Related story: I was driving to see some relatives in Omaha, and Google Maps was telling me to take this somewhat-out-of-the-way route. Thankfully I mentioned it when talking to my parents, who had made the trip many times themselves, and they told me the better route to take. I did so, but kept Google Maps up to see what would happen. It continuously tried to redirect me to its long way around, and as I approached a large-ish bridge it became frantic and I think even told me to do a U-turn on the highway. For the short time I was on the bridge it was stuck in "recalculating", but after I had passed it went back to normal and used the route my parents recommended, no longer trying to take me elsewhere.
Later on I did some checking and discovered that, while there's a visible bridge on the images for Google Maps, the bridge wasn't recognized by the software. Seems it had washed away during flooding a decade-ish prior, so of course it was no longer a recognized road right after that. However, once the bridge was rebuilt it got lost in the shuffle and spent many years not existing on Google Maps. I can only imagine how many people took a circuitous route thanks to this until I reported the problem to Google.
While I wouldn't mind seeing first-party ads, with the way that businesses work I think we'd get stuck in a cycle: 1) sites have ads from third party services doing all sorts of yucky stuff 2) Users complain about ads, ad revenue drops due to blockers 3) Site moves to first-party ad serving and vetting, ad revenue increases at least some-what 4) An MBA or someone from marketing (probably a VP) says "Hey, we have this great, trusted ad-serving platform for our own website(s), we should let others place our trusted/vetted ads for a share of revenue" 5) As more third-party sites adopt ad platform, the advertising arm is either spun off, or the company sheds all non-advertising areas 6) Ad platform grows large, and in the Quest for More Money, downsizes the department that vets advertisements and makes advertiser submission more automatic 7) GOTO 1
Some sites might be able to freeze at 3, if they can avoid MBAs and refuse to let marketing take the wheel, but for most (especially if they're bought up by larger entities) the cycle will repeat.
I subscribed to their magazine a while back and mostly enjoyed the content. Over time I realized that many articles were more like "blurbs", barely taking up half a page (with the rest often devoted to random art or a single, large relevant image), and there was a full-page ad between many blurbs. A lot of their multi-page articles were forcefully split, usually making me thumb past other ads to get to the last page (one side).
One day I decided to rip out every page that was an ad on both sides, which included many of their multi-page ads. Once I was done (doing two issues), an issue was easily half as thick and still at least 1/3 ads. And this was something I explicitly paid for.
I didn't bother to renew my subscription. Hearing that their website was riddled with advertising doesn't surprise me in the least.
#3: Would-be car thieves that never learned to drive stick will fail at stealing your manual-shift vehicle or just leave your it alone. It's not completely theft proof, but it dwindles the pool tremendously, doubly so if the vehicle in question is a generic vehicle (not something high dollar/rare)
I'd prefer to see a more generic "agree"/"disagree" system that stood alongside the existing moderation system. It would allow people to show what the "groupthink" is, while preserving the ability to moderate a post on its merits (or lack thereof). A simple agree/disagree, where that value is shown on the post but is far less prominent. Unlike moderation, the "agreement" system would have no limits of any kind except it would be logged in users only (to make it a bit harder to game), and one--and only one, so no taksies-backsies--vote per comment. It would be shown as a % and not a whole number, and would not affect karma at all.
With such a system, it would be entirely possible to have a "+5 Insightful" rank with "98% Disagree". I know a lot of people will say that it reeks heavily of Facebook/reddit/disqus, but they didn't create simple approval systems, and as long as our new overlords don't make it prominent (it is a more minor data point, and must not overshadow regular moderation) it could be a nice addition.
Speaking of moderation, it would be nice if "stories" like this could have a "free mod" setup, where any logged-in users could give moderation to as many posts as they want, and users who currently have mod points don't spend them when moderating. This will give a much better idea of what the majority of the community wants, because right now all of these +5s are set only be people who have moderation. I'm not suggesting they don't deserve to spend their mod points here, but there are many other users who just don't have them right now who should be heard as well. (A reply doesn't cut it, and such a "free mod" system might alleviate "me too" or "someone mod parent up" posts.) Of course, if the "agreement" system were in place then "free mod" would be moot.
