1421: The year China discovered the world and decided it wasn't as interesting or important as China. Because that's what happened: The emperor who built that big fleet died soon after, and the next emperor decided that nothing outside China was worth visiting, so the entire fleet was abandoned. China could have ruled the world, but decided that ruling China was all that mattered.
I think FDR did quite a bit for the lower classes. But yes, that was quite some time ago. The wealth gap has been growing significantly and quite constantly over the past few decades.
If you count Ford ( I think you shouldn't) then it'd be 4 republicans who raised the debt. But the most recent 3 Republican presidents did increase the debt quite a bit, while the previous Democrat president reduced it. The graphs shows nicely that Obama's restrictive policies (TSA, Wikileaks, RIAA, etc) aren't the only reason why he's not so different from Republican presidents.
FDR, by the way, had a real war to fight. None of this limited Afghanistan/Iraq crap; US forces were fighting all over the Pacific, while the US was also funding the Russian war effort on the East Front and eventually the massive operations in Normandy. Also note that Korea, Vietnam, or the race to the moon don't register on this graph at all. Most of the Cold War was fought while the debt was being reduced. It's only in the last 30 years that the US is really overspending so much, and the Clinton administration was the only interruption of that trend.
I recently learned that tomatoes are actually one of the few true fruits that aren't berries. (Most berries are true fruits, but apples and bananas aren't, apparently.)
Whatever it is, it's definitely not socialism. If the government took from the rich and gave to the poor, it might be. But it's the government taking from the poor (from everybody, really) and giving to the rich (Big Content). That's more like fascism, which is tends to include a very tight coupling between industry and government. Industry works for the government, and government works for the industry. You see a lot of that lately in the US (though it started with the military-industrial complex, obviously).
How is it socialism? In its most simplistic form, socialism takes from the haves and gives to the have-nots. This bill does the exact opposite: it gives more to the big players, and everybody else gets to pay for it.
It's true, though. You're never forced to use Google's products, and they don't punish you for choosing someone else's products. Google loves to do business with its competitors.
Microsoft tried to ram their software down our throats, for example by demanding that OEMs sell no other OS than theirs. For a long time, nobody liked having to use Windows, but we had no choice, because all our favourite software ran only on Windows. Choosing a better OS doesn't help you much if there's no software for it. And we even had to pay MS for something we didn't want, but had no option but to use. That sort of thing really fuels the hate.
Google, on the other hand, gives us what we want, and they give it to us for free. And they keep making it more awesome. There's nothing preventing anyone from offering the exact same services that Google is offering, other than maybe a lack of skill or desire to do that. Nobody has to use Google+, Android, Google's search engine, etc. There are plenty of alternatives. Yet people seem to prefer Google. It's convenient and it's free. It's hard to say no to that.
Google has a tendancy to create awesome stuff and has the money to back it up.
Hopefully it'll wake up a few competitors who might just want to try something better.
Or they could end up squabbling over patents. Whatever works.
You can joke about it, but you make an extremely good point. Many big companies are trying to compete on patents instead of on the actual quality of their product.
If your product is good, you will win, whether you have patents or not (look at Google). If your product sucks, no amount of patents will save you. Yet the patent system suggests that the succesful, innovative companies need to pay a tax to the has-beens in order to keep them alive. It rewards companies for neglecting the customer and focusing on lawyers. It's a millstone that will drag our economy and our society to the bottom.
I think he also has a few other targets. No idea if he posts this every time they post, but it's definitely getting rather annoying. I fear he's a real person and has some serious psychological problems that are better dealt with in some other way.
Everybody around me was really enthousiastic about Wave, but nobody actually used it. Google+ on the other hand, is already a pretty big hit. Several people have announced they're going to abandon Facebook for Google+, and some of my friends who never joined facebook are pretty active on Google+. So it really looks like Google is going to succeed this time. I certainly hope they do.
I fully agree. We need a neutral payment infrastructure. In cash, we have that. Online, we don't. Well, Netherland has its own neutral online payment system that's supported by all banks (iDeal), but that works only in a single country. We need something like that that's world wide, that all banks and other payment providers in the world can join, and if one bans you, you can simply switch to another.
I really hope this Visa/MC abuse leads to an initiative in this direction.
If they're liable by doing business with Wikileaks, then they're definitely liable by doing business with any number of criminals, criminal organisations and other organisations that have a much more tenuous relationship with the law than Wikileaks. Besides if they don't do business with Wikileaks, why are they still doing business with the New York Times? There's no legal or moral justification for that.
The only reason is: the US government wants to hurt Wikileaks, but can't legally do that, and Visa/MS need a favour from the US government to protect their interests in Russia. That's it.
And yeah, Visa/MC should pull out of the EU completely. I'm sure that'll help the economies of the member countries a lot...I think they should do it. Would be perfect. Visa/MC would win in the end because tourists wouldn't have easy ways to buying/paying for things.
