For starters, this morning, on my way to work, I took a place in line at an exit ramp, delaying and irritating a few hundred other cars slightly. I do that every morning. Under a very conservative estimate of only one hundred other people irritated daily, I've managed to annoy about 10% of my city (about 36,000 people total) slightly in a year. For comparison, how many people are irritated with PayPal, and how annoyed are they? How many years of traffic disruptions does it take to equal one PayPal?
More false equivalency. I assume you weren't intentionally setting out to irritate a few hundred people per day, but even if you were, as a society we understand that rush hour is annoying and it is something we all deal with.
On the other hand, Paypal doesn't have to be a dick, intentionally or unintentionally. The corporate honchos choose to create and enforce policies that are anti-consumer.
Almost everyone is evil, in some small part. Yes, there are some that commit their trespasses all at once in heinous acts of negligence, apathy, or malevolence, but most "evil" effects come from individuals doing things they don't think are wrong. Small offenses like bringing home pens from work or delaying others' commute add up to a far greater total of distress in the world.
More false equivalence. Taking home a pen from work is not the same as going on a shooting spree. Delaying others' commute is not the same as intentionally hiding a manufacturing defect that leads to deaths. '"evil" effects from individuals doing things they don't think are wrong' is not the same as corporations intentionally pursuing harmful policies.
Yes, multinational corporations do bad things. So do national corporations, local small businesses, nonprofit charities, religions, and individuals. That does not excuse anyone from causing harm to anyone else.
Man, you're really pushing this theme. You start with a national corporation and somehow end up equating them to an individual. That argument would stand up fine in a philosophy class, but in the real world, 99.9% of us will never do anything that leads to a multi-million dollar settlement with a Federal Agency.
Every individual is not "equally bad" as "PayPal, Symantec, and every other company"
It is true WP8 has not failed, but then as yet it unproven technology, going against Android which has captured 75% of the market and Apple 14.9%.
Android may have 75% of the market, but Apple is making 71% of the profits. Yes, Apple's small market share is responsible for the majority of the industry's profits. Samsung is number two, with 37% of the industry's profits. HTC makes 1% of the profits.
How do you end up with three companies making 109% of the profits? Because everyone else is losing money. Microsoft makes more in patent licensing fees from Android than Nokia/LG/Motorola/RIM/etc make from selling Android phones.
While the culture of Internet users has long enjoyed its "Wild West" anarchy, the eventual expansion of civilization and enforcement will not be stopped, because it comes with the order and security that people like so much.
If by "the eventual expansion of civilization and enforcement" you mean 'rules and regulations put into place at the behest of monied interests.
The GP has a point. We used to have the internet to ourselves, until the copyright and trademark owners decided they didn't like how things looked, so they bribed^w lobbied until they got the rules they wanted.
I mean, have you seen the current batch of SOPA/PIPA/ACTA copyright laws being pushed? When Big Business discovered that the DMCA meant they had to spend time and effort going through the legal system, they collectively said to themselves "Well, that won't do! We need to figure out a way to automate the enforcement! And fuck fair use!"
If that's what you call "the eventual expansion of civilization," then I don't want it.
Corporations have vastly more resources than the SEC's $1.3 billion budget. That budget is about.01% of the cash flows they're supposed to be regulating, which is why SEC violations almost always end in settlements for a fraction of the money involved, with no admission of guilt.
In reality, the SEC should be the size of the IRS (10x the budget) and the IRS should have 2x its current budget. You'd see a lot less corporate fraud if the regulators had the resources to do their job.
Now, I would be curious to know if medical paid for it, or if he paid out of pocket (or with donors helping out).
Usually when you agree to be a medical guinea pig, the researchers cover related medical costs and incidentals like transport/meals. They may have even paid him a bit ontop of all that.
Sure, PayPal, Symantec, and every other company have done some bad things in their history, and should not be lightly forgiven. However, it is important to remember that every individual has also done equally bad things, and should not be the sole judge and executioner of any person, corporation, idea, or organization.
Really? Really?
What was the last thing YOU did that was "equally bad" as the shitshow that is PayPal? Or maybe you worked for Union Carbide and are responsible for the Bhopal disaster
99% of individuals will never have the opportunity to do anything "equally bad" as a multinational corporation. Your kind of false equivalence is a weak attempt to minimize the negative effects of corporations on the citizenry.
Cellphone power is often dominated by processor and display power.
Compare the standby time to the talk time of your phone.