I understand that it may not be worth paying someone to write original content, but why not solicit it from users?
Bennet. Hasselton.
I have no problem with editorials, but they need to come from the pool of journals (ideally) and either be posted as a normal article in an "editorial" section so users can hide all stories from that section, and/or make the story author be the post author so that users can elect to hide editorial stories from people they feel just ramble.
Editors were generally unwilling to link to paywalled sites or sites that did sketchy things.
In addition to this, I would like to see editors actually edit. Proofread summaries before submission (even just throwing them into OpenOffice or Word could find problems), make sure the summary doesn't overstate something (and, ideally, is as balanced as the source article), and don't link to random middle-man blogs. If something is worth posting, it should be from the source, so if a link goes to a blog that adds little-or-no value with a link to an actual article or editorial, then dump the blog link and use the direct link.
I wouldn't be surprised if some have been (or, at least, some of their aides, who may have mentioned it.) Even informed they would still vote this into place, because just an accusation from a "credible" source--like, say, the Utah State Police--can completely destroy someone's life. Even if there's not even enough to convene a grand jury, or any logical individual would pass over as something simply vulgar, it doesn't matter: An investigation for child porn at company X, or person X, and X. Is. Done.
I know, I know, "never attribute to malice", but when it comes to overbearing and/or broad government laws, I'm pretty sure there's equal parts malice and stupidity behind them.
That's just a lot of work for a small benefit, especially when one can use that 100 hours instead to train in specific ways and increase QWERTY speed instead -- which likely will result in a small speed increase as well.
There's also the problem of portability: Even if you are faster on your own Dvorak keyboard, 99% of the English-speaking world has QWERTY. The second you have to sit down at someone else's computer to type anything, you're back to hunt-and-peck for at least a short bit until the QWERTY muscle memory kicks in (and then you'll repeat the process when you return to your own keyboard.)
It's like trying to use British-style outlets in America; you can, and maybe there's even a valid reason to do so, but whatever help it gives you is lost due to the incompatibility with other places...
Eh? So you want the era of McCarthyism, routine foreign government toppling, foreign wars--sorry, "conflicts"--either with our direct involvement or using another country's army/"liberators", and sometimes stopping just short of a nuclear WWIII? No thank you.
While America has certainly had better in many ways in the past, it's also had it worse many ways in the past. (There were also a number of contentious social issues that have improved greatly since that time.) We don't need some foreign giant to act the villain so we can deny it, the American people need to stop denying that our own government is increasingly our villain.
I'm guessing at least 100M or so people will pay $5-10 a month to keep sharing photos with friends and family - FB works well to keep people connected
I would bet the move would be akin to the "free-to-play" model that is the rage in gaming these days: Everyone will keep their Facebook account, but you become extremely limited in what you can do with it. Essentially throwing them back to the very early days of Facebook, you can make a basic post and make basic comments. Wall feed? Large photo/video albums? Public groups? Those will be what requires a paid account.
They can't go fully closed because, as you noted, it works well to keep people connected. If accounts are closed en masse because people can't/won't pay, it becomes far less useful for those who can/will.
It's not just AI (real or apparent): It's Borg hive-mind AI, where something newly learned/improved by one car could instantly be shared with all other cars. An autonomous car's driving efficiency could improve 1% in the time it takes for the car to drive someone between home and the grocery store.
If we can set aside a frequency for road condition information sharing, a vehicle miles ahead can recognize an icy road, send a signal, and all trailing cars will slow down and enter a heightened alert mode.
(Yes, I'm glossing over a lot of security risk for both scenarios.)
I think there should be infinite extensions, but that it must be explicitly renewed at halving intervals after the first renewal (limit of one year) and doubling prices (no limit).