I think it'd be awesomeif they pulled out. It would finally create a strong incentive to set up a neutral and reliable international/online payment framework. Of course Visa/MC would never do that, because they'd lose a huge market, and basically sign there own death warrant even outside that market.
So yes, it could be immensely effective to put pressure on them in the EU. A big fine for abuse of their position would set a very valuable precedent.
Any company, including payment processors, have the right to not do business with companies that violate the law. They aren't making a moral decision but a legal one.
Companies aren't judges. I don't see how it's their place to determine what's legal and what isn't. Only a judge can do that. WikiLeaks didn't break any law, and hasn't been convicted of anything.
Sites like Google+ also work far better in Chrome than in any other browser. (It works in Firefox, but not as smoothly, and in Opera, bits are missing. Haven't tested the others yet.) Google offers a lot of free web services, and Chrome often gets the most out of them. No surprise its popularity is growing.
Firefox of course has the advantage of its huge number of extensions available. IE is not as bad as it was, but still not as good as the others. And though it pains me to say it, Opera is not as great as it was, and now getting noticeably worse than Firefox and Chrome.
It's useless for Blackberry to try to compete with iPhone and Android. They'll lose. Instead, they have their own sizable and very profitable niche in the market: business. Blackberries aren't made for their users, but for their users' employers. The tight central control, ability to lock everything down, and link to MS Exchange are the main selling points. And their (relatively) good keyboards, obviously.
A very interesting middle ground between the all-combat MUDs and the all-social MUSHes was Dune MUSH. You could actually die there, and I believe you even had stats, but death meant make a new character. I didn't play it much because I was too involved in another MUSH, but for something resembling a real, story-driven RPG experience in MUDs, this one seemed to have the most potential.
I completely agree. There's nothing in modern social games that draws me. I used to love MUDs, and especially the more social ones: MUSHes and the like. Playing together and establishing some kind of community inside the game is awesome. Having a community outside the game see your achievements in some lame grind game is not so exciting.
Yet I do think it should be possible to do something much more interesting with social networks and games. For example, nearly my entire RPG group is now on Google+, and with its circles, you could have some online game and play it with that circle, without all your other contacts getting annoying messages about it. That's certainly something we intend to explore.
Slashdot Mirror
How about the Union of South America? I'm sure that will solve all the confusion.
1421: The year China discovered the world and decided it wasn't as interesting or important as China. Because that's what happened: The emperor who built that big fleet died soon after, and the next emperor decided that nothing outside China was worth visiting, so the entire fleet was abandoned. China could have ruled the world, but decided that ruling China was all that mattered.
I think FDR did quite a bit for the lower classes. But yes, that was quite some time ago. The wealth gap has been growing significantly and quite constantly over the past few decades.
If you count Ford ( I think you shouldn't) then it'd be 4 republicans who raised the debt. But the most recent 3 Republican presidents did increase the debt quite a bit, while the previous Democrat president reduced it. The graphs shows nicely that Obama's restrictive policies (TSA, Wikileaks, RIAA, etc) aren't the only reason why he's not so different from Republican presidents.
FDR, by the way, had a real war to fight. None of this limited Afghanistan/Iraq crap; US forces were fighting all over the Pacific, while the US was also funding the Russian war effort on the East Front and eventually the massive operations in Normandy. Also note that Korea, Vietnam, or the race to the moon don't register on this graph at all. Most of the Cold War was fought while the debt was being reduced. It's only in the last 30 years that the US is really overspending so much, and the Clinton administration was the only interruption of that trend.
Who decides the 40% though?
I think it's the big corporations.
I recently learned that tomatoes are actually one of the few true fruits that aren't berries. (Most berries are true fruits, but apples and bananas aren't, apparently.)
Whatever it is, it's definitely not socialism. If the government took from the rich and gave to the poor, it might be. But it's the government taking from the poor (from everybody, really) and giving to the rich (Big Content). That's more like fascism, which is tends to include a very tight coupling between industry and government. Industry works for the government, and government works for the industry. You see a lot of that lately in the US (though it started with the military-industrial complex, obviously).
How is it socialism? In its most simplistic form, socialism takes from the haves and gives to the have-nots. This bill does the exact opposite: it gives more to the big players, and everybody else gets to pay for it.
This isn't to say that "PROTECT IP" act is not bad - it is - but limitations on political speech are infinitely worse in comparison.
Infinitely worse? If I understand correctly, PROTECT IP can be abused to make political speech unreachable.
"They shouldn't be breaking the law"
What you are implying is that no tech company should exist.
Not true. They can safely exist in Europe. I guess he (and all pro-patent people) want all tech innovation to move to Europe. I'm fine with that.
It was no different in Tsarist Russia.
It's true, though. You're never forced to use Google's products, and they don't punish you for choosing someone else's products. Google loves to do business with its competitors.
Microsoft tried to ram their software down our throats, for example by demanding that OEMs sell no other OS than theirs. For a long time, nobody liked having to use Windows, but we had no choice, because all our favourite software ran only on Windows. Choosing a better OS doesn't help you much if there's no software for it. And we even had to pay MS for something we didn't want, but had no option but to use. That sort of thing really fuels the hate.