For example: The iPhone 5 # Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G # Standby time: Up to 225 hours
I have no doubt you will kill the battery quickest by running the processor and display, but the transmitter is no slouch when it comes to drawing down your reserves.
Since when is secrecy of voting key to a democracy? This democracy, for one example, was founded without it...
Others have explained why secrecy is important, but I thought I'd touch on the second part of your statement.
1. It is hard, if not impossible, to secretly declare independence. 2. The founding fathers were all prepared to be hung for treason against the crown.
In the theme of my second point, you can dig up numerous stories of businesses and public figures that have received backlash for publicly supporting a candidate, a political party, or a politically charged policy idea. Which is why secrecy is crucial to the voting process: It prevents individual voters from (metaphorically) being hung for treason.
You're making a critical mistake here, or being obtuse:
"The panic might have deepened if not for the intervention of financier J. P. Morgan,[2] who pledged large sums of his own money, and convinced other New York bankers to do the same, to shore up the banking system."
Nope. My point is that capitalists under a laissez faire system used the exact same "bail everyone out" theory of economics as Bernake did 100 years later.
Note the section that said "large sums of his own money". This is not at all what is happening today. J.P. Morgan didn't create money out of thin air, like the Fed is doing right now, by printing it, thereby devaluing the currency.
You're right. In a sense. During this last crisis, J.P. Morgan again rode to the rescue*, this time by buying Bear Stearns. You know how J.P. Morgan afforded it? By issuing new stock or, as you said, "printing it, thereby devaluing the currency"
But JP Morgan couldn't have bought all the distressed companies. Which is another way of saying that, overall, the nature of our marketplace has changed. There is just so much money, leveraged at least 10:1, that it requires the resources of a central bank to pull everyone's chestnuts out of the fire.
*with prodding from the Federal Reserve
Tell me, do you think it's an accident that the prices of food and oil have gone up like crazy and stayed up?
It's not an accident. There's a lot going on in the world. But if you think currency devaluation is the reason food/oil prices have gone up, I'd encourage you to prove it.
Instead, during the peak of the mortgage crisis, while the Fed was pouring heroic amounts of money into the banking system, the inflation of food/oil prices slowed and then reversed (which is code for 'prices dropped'). Food prices/inflation have since rebounded and continue to rise. Oil prices are back up. The short version is that demand dropped and so did prices, but I never dug very deep into the situation behind food prices.
But beyond any market-level incidents caused by a new currency, itâ(TM)s important to understand that virtual currencies can actually damage the faith people put into central banksâ"and fiat currenciesâ"as institutions themselves. People are taught that central banks are necessary to manage money supplies (even though the US boomed through the entire 19th century, most of which didnâ(TM)t have a central bank). But, if it is demonstrated that money can work without central planning, and maybe even work better, then indeed the faith in central banks will be undermined, and with good reason.
And you know what the solution to that panic was? A bunch of rich guys injected liquidity into the system because there was no central bank to do so. 100 years later, when confronted with the same market situation, our central bank injected liquidity into the system and kept things from getting worse. Imagine that! Unelected ivory tower banking eggheads made the exact same move as laissez-faire capitalist J.P. Morgan and friends.
The issues surrounding non-centralized banking isn't whether money works better or worse, it's about what happens during the edge cases, when shit hits the fan.
But now, it's gone from "boring tax report" to "the economic analysis that THEY don't want you to know about!".
And the other half of America is going to hear how it's "the lying economic analysis that LIBERALS want to cram down your throat!"
The Republican Party has created a bubble of alternate facts and alternate narratives. It damages their ability to govern and has destroyed their ability to compromise.
I'm picturing racks of overclocked iPads with a wall of box fans pointed at them.
And then I'm imaginging the conversations that would inevitably ensue: "I know I fat fingered the fucking IPV6 address. YOU try typing on this goddamn touch screen"
It is not the place of Government to tell us what to do, and enforce it through the pocketbook.
WE are supposed to tell the government what to do. That is what is meant by "the only legitimate government is by the consent of the governed."
By your logic, we have "sin taxes" because that's what the governed want. Or, to put it another way, your "There is no moral / ethical basis for this" is the minority opinion.
/Your opinion also shows ignorance of the puritan history of the United States
AMD's brand new, 8-core, flagship CPU, is competing with Intel's 4-core i5 chip. And despite being clocked higher, it loses to the i5 in almost(?) every single-core test.
I know AMD pioneered the multi-core field, but they've gotten left behind.