Initial filing: 7 years, $X dollars (I have no idea the current cost, let's say $100) First Renewal: 7 years, $200 Second Renewal: 4 years (to be nice), $400 Third Renewal: 2 years, $800 Fourth renewal: 1 year, $1600 Fifth: $3200,... 14th: $1.6M for one more year of protection after 41 years
Essentially, you pay society (government) exponentially more for society's (government's) protection. If you or your company feel that the copyright is so essential to business, you pay for the privilege of such protection. The money goes to fund the copyright office; anything extra gets split, with one part going to a rainy day fund and the other used as grants for the arts.
So if Disney can afford to pay over $1B (starting at the 24th ext, or 52 years) for another year's extension on Mickey, fine. It's not a huge loss to society, and will likely fund a lot of artists/writers/etc. to create alternatives.
Though your post already had some, I should still give a
SPOILER WARNING this is a long spoiler warning sentence this is another long spoiler warning sentence
gets his ass kicked by the most competent STORM TROOPER we've ever seen on screen
I don't understand this complaint, which I've heard from others. He took a some licks, yes, but Ren won the fight with Finn. And Ren was injured going into it, IIRC (Chewie shot him after "the death").
and a completely untrained girl with some innate and until-she-meets-with-him latent power
While going 0-to-Jedi really overdoes it, Rey was at least aware of the Force and presumably what it could do. She already knew she had some connection to it due to the cantina scene before the Order invaded, and had some control from using it successfully on a Storm Trooper. While she did hurt Ren badly, he may have still gained the upper hand if it weren't for the chasm opening. But then people would be complaining about how his "Emo Force" could never overpower someone obviously a strong user of the Force, with or without training...
Giving some director complete freedom to go off on whatever idiotic tangent they want is how we got the prequels.
And considering that "some director" was J.J. Abrams, who completely stripped everything from Star Trek that made it Star Trek and turned it into a generic sci-fi film with familiar characters, I am completely happy with the notion that Disney kept him on a tight leash.
Not that I completely hate Abrams; I very much enjoyed Super 8, Cloverfield, and Fringe. But, considering what he did to Star Trek, The Force Awakens could have been magnitudes worse than the "safe" film it is.
The Lotus Notes comparison is apt: Ray Ozzie was heavily involved in the development of Lotus Notes, and it's where he got a lot of attention in the computing world (also how he first met up with Bill Gates, IIRC.) I actually read an article about him the other day in an issue of Wired... from 2008 (I hate throwing away magazines until I read them). According to that, a large motivating goal of his was to recreate a network he worked with in college; collaboration stuff we take for granted now, but that was revolutionary at the time, called PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations). E-mail, online testing, graphics, IM, even multiplayer games.
Microsoft acquired Groove Networks largely to acquire Ozzie, according to Wired. The article painted him as potentially leading huge things in Microsoft's then-new Azure, using cloud computing to do the collaboration, although he also managed quite differently than Microsoft's usual workflow. I guess it never took off, and he left to make another start up, and now Microsoft is "hiring him back".
I'm getting a bit existential here, but why should Apple pay at all? If government should work at the behest of the people, shouldn't it also be funded directly by people? Requiring corporations to fund it just gives them skin in the game and leads to things like Citizens United, and they'll bringing their "lobbying" power to bear to save as much as possible.
If businesses want protection or other things from the government, have fees to make them explicitly pay for it. Patent, copyright, incorporation/LLC filing, etc. A tax by any other name, perhaps, but at least some fees will be bog standard regardless of the company's profits (or lack thereof.) Businesses can eschew these fees if they are willing to also toss any protection granted by the government.
Anything they operate would still be beholden to general laws, like environmental ones, but those are enforced by the government for the good of the people.
I don't feel strongly enough to campaign for removing all corporate taxes, but every time this subject comes up I find myself asking "Why do this at all?" (Ignoring the "why" question, I otherwise agree with you.)
While that is a unique and highly interesting solution, assuming it works I would expect it to also train the dog that barking=peanut butter, so this won't stop it barking in the early dawn or middle of the night. Doubly-so if the dog is barking due to neglect from the owner, including a lack of food, so the barking is due to hunger.
