
Now imagine the same city, which has miraculously gone years without so much as a fender-bender. Then, one day, a light collision occurs, which doesn't even require a trip to the auto-body shop (which is good, because by this point all of those shops have closed), but because it's so freakishly rare it's huge news. Newspapers and radio stations are running lengthy pieces devoted to it, and editorials are exclaiming "How could this happen?!" Politicians/community leaders and making promises left and right for how they'll stop a fender-bender from ever happening again. There's extreme focus on this situation, where someone in NYC wouldn't even bother to glance if it were to happen there.
And so it happens in this case. As the rate of rapes on campuses continue to fall, each instance (or at least claim) gets more attention, both because of rarity in part because there are more resources available for said attention. The more attention each individual instance gets, the larger the call for someone to do something, and the larger the call the heavier the response. It's some weird inverse of conflict escalation ("If we wear bullet proof vests they'll get hollow-point bullets, if we use thick shields they'll get grenades", etc.)
That said, I do agree with your cynicism. Because of the above, it gives those who would use bad situations to increase their own power/position/money a nice target, someone they can vilify without repercussions even if the accused is found to be completely innocent.
(For those about to lash out, please know that I'm not saying rape is on the same severity level as a fender bender; that was merely a car-related example--as is /. tradition--of how the frequency of an event can inversely affect the proportion of the response.)
Because, as it seems to me, there is more interest in showing others you are "superior" (look at me, I can save a bunch of money and just walk!) rather than think of all the potential benefits/uses of non-standard technology. I say "non-standard" because I have yet to see a post where someone says "Who cares about the computer, I can use an abacus and paper just fine!"
Whether this is a nerd thing, taking our superiority in computers and thinking we're just as awesome in everything else, or a shift in the types of users that regularly use the site I don't know. The best examples of those kind of posts can be seen in any article about weight loss. You will see a myriad of posts with variations of "Just eat less and work out more", many that will be modded +5 Insightful.
If I may ask, when did you begin running? Was it before you tried the anti-depressants, while trying them, or after you stopped? At any point did you take a long hiatus from running, either before you started anti-depressants and then picked it up after you started, or stopped and started while on the same anti-depressant?
(I deal with depression, currently on Celexa and Welbutrin; I've tried Zoloft in the past with same effects as GP, and most recently had a go with Venlaxflexin. I'm curious in drug-free possibilities, but boy do I hate running.)
It may surprise you that a lot of people watch shows primarily for the content and story; any nice effects, design, and clarity is secondary so long as it does not affect the story. For these people, 480p is more than acceptable.
By W. Warren, do you mean Elizabeth Warren? (I can't find anything relevant for "W. Warren") In a recent interview with NPR, Elizabeth Warren unequivocally said she would not run for President:
This doesn't mean she won't throw her name in in the next 16 months, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I would love to see her run, too, but she is also a good force in Congress and I don't want to see that get more lopsided with her absence...
I do the same, but try to ignore the 1-stars. They're often as brain-dead as the 5-star ones, and I'm sure at least a few give bad reviews from service/quality that is the result of their own ignorance, rather than a problem with the product or maker.
I've always wondered why sites like Amazon and NewEgg haven't adopted some sort of "Adjusted Score", which discards the 1s and 5s and scores only on a three-star scale. This means that those who try to game the system will do 4s and 2s, but that's why you allow the user to decide which score to search/match on (or just show both.)
"Weighted" scores would also be nice, measuring from a rep system (based on visitor feedback of previous reviews for someone, plus the time they've been on the site, plus if they purchased the product from the site and how long they've had it when the review was made) and the amount of words in the review (with a ceiling; grammar/punctuation would be a better measure of clarity, though much harder to score). So a score of 3 from a long time user with a history of good reviews and the review has 200 words would be considered a much better recommendation than a score of 5 from a newish user with 10 words.
None of this stops gamed reviews, of course, but it does change the rules of the game in favor of Amazon and regular customers since those who want to put up fake reviews will have to work harder for it.
Huh, a very interesting thought. Since you wouldn't break even on the deductions (to my knowledge), I never thought that they would be something that could increase spending.
If the tax rate for companies did go to 0%, though, it would have to be balanced in some way by increasing taxes on citizens. Ideally this means much higher taxes for much higher brackets, and raising the taxes on dividends etc.; for all this, how the companies pay people would change, so that larger pot of money might have to be put towards the employees rather than being some new surplus to hoard. That pot might not grow too large in the end, but you do give something more to think about in any case.
Which is all well and good, but you and I are not taxed on our "net income". It doesn't matter how many bills we have to pay or how large our debt is, we are taxed based on the amount that our employer pays us. In general, I can't deduct food, electricity, or car payments. (The super rich can hire accountants to skirt around a lot of stuff and senators to make laws exempting them from the rest, sure.)
So, if we are going to tax corporations (and I'm not convinced we should, but that comes with other caveats), why should they get to play the net income game when the citizen (whom the government should primarily be working at the behest of) can't?
Agreed in full. I've been thinking more about this lately, and I don't know why we tax corporations, outside of double-dipping. The government is supposed to be by/for the people, and so paying for the government should be the onus of the people; similarly, the government should listen to the people and not the corporations, so taking away taxes for corps can undo that stupid Citizens United ruling (I think.)
But, while a lot of people will support removing taxes for corporations, many will fight tooth and nail to keep from raising taxes on the rich, namely the dividends/gains you mention but also very high brackets. Unless you want the deficit to expand faster, you have to do the latter at the same time as you do the former.
But we already knew they were selling data to the government.
*badum tish*
But having multiple trucks maneuver through off ramps, through pumps to an available one, and back on seems more complicated to me than having a few trucks just drive back and forth on the highway.
If 3.0 quakes are increasing, I would assume that higher rated ones are also increasing, or the amount of quakes might cause enough build up in certain areas for devastating quakes.
Regardless, her particular warning is just a CYA. "What, you didn't get earthquake insurance? Well, don't come crying to the government for help, we told you to!"
In 200 years, history classes in the Middle East and Africa will discuss the 16-Year Federal Furlough, when America split into a large number of tribes/clans along ideological lines after the federal government failed to pass a spending budget for two years and the effects started taking their toll on every-day citizens...