Google, on the other hand, gives us what we want, and they give it to us for free. And they keep making it more awesome. There's nothing preventing anyone from offering the exact same services that Google is offering, other than maybe a lack of skill or desire to do that. Nobody has to use Google+, Android, Google's search engine, etc. There are plenty of alternatives. Yet people seem to prefer Google. It's convenient and it's free. It's hard to say no to that.
Google has a tendancy to create awesome stuff and has the money to back it up.
Hopefully it'll wake up a few competitors who might just want to try something better.
Or they could end up squabbling over patents. Whatever works.
You can joke about it, but you make an extremely good point. Many big companies are trying to compete on patents instead of on the actual quality of their product.
If your product is good, you will win, whether you have patents or not (look at Google). If your product sucks, no amount of patents will save you. Yet the patent system suggests that the succesful, innovative companies need to pay a tax to the has-beens in order to keep them alive. It rewards companies for neglecting the customer and focusing on lawyers. It's a millstone that will drag our economy and our society to the bottom.
I think he also has a few other targets. No idea if he posts this every time they post, but it's definitely getting rather annoying. I fear he's a real person and has some serious psychological problems that are better dealt with in some other way.
You can have as many circles as you like, and you can put people in as many circles as you like.
Everybody around me was really enthousiastic about Wave, but nobody actually used it. Google+ on the other hand, is already a pretty big hit. Several people have announced they're going to abandon Facebook for Google+, and some of my friends who never joined facebook are pretty active on Google+. So it really looks like Google is going to succeed this time. I certainly hope they do.
What's good for GE certainly doesn't help the IRS. Biggest company in the world, and paying practically no taxes.
I fully agree. We need a neutral payment infrastructure. In cash, we have that. Online, we don't. Well, Netherland has its own neutral online payment system that's supported by all banks (iDeal), but that works only in a single country. We need something like that that's world wide, that all banks and other payment providers in the world can join, and if one bans you, you can simply switch to another.
I really hope this Visa/MC abuse leads to an initiative in this direction.
If they're liable by doing business with Wikileaks, then they're definitely liable by doing business with any number of criminals, criminal organisations and other organisations that have a much more tenuous relationship with the law than Wikileaks. Besides if they don't do business with Wikileaks, why are they still doing business with the New York Times? There's no legal or moral justification for that.
The only reason is: the US government wants to hurt Wikileaks, but can't legally do that, and Visa/MS need a favour from the US government to protect their interests in Russia. That's it.
And yeah, Visa/MC should pull out of the EU completely. I'm sure that'll help the economies of the member countries a lot...I think they should do it. Would be perfect. Visa/MC would win in the end because tourists wouldn't have easy ways to buying/paying for things.
I think it'd be awesomeif they pulled out. It would finally create a strong incentive to set up a neutral and reliable international/online payment framework. Of course Visa/MC would never do that, because they'd lose a huge market, and basically sign there own death warrant even outside that market.
So yes, it could be immensely effective to put pressure on them in the EU. A big fine for abuse of their position would set a very valuable precedent.
Any company, including payment processors, have the right to not do business with companies that violate the law. They aren't making a moral decision but a legal one.
Companies aren't judges. I don't see how it's their place to determine what's legal and what isn't. Only a judge can do that. WikiLeaks didn't break any law, and hasn't been convicted of anything.
Sites like Google+ also work far better in Chrome than in any other browser. (It works in Firefox, but not as smoothly, and in Opera, bits are missing. Haven't tested the others yet.) Google offers a lot of free web services, and Chrome often gets the most out of them. No surprise its popularity is growing.
Firefox of course has the advantage of its huge number of extensions available. IE is not as bad as it was, but still not as good as the others. And though it pains me to say it, Opera is not as great as it was, and now getting noticeably worse than Firefox and Chrome.
It's useless for Blackberry to try to compete with iPhone and Android. They'll lose. Instead, they have their own sizable and very profitable niche in the market: business. Blackberries aren't made for their users, but for their users' employers. The tight central control, ability to lock everything down, and link to MS Exchange are the main selling points. And their (relatively) good keyboards, obviously.
A very interesting middle ground between the all-combat MUDs and the all-social MUSHes was Dune MUSH. You could actually die there, and I believe you even had stats, but death meant make a new character. I didn't play it much because I was too involved in another MUSH, but for something resembling a real, story-driven RPG experience in MUDs, this one seemed to have the most potential.
I completely agree. There's nothing in modern social games that draws me. I used to love MUDs, and especially the more social ones: MUSHes and the like. Playing together and establishing some kind of community inside the game is awesome. Having a community outside the game see your achievements in some lame grind game is not so exciting.
Yet I do think it should be possible to do something much more interesting with social networks and games. For example, nearly my entire RPG group is now on Google+, and with its circles, you could have some online game and play it with that circle, without all your other contacts getting annoying messages about it. That's certainly something we intend to explore.