I've long thought the same. I would like to see the idea of marriage replaced by a more general agreement. As far as strict government affairs are concerned, a marriage license is a shortcut for a number of legal recognitions that can be accomplished separately. Power of attorney, next of kin, inheritance, decision-making for the incapacitated, etc. Much of this gets an implicit establishment along bloodlines (or adoptions) as well, but usually only one-way unless the child has no siblings. And those other legal agreements are also one-way (like a grandmother giving a specific child or grandchild power of attorney), so they have to be done twice to make it a mutual thing.
A "coupling accord" (s/accord/license, if you want) grants all of the legal concerns that a marriage license does between any two individuals. Such an accord should only be done by two people who have an extremely high level of trust in each other, that either person would feel no fear if the other person made all life decisions for them. Their gender, sexuality, living arrangements, or even if they are blood-related or not do not matter. Because of the nature of the accord, people can only enter into one at a time (if someone has two accords, how does the government decide which "other half" speaks for that someone if incapacitated?)
Another difference with this idea and what you suggest is that individual congregations/churches (or any group, for that matter) can petition for the ability to grant a legally-recognized coupling, but in gaining that ability are required to fully comply with the law concerning restrictions or allowances of couplings. They cannot turn away people they don't like (or won't get "married") or give them to people the law won't recognize (like underage or mentally incapacitated). Any case of not following the law results in an instant and permanent revocation of the ability.
(There's also some potential problems when children enter the picture of a Coupling Accord, so perhaps a Coupling wouldn't cover anything regarding children--existing or future--and there would be a Bonding Accord that takes children into consideration, making the Coupling Accord a looser marriage license.)
But the issue here, as with narcotics (and alcohol prohibition, once upon a time), is that illegality begets higher-prices and higher risks, which in turn begets increasingly violent crime. Illegality also prevents the industry from being taxed and to some extent from accessing healthcare -- both of which carry significantly higher social costs than negligible human trafficking.
What is deeply ironic is how the very same feminists who demand that government "keep your laws off my body", seem to be quite alright with government telling them they don't have the right to engage in the oldest and most basic transaction.
Agreed in full.
There are plenty of professions where people use their body, which society has no problem: modeling is probably the most obvious one, but football (American or European) is probably the most beloved one. What is football if not men using their bodies to transport a ball? There are other professions where someone's body is an intricate part of their job, such as gardener or construction worker, but these people usually have far more tools so it's not as direct a comparison. But put someone's nether-regions into the equation and suddenly all hell breaks loose. There are some fetishes that don't require interacting with the genitals to cause sexual satisfaction.
Legalize it, give it some cleansing light (and regulation), and focus law enforcement efforts on actual problems like human trafficking, underage prostitution, or violence stemming from it.
Speaking as a former soldier, I and most of those I served with (that I discussed the topic with, anyway) didn't agree with the "why" either. But when we signed up we took an Enlistment Oath:
"I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
The "why" doesn't really come into play, except when it contradicts the UCMJ or Constitution. And, even then, I expect most members of the military would continue the mission outside of the most egregious of cases. (Assuming they even knew the "why" in the first place, which doesn't always make its way down the chain of command.)
I do agree that someone does not become a hero simply by enlisting. It does give me a somewhat-larger amount of default respect for them once they've finished training, but that probably comes from being one myself. Even if you never deploy, you still deal with all kinds of shit that most civilians would not even think of.
I could foresee a "gig economy" that was considered great, with people taking jobs as they desired either for extra spending money or because they like the work, not for desperation.
But this requires something akin to a Universal Income. Even if Finland (IIRC) is able to move forward with the plan they're working on for such, it will probably be many generations before such is adopted in the U.S.
The company thought its Lara Croft reboot could sell at least 5-6 million units in four weeks - a huge figure, but a total still designed to be conservative, just "80-90 per cent" of what Square Enix thought was the game's real sales potential.