Weren't the founding fathers mostly wealthy land and slave owners? I don't think I'm seeing your point.
Yes. But wealthy landowners != european nobility. I used the word "aristocracy" for a reason.
Far too many people think they understand what America was intended to be, yet have never read any of the voluminous papers written by the men who founded the country.
Google+ doesn't want me to use a handle. I'm a queer/transgender female so that's offensive.
You obviously read enough of The Fucking Article to have seen this part:
As a queer/genderqueer woman, victim of abuse, and someone who was (at that very time) experiencing online harassment and bullying, I was very vocal within Google for the need for Google+ to support pseudonymity.
Her words speak for themselves. You haven't done anyone a service by summarizing.
The media doesn't talk much about "mixed markets."
As a consequence, the more hyperbolic elements in our political discourse ping pong between "zomg this is socialism/communism/fascism" and "this means we must only have laissez faire capitalism."
It's questioning the culture of founding a company around a cute idea with the aim of selling out in two years to become a millionaire. That is not what Hewlett and Packard were about.
No, but it's how HP, Dell, and IBM continue to grow. Yes, they do their own R&D, but acquisitions are a quicker way to acquire new technology.
Anyone caught making a virus weapon needs to die by fire. Along with the ones that funded and assisted them. The whole world needs to be completely clear about this, because it's a serious danger to every living soul.
Does that include the US Government? By treaty, we do not have any offensive biological or chemical warfare programs. In reality, offensive bio-chem research was rolled into our defensive programs, and the scientists have been happily developing and weaponizing ever since.
Just to be clear: the type of research the CDC regularly does is nothing like the type of research the DoD is up to.
Slashdot Mirror
For starters, this morning, on my way to work, I took a place in line at an exit ramp, delaying and irritating a few hundred other cars slightly. I do that every morning. Under a very conservative estimate of only one hundred other people irritated daily, I've managed to annoy about 10% of my city (about 36,000 people total) slightly in a year. For comparison, how many people are irritated with PayPal, and how annoyed are they? How many years of traffic disruptions does it take to equal one PayPal?
More false equivalency.
I assume you weren't intentionally setting out to irritate a few hundred people per day,
but even if you were, as a society we understand that rush hour is annoying and it is something we all deal with.
On the other hand, Paypal doesn't have to be a dick, intentionally or unintentionally.
The corporate honchos choose to create and enforce policies that are anti-consumer.
Almost everyone is evil, in some small part. Yes, there are some that commit their trespasses all at once in heinous acts of negligence, apathy, or malevolence, but most "evil" effects come from individuals doing things they don't think are wrong. Small offenses like bringing home pens from work or delaying others' commute add up to a far greater total of distress in the world.
More false equivalence.
Taking home a pen from work is not the same as going on a shooting spree.
Delaying others' commute is not the same as intentionally hiding a manufacturing defect that leads to deaths.
'"evil" effects from individuals doing things they don't think are wrong' is not the same as corporations intentionally pursuing harmful policies.
Yes, multinational corporations do bad things. So do national corporations, local small businesses, nonprofit charities, religions, and individuals. That does not excuse anyone from causing harm to anyone else.
Man, you're really pushing this theme.
You start with a national corporation and somehow end up equating them to an individual.
That argument would stand up fine in a philosophy class, but in the real world,
99.9% of us will never do anything that leads to a multi-million dollar settlement with a Federal Agency.
Every individual is not "equally bad" as "PayPal, Symantec, and every other company"
It is true WP8 has not failed, but then as yet it unproven technology, going against Android which has captured 75% of the market and Apple 14.9%.
Android may have 75% of the market, but Apple is making 71% of the profits.
Yes, Apple's small market share is responsible for the majority of the industry's profits.
Samsung is number two, with 37% of the industry's profits.
HTC makes 1% of the profits.
How do you end up with three companies making 109% of the profits? Because everyone else is losing money.
Microsoft makes more in patent licensing fees from Android than Nokia/LG/Motorola/RIM/etc make from selling Android phones.
While the culture of Internet users has long enjoyed its "Wild West" anarchy, the eventual expansion of civilization and enforcement will not be stopped, because it comes with the order and security that people like so much.
If by "the eventual expansion of civilization and enforcement" you mean 'rules and regulations put into place at the behest of monied interests.
The GP has a point. We used to have the internet to ourselves, until the copyright and trademark owners decided they didn't like how things looked, so they bribed^w lobbied until they got the rules they wanted.