"We put a considerable amount of effort in polishing and perfecting the game content for these titles, receiving extremely high Metacritic scores," Square Enix said in a new financial statement. "However, we were very disappointed to see that the high scores did not translate to actual sales performance, which is where we see the substantial variance in operation profit/loss against the forecast."
That they expected a reboot of a franchise that had diminished tremendously in popularity could put out such numbers just shows how disconnected they are from reality.
Slashdot Mirror
Related story: I was driving to see some relatives in Omaha, and Google Maps was telling me to take this somewhat-out-of-the-way route. Thankfully I mentioned it when talking to my parents, who had made the trip many times themselves, and they told me the better route to take. I did so, but kept Google Maps up to see what would happen. It continuously tried to redirect me to its long way around, and as I approached a large-ish bridge it became frantic and I think even told me to do a U-turn on the highway. For the short time I was on the bridge it was stuck in "recalculating", but after I had passed it went back to normal and used the route my parents recommended, no longer trying to take me elsewhere.
Later on I did some checking and discovered that, while there's a visible bridge on the images for Google Maps, the bridge wasn't recognized by the software. Seems it had washed away during flooding a decade-ish prior, so of course it was no longer a recognized road right after that. However, once the bridge was rebuilt it got lost in the shuffle and spent many years not existing on Google Maps. I can only imagine how many people took a circuitous route thanks to this until I reported the problem to Google.
While I wouldn't mind seeing first-party ads, with the way that businesses work I think we'd get stuck in a cycle:
1) sites have ads from third party services doing all sorts of yucky stuff
2) Users complain about ads, ad revenue drops due to blockers
3) Site moves to first-party ad serving and vetting, ad revenue increases at least some-what
4) An MBA or someone from marketing (probably a VP) says "Hey, we have this great, trusted ad-serving platform for our own website(s), we should let others place our trusted/vetted ads for a share of revenue"
5) As more third-party sites adopt ad platform, the advertising arm is either spun off, or the company sheds all non-advertising areas
6) Ad platform grows large, and in the Quest for More Money, downsizes the department that vets advertisements and makes advertiser submission more automatic
7) GOTO 1
Some sites might be able to freeze at 3, if they can avoid MBAs and refuse to let marketing take the wheel, but for most (especially if they're bought up by larger entities) the cycle will repeat.
I subscribed to their magazine a while back and mostly enjoyed the content. Over time I realized that many articles were more like "blurbs", barely taking up half a page (with the rest often devoted to random art or a single, large relevant image), and there was a full-page ad between many blurbs. A lot of their multi-page articles were forcefully split, usually making me thumb past other ads to get to the last page (one side).
One day I decided to rip out every page that was an ad on both sides, which included many of their multi-page ads. Once I was done (doing two issues), an issue was easily half as thick and still at least 1/3 ads. And this was something I explicitly paid for.
I didn't bother to renew my subscription. Hearing that their website was riddled with advertising doesn't surprise me in the least.
#3: Would-be car thieves that never learned to drive stick will fail at stealing your manual-shift vehicle or just leave your it alone. It's not completely theft proof, but it dwindles the pool tremendously, doubly so if the vehicle in question is a generic vehicle (not something high dollar/rare)
You. You are a true comrade, you understand my pain (being the solo developer for a small payroll/accounting "firm").
You know my sorrow. Let us weep together.
Yeah, I noticed that when the announcement first happened but have been too lazy to do that. Thanks for the reminder, I'll do that now. :)
THANK YOU. This alone has improved /. twice over.
If you're also going to ignore "submissions" from Bennett Hasstleton, four times.
I'd prefer to see a more generic "agree"/"disagree" system that stood alongside the existing moderation system. It would allow people to show what the "groupthink" is, while preserving the ability to moderate a post on its merits (or lack thereof). A simple agree/disagree, where that value is shown on the post but is far less prominent. Unlike moderation, the "agreement" system would have no limits of any kind except it would be logged in users only (to make it a bit harder to game), and one--and only one, so no taksies-backsies--vote per comment. It would be shown as a % and not a whole number, and would not affect karma at all.
With such a system, it would be entirely possible to have a "+5 Insightful" rank with "98% Disagree". I know a lot of people will say that it reeks heavily of Facebook/reddit/disqus, but they didn't create simple approval systems, and as long as our new overlords don't make it prominent (it is a more minor data point, and must not overshadow regular moderation) it could be a nice addition.
Speaking of moderation, it would be nice if "stories" like this could have a "free mod" setup, where any logged-in users could give moderation to as many posts as they want, and users who currently have mod points don't spend them when moderating. This will give a much better idea of what the majority of the community wants, because right now all of these +5s are set only be people who have moderation. I'm not suggesting they don't deserve to spend their mod points here, but there are many other users who just don't have them right now who should be heard as well. (A reply doesn't cut it, and such a "free mod" system might alleviate "me too" or "someone mod parent up" posts.) Of course, if the "agreement" system were in place then "free mod" would be moot.
Bennet. Hasselton.
I have no problem with editorials, but they need to come from the pool of journals (ideally) and either be posted as a normal article in an "editorial" section so users can hide all stories from that section, and/or make the story author be the post author so that users can elect to hide editorial stories from people they feel just ramble.
In addition to this, I would like to see editors actually edit. Proofread summaries before submission (even just throwing them into OpenOffice or Word could find problems), make sure the summary doesn't overstate something (and, ideally, is as balanced as the source article), and don't link to random middle-man blogs. If something is worth posting, it should be from the source, so if a link goes to a blog that adds little-or-no value with a link to an actual article or editorial, then dump the blog link and use the direct link.
(Oh, I guess I need to change my sig now.)
I wouldn't be surprised if some have been (or, at least, some of their aides, who may have mentioned it.) Even informed they would still vote this into place, because just an accusation from a "credible" source--like, say, the Utah State Police--can completely destroy someone's life. Even if there's not even enough to convene a grand jury, or any logical individual would pass over as something simply vulgar, it doesn't matter: An investigation for child porn at company X, or person X, and X. Is. Done.
I know, I know, "never attribute to malice", but when it comes to overbearing and/or broad government laws, I'm pretty sure there's equal parts malice and stupidity behind them.
There's also the problem of portability: Even if you are faster on your own Dvorak keyboard, 99% of the English-speaking world has QWERTY. The second you have to sit down at someone else's computer to type anything, you're back to hunt-and-peck for at least a short bit until the QWERTY muscle memory kicks in (and then you'll repeat the process when you return to your own keyboard.)
It's like trying to use British-style outlets in America; you can, and maybe there's even a valid reason to do so, but whatever help it gives you is lost due to the incompatibility with other places...
Eh? So you want the era of McCarthyism, routine foreign government toppling, foreign wars--sorry, "conflicts"--either with our direct involvement or using another country's army/"liberators", and sometimes stopping just short of a nuclear WWIII? No thank you.
While America has certainly had better in many ways in the past, it's also had it worse many ways in the past. (There were also a number of contentious social issues that have improved greatly since that time.) We don't need some foreign giant to act the villain so we can deny it, the American people need to stop denying that our own government is increasingly our villain.
I would bet the move would be akin to the "free-to-play" model that is the rage in gaming these days: Everyone will keep their Facebook account, but you become extremely limited in what you can do with it. Essentially throwing them back to the very early days of Facebook, you can make a basic post and make basic comments. Wall feed? Large photo/video albums? Public groups? Those will be what requires a paid account.
They can't go fully closed because, as you noted, it works well to keep people connected. If accounts are closed en masse because people can't/won't pay, it becomes far less useful for those who can/will.
It's not just AI (real or apparent): It's Borg hive-mind AI, where something newly learned/improved by one car could instantly be shared with all other cars. An autonomous car's driving efficiency could improve 1% in the time it takes for the car to drive someone between home and the grocery store.