I mean, have you seen the current batch of SOPA/PIPA/ACTA copyright laws being pushed?
When Big Business discovered that the DMCA meant they had to spend time and effort going through the legal system,
they collectively said to themselves "Well, that won't do! We need to figure out a way to automate the enforcement! And fuck fair use!"
If that's what you call "the eventual expansion of civilization," then I don't want it.
Corporations have vastly more resources than the SEC's $1.3 billion budget. .01% of the cash flows they're supposed to be regulating,
That budget is about
which is why SEC violations almost always end in settlements for a fraction of the money involved, with no admission of guilt.
In reality, the SEC should be the size of the IRS (10x the budget) and the IRS should have 2x its current budget.
You'd see a lot less corporate fraud if the regulators had the resources to do their job.
Now, I would be curious to know if medical paid for it, or if he paid out of pocket (or with donors helping out).
Usually when you agree to be a medical guinea pig, the researchers cover related medical costs and incidentals like transport/meals. They may have even paid him a bit ontop of all that.
Sure, PayPal, Symantec, and every other company have done some bad things in their history, and should not be lightly forgiven. However, it is important to remember that every individual has also done equally bad things, and should not be the sole judge and executioner of any person, corporation, idea, or organization.
Really?
Really?
What was the last thing YOU did that was "equally bad" as the shitshow that is PayPal?
Or maybe you worked for Union Carbide and are responsible for the Bhopal disaster
99% of individuals will never have the opportunity to do anything "equally bad" as a multinational corporation.
Your kind of false equivalence is a weak attempt to minimize the negative effects of corporations on the citizenry.
in the obliteration of Megaupload and the persecution Dotcom.
Kim and his gang actually were intentionally breaking the law on a large scale with the sole motivation of money, money, money.
I'm confused.
Is it not possible that both things were happening at the same time?
Sorry, dude. The real heroes don't live in mansions.
Agreed. No true Scotsman would live in a mansion.
Cellphone power is often dominated by processor and display power.
Compare the standby time to the talk time of your phone.
For example: The iPhone 5
# Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G
# Standby time: Up to 225 hours
I have no doubt you will kill the battery quickest by running the processor and display,
but the transmitter is no slouch when it comes to drawing down your reserves.
Because the sales tax on S&H for a $9.99 dvd is morally and ethically the same as pre-tax profits of $36.8 billion
Since when is secrecy of voting key to a democracy? This democracy, for one example, was founded without it...
Others have explained why secrecy is important, but I thought I'd touch on the second part of your statement.
1. It is hard, if not impossible, to secretly declare independence.
2. The founding fathers were all prepared to be hung for treason against the crown.
In the theme of my second point, you can dig up numerous stories of businesses and public figures that have received backlash for publicly supporting a candidate, a political party, or a politically charged policy idea.
Which is why secrecy is crucial to the voting process: It prevents individual voters from (metaphorically) being hung for treason.
You're making a critical mistake here, or being obtuse:
"The panic might have deepened if not for the intervention of financier J. P. Morgan,[2] who pledged large sums of his own money, and convinced other New York bankers to do the same, to shore up the banking system."
Nope. My point is that capitalists under a laissez faire system used the exact same "bail everyone out" theory of economics as Bernake did 100 years later.
Note the section that said "large sums of his own money". This is not at all what is happening today. J.P. Morgan didn't create money out of thin air, like the Fed is doing right now, by printing it, thereby devaluing the currency.
You're right. In a sense.
During this last crisis, J.P. Morgan again rode to the rescue*, this time by buying Bear Stearns.
You know how J.P. Morgan afforded it? By issuing new stock or, as you said, "printing it, thereby devaluing the currency"
But JP Morgan couldn't have bought all the distressed companies.
Which is another way of saying that, overall, the nature of our marketplace has changed.
There is just so much money, leveraged at least 10:1, that it requires the resources of a central bank to pull everyone's chestnuts out of the fire.
*with prodding from the Federal Reserve
Tell me, do you think it's an accident that the prices of food and oil have gone up like crazy and stayed up?
It's not an accident. There's a lot going on in the world.
But if you think currency devaluation is the reason food/oil prices have gone up, I'd encourage you to prove it.
Instead, during the peak of the mortgage crisis, while the Fed was pouring heroic amounts of money into the banking system, the inflation of food/oil prices slowed and then reversed (which is code for 'prices dropped'). Food prices/inflation have since rebounded and continue to rise. Oil prices are back up. The short version is that demand dropped and so did prices, but I never dug very deep into the situation behind food prices.