If we can set aside a frequency for road condition information sharing, a vehicle miles ahead can recognize an icy road, send a signal, and all trailing cars will slow down and enter a heightened alert mode.
(Yes, I'm glossing over a lot of security risk for both scenarios.)
I think there should be infinite extensions, but that it must be explicitly renewed at halving intervals after the first renewal (limit of one year) and doubling prices (no limit).
Initial filing: 7 years, $X dollars (I have no idea the current cost, let's say $100) ... 14th: $1.6M for one more year of protection after 41 years
First Renewal: 7 years, $200
Second Renewal: 4 years (to be nice), $400
Third Renewal: 2 years, $800
Fourth renewal: 1 year, $1600
Fifth: $3200,
Essentially, you pay society (government) exponentially more for society's (government's) protection. If you or your company feel that the copyright is so essential to business, you pay for the privilege of such protection. The money goes to fund the copyright office; anything extra gets split, with one part going to a rainy day fund and the other used as grants for the arts.
So if Disney can afford to pay over $1B (starting at the 24th ext, or 52 years) for another year's extension on Mickey, fine. It's not a huge loss to society, and will likely fund a lot of artists/writers/etc. to create alternatives.
Though your post already had some, I should still give a
SPOILER WARNING
this is a long spoiler warning sentence
this is another long spoiler warning sentence
I don't understand this complaint, which I've heard from others. He took a some licks, yes, but Ren won the fight with Finn. And Ren was injured going into it, IIRC (Chewie shot him after "the death").
While going 0-to-Jedi really overdoes it, Rey was at least aware of the Force and presumably what it could do. She already knew she had some connection to it due to the cantina scene before the Order invaded, and had some control from using it successfully on a Storm Trooper. While she did hurt Ren badly, he may have still gained the upper hand if it weren't for the chasm opening. But then people would be complaining about how his "Emo Force" could never overpower someone obviously a strong user of the Force, with or without training...
And considering that "some director" was J.J. Abrams, who completely stripped everything from Star Trek that made it Star Trek and turned it into a generic sci-fi film with familiar characters, I am completely happy with the notion that Disney kept him on a tight leash.
Not that I completely hate Abrams; I very much enjoyed Super 8, Cloverfield, and Fringe. But, considering what he did to Star Trek, The Force Awakens could have been magnitudes worse than the "safe" film it is.
The Lotus Notes comparison is apt: Ray Ozzie was heavily involved in the development of Lotus Notes, and it's where he got a lot of attention in the computing world (also how he first met up with Bill Gates, IIRC.) I actually read an article about him the other day in an issue of Wired... from 2008 (I hate throwing away magazines until I read them). According to that, a large motivating goal of his was to recreate a network he worked with in college; collaboration stuff we take for granted now, but that was revolutionary at the time, called PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations). E-mail, online testing, graphics, IM, even multiplayer games.
Microsoft acquired Groove Networks largely to acquire Ozzie, according to Wired. The article painted him as potentially leading huge things in Microsoft's then-new Azure, using cloud computing to do the collaboration, although he also managed quite differently than Microsoft's usual workflow. I guess it never took off, and he left to make another start up, and now Microsoft is "hiring him back".
I'm getting a bit existential here, but why should Apple pay at all? If government should work at the behest of the people, shouldn't it also be funded directly by people? Requiring corporations to fund it just gives them skin in the game and leads to things like Citizens United, and they'll bringing their "lobbying" power to bear to save as much as possible.
If businesses want protection or other things from the government, have fees to make them explicitly pay for it. Patent, copyright, incorporation/LLC filing, etc. A tax by any other name, perhaps, but at least some fees will be bog standard regardless of the company's profits (or lack thereof.) Businesses can eschew these fees if they are willing to also toss any protection granted by the government.
Anything they operate would still be beholden to general laws, like environmental ones, but those are enforced by the government for the good of the people.
I don't feel strongly enough to campaign for removing all corporate taxes, but every time this subject comes up I find myself asking "Why do this at all?" (Ignoring the "why" question, I otherwise agree with you.)