Im still not really clear why anyone should care about the religious beliefs of Newton or Einstein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
But beyond any market-level incidents caused by a new currency, itâ(TM)s important to understand that virtual currencies can actually damage the faith people put into central banksâ"and fiat currenciesâ"as institutions themselves. People are taught that central banks are necessary to manage money supplies (even though the US boomed through the entire 19th century, most of which didnâ(TM)t have a central bank). But, if it is demonstrated that money can work without central planning, and maybe even work better, then indeed the faith in central banks will be undermined, and with good reason.
Why do we have centralized banking (aka the Federal Reserve System) in the USA?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Panic_of_1907
And you know what the solution to that panic was?
A bunch of rich guys injected liquidity into the system because there was no central bank to do so.
100 years later, when confronted with the same market situation, our central bank injected liquidity into the system and kept things from getting worse.
Imagine that! Unelected ivory tower banking eggheads made the exact same move as laissez-faire capitalist J.P. Morgan and friends.
The issues surrounding non-centralized banking isn't whether money works better or worse,
it's about what happens during the edge cases, when shit hits the fan.
But now, it's gone from "boring tax report" to "the economic analysis that THEY don't want you to know about!".
And the other half of America is going to hear how it's "the lying economic analysis that LIBERALS want to cram down your throat!"
The Republican Party has created a bubble of alternate facts and alternate narratives.
It damages their ability to govern and has destroyed their ability to compromise.
Your neighbors upstream of you will likely be displeased at the flooding.
That's why people spend endless money on pools instead.
I'm picturing racks of overclocked iPads with a wall of box fans pointed at them.
And then I'm imaginging the conversations that would inevitably ensue:
"I know I fat fingered the fucking IPV6 address. YOU try typing on this goddamn touch screen"
1. The IMEI can be changed
2. Blocked phones can be exported.
Europe has a brisk trade in phones that are country-blocked, but will work anywhere else in the world.
It is not the place of Government to tell us what to do, and enforce it through the pocketbook.
WE are supposed to tell the government what to do. That is what is meant by "the only legitimate government is by the consent of the governed."
By your logic, we have "sin taxes" because that's what the governed want.
Or, to put it another way, your "There is no moral / ethical basis for this" is the minority opinion.
/Your opinion also shows ignorance of the puritan history of the United States
I keep this one handy, as it frequently expresses how I feel about dumb ideas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b_EvoZZpj8
Second, they've managed to survive in the x86 market for 30 years. I think that counts as competing.
The OP has a point.
AMD has abandoned the high end CPU market to Intel.
AMD's brand new, 8-core, flagship CPU, is competing with Intel's 4-core i5 chip.
And despite being clocked higher, it loses to the i5 in almost(?) every single-core test.
I know AMD pioneered the multi-core field, but they've gotten left behind.
Weren't the founding fathers mostly wealthy land and slave owners? I don't think I'm seeing your point.
Yes.
But wealthy landowners != european nobility.
I used the word "aristocracy" for a reason.
Far too many people think they understand what America was intended to be,
yet have never read any of the voluminous papers written by the men who founded the country.
Google+ doesn't want me to use a handle. I'm a queer/transgender female so that's offensive.
You obviously read enough of The Fucking Article to have seen this part:
As a queer/genderqueer woman, victim of abuse, and someone who was (at that very time) experiencing online harassment and bullying, I was very vocal within Google for the need for Google+ to support pseudonymity.
Her words speak for themselves.
You haven't done anyone a service by summarizing.
The media doesn't talk much about "mixed markets."
As a consequence, the more hyperbolic elements in our political discourse ping pong between "zomg this is socialism/communism/fascism" and "this means we must only have laissez faire capitalism."
It's questioning the culture of founding a company around a cute idea with the aim of selling out in two years to become a millionaire. That is not what Hewlett and Packard were about.
No, but it's how HP, Dell, and IBM continue to grow.
Yes, they do their own R&D, but acquisitions are a quicker way to acquire new technology.
Anyone caught making a virus weapon needs to die by fire. Along with the ones that funded and assisted them. The whole world needs to be completely clear about this, because it's a serious danger to every living soul.
Does that include the US Government?
By treaty, we do not have any offensive biological or chemical warfare programs.
In reality, offensive bio-chem research was rolled into our defensive programs, and the scientists have been happily developing and weaponizing ever since.
Just to be clear: the type of research the CDC regularly does is nothing like the type of research the DoD is up to.