While that is a unique and highly interesting solution, assuming it works I would expect it to also train the dog that barking=peanut butter, so this won't stop it barking in the early dawn or middle of the night. Doubly-so if the dog is barking due to neglect from the owner, including a lack of food, so the barking is due to hunger.
I've long thought the same. I would like to see the idea of marriage replaced by a more general agreement. As far as strict government affairs are concerned, a marriage license is a shortcut for a number of legal recognitions that can be accomplished separately. Power of attorney, next of kin, inheritance, decision-making for the incapacitated, etc. Much of this gets an implicit establishment along bloodlines (or adoptions) as well, but usually only one-way unless the child has no siblings. And those other legal agreements are also one-way (like a grandmother giving a specific child or grandchild power of attorney), so they have to be done twice to make it a mutual thing.
A "coupling accord" (s/accord/license, if you want) grants all of the legal concerns that a marriage license does between any two individuals. Such an accord should only be done by two people who have an extremely high level of trust in each other, that either person would feel no fear if the other person made all life decisions for them. Their gender, sexuality, living arrangements, or even if they are blood-related or not do not matter. Because of the nature of the accord, people can only enter into one at a time (if someone has two accords, how does the government decide which "other half" speaks for that someone if incapacitated?)
Another difference with this idea and what you suggest is that individual congregations/churches (or any group, for that matter) can petition for the ability to grant a legally-recognized coupling, but in gaining that ability are required to fully comply with the law concerning restrictions or allowances of couplings. They cannot turn away people they don't like (or won't get "married") or give them to people the law won't recognize (like underage or mentally incapacitated). Any case of not following the law results in an instant and permanent revocation of the ability.
(There's also some potential problems when children enter the picture of a Coupling Accord, so perhaps a Coupling wouldn't cover anything regarding children--existing or future--and there would be a Bonding Accord that takes children into consideration, making the Coupling Accord a looser marriage license.)
Agreed in full.
There are plenty of professions where people use their body, which society has no problem: modeling is probably the most obvious one, but football (American or European) is probably the most beloved one. What is football if not men using their bodies to transport a ball? There are other professions where someone's body is an intricate part of their job, such as gardener or construction worker, but these people usually have far more tools so it's not as direct a comparison. But put someone's nether-regions into the equation and suddenly all hell breaks loose. There are some fetishes that don't require interacting with the genitals to cause sexual satisfaction.
Legalize it, give it some cleansing light (and regulation), and focus law enforcement efforts on actual problems like human trafficking, underage prostitution, or violence stemming from it.
Speaking as a former soldier, I and most of those I served with (that I discussed the topic with, anyway) didn't agree with the "why" either. But when we signed up we took an Enlistment Oath:
The "why" doesn't really come into play, except when it contradicts the UCMJ or Constitution. And, even then, I expect most members of the military would continue the mission outside of the most egregious of cases. (Assuming they even knew the "why" in the first place, which doesn't always make its way down the chain of command.)
I do agree that someone does not become a hero simply by enlisting. It does give me a somewhat-larger amount of default respect for them once they've finished training, but that probably comes from being one myself. Even if you never deploy, you still deal with all kinds of shit that most civilians would not even think of.
I could foresee a "gig economy" that was considered great, with people taking jobs as they desired either for extra spending money or because they like the work, not for desperation.
But this requires something akin to a Universal Income. Even if Finland (IIRC) is able to move forward with the plan they're working on for such, it will probably be many generations before such is adopted in the U.S.
I think a good, specific instance of CEO/boardroom dissonance is Square Enix's reaction to initial sales of their (Crystal Dynamics-developed) Tomb Raider reboot. In its first month, the game sold 3.4 million copies, which is a good number of sales by most reckonings. But not Squeenix: they anticipated double that, and even then they thought 5-6 million was a "conservative" number.
That they expected a reboot of a franchise that had diminished tremendously in popularity could put out such numbers just shows how disconnected they are from reality.